Soft Tools for Operations Research and Wargaming

Rich Pictures

Rich pictures were introduced by Peter Checkland and developed as part of Soft System Methodology (SSM). This is a widely used problem structuring method in operations research. For the NPS course, only rich pictures from SSM will be covered.

Students should investigate SSM further as a means to structure problems that are unfamiliar or which seem overly daunting in complexity. An article in Wikipedia is a good place to start.

 

Rich Picture of Zefra

This video provides an example of using a rich picture to describe the situation in Zefra  in April 2020. Note that the picture need not be perfect. The comments at the end of the video indicate some shortcomings of the described picture. However, the picture need not be re-drawn, as long as the shortcomings are kept in mind.

 

Influence Diagrams

This video introduces influence diagrams. Note that several formats for influence diagrams have developed recently. An article in Wikipedia describes symbology intended for a much more sophisticated application than is intended here.

 

Multiple Cause Diagrams

Multiple cause diagrams and causal loop diagrams essentially serve the same purpose. There are only minor differences in the use of symbols. Multiple cause diagrams and causal loop diagrams can be precursors to developing a system dynamics model of a situation. But they can be very informative in their own right. In this application they are used without an intention to develop a system dynamics model.