These simulations allow the integration of system behavior and mental models to play out over time producing results that are often surprising to people within the system. The tools support customers in devising policies and approaches that produce desired results and minimize unexpected side effects avoiding fixes that backfire. Companies and organizations such as Hewlett Packard, American Stores, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory have sponsored this course for their personnel. In a very practical sense, models and simulation can help your business change and learn faster than your competitors. Analysts can quickly conceptualize and test concepts, evaluate them for effectiveness, and use simulation results to communicate results to stakeholders.
Every option being considered has strengths, weaknesses, constraints, and costs.
Each has tradeoffs in lifecycle cost, effectiveness, and validity of assumptions.