Tue 26 Apr 2022 - Systems thinking is essential in tackling the increasingly interconnected and complex problems in companies and the financial system today and is increasing being used by actuaries. Systems Dynamics is a key tool in the system thinker’s toolbox and deals with how thing change through time, which includes much in business and society. It uses modelling and computer simulation to take the knowledge we already have about details in the world around us to show why our social systems behave the way they do, and how to improve the situation. The talk will cover the methods used to visualize and map how the parts of an enterprise fit together. The map will be transformed into a simulator to reliably compute unfolding futures. This step reveals the consequences, risks and surprises implied by the structure and allows for what-ifs to improve performance.
This event has been supported by:
Member of the IFoA’s Financial Systems Thinking Innovation Centre Managing Committee.
John is a world renowned expert in Systems Dynamics. He is now retired from the Faculty at London Business School where during his 35 years he held posts as Senior Fellow in Management Science and Operations and as Associate Professor in Business Policy and Strategy. He has delivered courses in System Dynamics, problem structuring and strategy to MBAs, PhDs and executives. He served as Associate Dean of the School’s Executive MBA and co-designed EMBA-Global, a dual degree programme with New York’s Columbia Business School. He is well-known for his publications in system dynamics and strategy which include numerous journal articles and a widely used textbook, Strategic Modelling and Business Dynamics (Wiley 2015, 2nd edition). He is a Past President of the System Dynamics Society and one of its Founding Members. He received the Society's Jay Wright Forrester Award for his work on bounded rationality, decision making and information feedback in models of the firm. He has led applied research projects with a wide range of organizations from Royal Dutch/Shell to BBC World Service, Harley-Davidson, and Mars.
The chair of the IFoA’s Financial Systems Thinking Innovation Centre, will precede the talk with a challenge to actuaries to use Systems Dynamics in their actuarial work.