Overview

Building Systemic Understanding with Storytelling will help you to communicate important insights about the systems you are modeling. Using the powerful storytelling capabilities of iThink and STELLA, course instructor Chris Soderquist presents a variety of methods for developing a visceral understanding of how feedback systems work and the actions we might take to improve something.
 
Each recorded session includes a 45-50 minute presentation followed by questions and answers. Online access to session recordings, handouts that summarize content, and sample iThink/STELLA models will cement learning.

Course Syllabus

Session 1: Introduction to Storytelling

Learn about the storytelling capabilities of the iThink and STELLA software:

• What is Storytelling?
• When would you use it?
• Who can benefit from it?

(This first session is FREE and available to all.) View FREE recording and session materials

Session 2: Communicating Maps and Models—The Basics

Find out what makes a good map suitable for storytelling. Learn how to build a story and annotate it with text and graphics. Edit existing stories by regrouping elements, adding chapters and inserting story breaks.

Session 3: Linking Behavior to Structure—Developing Visceral Understanding

Create an interactive story that allows your audience to see the impact of their decisions or the unintended consequences that may result. Simulate your model as you tell your story so that colleagues, students and policy makers can see how feedback works and what happens when additional assumptions or structure is added.

Session 4: Advanced Topics Using Storytelling

Extend your skills by combining storytelling with other tools and features in iThink and STELLA. Learn how to:

• Use Storytelling from control panels to communicate impact.
• Create a big picture story by simplifying complex models with modules.
• Tell your story on the web using isee NetSim.

About the Instructor

Chris Soderquist is the president of Pontifex Consulting, a long-time consulting and training partner of isee systems.  Chris has been applying mathematical modeling since an undergraduate student in the Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences program at Northwestern University.  Since 1998, he's worked with organizational leaders to develop strategic solutions to complex issues in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. 

Chris is a guest lecturer at the Darden School of Business (University of Virginia) in their Executive Education Program, and on the Boeing Engineering Leadership Program’s development team. He has trained state legislators in Georgia and Kansas how to apply Systems Thinking to health policy, is a contributing author to The Change Handbook (Berrett-Koehler, 1999) and has published several features in The Systems Thinker.

• STELLA or iThink version 9.1.4
• Web browser
• Apple Quicktime Video Player
• Adobe Acrobat Reader