Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

Counterintuitive. That’s Forrester’s word to describe complex systems. Leverage points are not intuitive. Or if they are, we intuitively use them backward, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

9. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).


10. Regulating negative feedback loops.


11. Driving positive feedback loops.


12. Material flows and nodes of material intersection.


13. Information flows.


14. The rules of the system (incentives, punishments, constraints).


15. The distribution of po

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).


13. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.


14. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).


15. The lengths of delays, relative to the

“leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.

The systems analysis community has a lot of lore about leverage points. Those of us who were trained by the great Jay Forrester at MIT have all absorbed one of his favorite stories. “People know intuitively where leverage points are,” he says. “Time after time I’ve done an analysis of a company, and I’ve figured out a leverage point — in inventory