Applying System-Wide Discovery Analysis to the Market Growth model

In the sixties, an insightful model about market growth was built by Jay W. Forrester. A causal diagram based on this model was analyzed with the System-Wide Discovery process. The objective was to gain deeper understanding into the market growth structure to answer the following questions: (1) What are the variables with the most leverage affecting and limiting market growth? (2) How should management design the company structure to grow sales sustainably in an unlimited market? The informal and formal goals and subgoals were analyzed along with how performance indicators incentivize the behavior of each player. The key intervention points with the highest leverage were identified. We studied (1) where and how the areas affect each other, (2) how they use shared resources, principally sales and production, (3) the role management plays and (4) the impact of the market within the system. The four sections of the paper are: an introduction to System-Wide Discovery, an overview of the model, the analysis process and the findings.