To explore our understanding more we have to ask ourselves questions. The two most important questions are “What else?” and “How?”.
What else affects my horse’s condition? I am sure that you can think of many more variables. Eg, temperature, amount of rain, wind-speed, quality of shelter, quality of rugs, grazing time, quality of grazing, time spent grazing, stress, injury, confinement, illness, worm burden, age, quality of teeth etc. The idea is to think of all things which could have an effect; not just the most important ones.
It is useful to think about what helps to improve the variable (enablers) and what gets in the way or hinders improvement (blockers). We can also ask the question “who?” Who has an interest in this variable? What do they want from it? What must we give in return?
We actively diverge and consider the effects from all angles without judgement. When do I stop? I stop when my thought process starts to dry up. The next steps will often reveal more variables too.
For each of the variables we believe has an impact we now need to understand the direction of the effect. For example, how does temperature affect condition? If temperature goes up what happens to condition all other things equal? For me it is not clear. It could go either way. This means that I have to think about why that is and perhaps introduce extra explanatory variables. On the one hand if temperature increases, more grass will grow and condition will improve. On the other hand, if temperature increases my horse will be more likely to sweat when I work him and so he will lose condition. What happens if temperature decreases? My horse may get cold and shiver, or at least more of his resources will be devoted to keeping him warm, and so his condition will fall.
So expressing this in Systems Thinking terminology gives us:-
Temperature (S) Grass (S) Condition…overall S
And
Temperature (S) Sweating (O) Condition…overall O
And
Temperature (O) Shivering (O) Condition…overall S
NB An even number or no O’s means overall an S. An odd number of O’s means an overall O.
How does Grass affect Condition? We need to be clearer about what we mean by grass. Grass consumed affects condition. And grass available affects grass consumed.
So,
Temperature (S) Grass available (S) Grass consumed (S) Condition.
But also,
Grass consumed (O) Grass available
Figure 5 A Feedback Loop
The two variables are inter-related. The posh name for a circle or causal loop of relationships between two or more variables is “feedback”.