UK energy policy

In this model, we show a summary of the landscape in which the UK develops energy policy. The model seems to imply that energy choices (coal, renewables, nuclear, gas) - coupled with national interests and the politics of global warming, are creating an uncertain environment for planning, investment, choices and options.

21 Drivers for the 21st Century - War, Terrorism, Insecurity (outsights.co.uk)

Southbeach can be effective at visualizing and asking questions about 'scenarios'.

Scenario planning is a strategic planning method that some corporations and many public sector organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is considered by some as part of 'corporate innovation'. Related terms include futures studies, horizon scanning, forecasting and roadmapping.

Outsights is a leading practitioner of scenario planning and horizon scanning - helping clients (including public sector organizations and NGOs) to anticipate, interpret and act on important developments in the external world. Their latest work is entitled '21 Drivers for the 21st Century'. Here is a small Southbeach model based on the summary ideas within one scenario.



Forthcoming Southbeach|MyCreativity can add rules to such models, to bring sripts, questions and best practices to life in the context of the current model. Here is an example showing this in action:

UK to introduce vetting of adults who spend time with children

Southbeach can be used to express important social issues and debates between government, policy makers, lobby groups, the media and citizens - so as to ask deep questions about the kind of society we create for the next generation as we sleep walk and widen the reach of the existing surveillance society. Models can be developed from multiple perspectives, exposing fallacies in the causal logic of those who argue to seek to restrict our remaining liberties. Here is one perspective.

Contrasting perspectives - Spirals of change

This example shows how different perspectives on a situation can be compared and contrasted by using multiple Southbeach Notation diagrams to show the potential consequences of different behaviors or solutions.

The two models below show the same situation, with different choices being made at each stage of development, and different consequences resulting, which cause further choices to be made.

These models were created from the perspective of someone who believes in 'planning for the future', as shown by all the agents below being useful (green) and many of the agents above, starting with 'short term'ism' are harmful (red).

Whilst neither of these models are either complete or balanced, they serve to show a perspective on different approaches, with what are considered to be the key elements of the argument laid out to make it clear what is being said.

A further activity after creating models like this might be to create more detailed and complete models that provide both sides of the story, and weigh up the pros and cons of taking actions in the short term versus taking a longer term approach.

The trouble with Wind Farms - economic and environmental

There are problems with wind farms. Opposition is growing. The following Southbeach models were developed as examples to show the dilemna and contradictions. If you disagree with these models, develop some of your own, and send them to feedback at southbeachinc dot com.

Europe's largest wind farm is not producing enough power. So advocates for wind farms are advocating an expansion of scale. As if 140 turbines 110m high were not enough! Here's the problem. Large wind farms near to be close to areas of population, to drive down costs of power distribution and servicing. But they also have to be in area of open ground and subject to high wind. That means, the green areas close to conubations are precisely those at risk, and valued by the community. Here is another view:

In this model shows the insufficient power production of wind farms counteracting the economic case. That case can only be made by contributory factors of location, location and location. The expanding scale of wind farms, and their ideal location (for the economic case to be made) are in contradiction. The economic case is strongly related to the availability of the wind 'resource'. Environmentalists are split:

And it's not just industrial scale problems faced by Wind Farms. Noise, even for single turbine units 'micro generation' is already disturbing animals, and neighbours. To make matters worse, the high winds required for more power (see models above) are precisely the conditions under which turbines produce more noise. It's a lose lose situation.

Simple Business Improvement Model

This Southbeach Notation diagram illustrates some of the Southbeach Semantics in a simple model of a business. Its purpose is both to describe the situation and provide a basis from which to agree on key facts (e.g. there are insufficient sales) and priorities (e.g. marketing is the focus of attention). Southbeach models exist to support the analysis process in improving the situation. Thus, each element of a Southbeach model can provide a pivot point for improvement. Some examples are provided below.

Here is how to read this diagram:

Spending produces (arrow) materials which are used (small box end) by the manufacturing process to create (star) products which produce sales which produce revenue which produce profit. The profit is the goal (solid green box), and it is counteracted by the spending, considerd harmful and hence shown in red. Spending also produces marketing which increases the sales from the products. However, competitors (harmful) counteract the production of sales. Sales are shown as insufficient (dashed box) and marketing is the focus of attention (yellow highlight). Note the filled circle at the start of some effect lines indicating that the agent is necessary for the effect to occur, e.g. Spending is necessary to increase materials, manufacturing, and marketing.

Note the short dashed lines across some of the effects. These indicate that the effect occurs after a delay. For example, there is a delay between acquisition of the materials and use of those materials by the manufacturing process to create the product.

Here are some improvement alternatives illustrated by this diagram:

All green boxes are useful, so increasing them is likely to increase the usefulness of the overall system. Red boxes are harmful, so need to be reduced, but a balance must be struct as although spending is considered harmful, it has multiple useful effects - spending is necessary - so the reduction of spending is only useful if it can be achieved without reducing the useful products of that spending (materials, manufacturing, and marketing). Similarly, delays on useful effects are opportunities for improvement as they represent a delay in realisation of potential value held in the system. Note that competitors have no useful function in this system as they are harmful, counteract the useful production of profit, and have no useful side effects (from the perspective of the business), so finding ways to avoid, prevent, remove, or diminish the impact of competitors is worthwhile investment as long as it does not cost more than the profit (i.e. as long as the business is actually viable).

There are more subtle ways in which creativity techniques can be combined with Southbeach models. For example, the sales are insufficient. So how can we resolve that? From the model, we can spend more on marketing to increase the production of sales from products, or we can spend more on manufacturing to create more products - more kinds of products to hit more of the market, or more products to places where it is needed if the market is not uniform in its consumption. We can find ways to diminish the effect of the competitors; by selling the products where our competitor has no influence, by removing the competitor through acquisition, by branching out into markets not addressed by our competitor. We can also move into other kinds of sales than products; perhaps there is revenue to be made by providing service contracts. Combining creativity techniques of various forms with Southbeach models as a mechanism for driving a structured brainstorming approach can be a very powerful way to create improvement directions that will be more complete and more directed to where they are needed most.

The model below shows how these improvement ideas can be arrived at by working around the agents and effects in the diagram:

Blue boxes are improvement actions.

Human dominion over nature?

It used to be that humans had dominion over the world. The world was there to take. We invaded foreign lands, took the resources we needed, and created the built environment. Now we are not so sure. We sit at an uneasy juncture - somewhere between opposing mind sets. We are unsure of how to prevent the dilemmas we face.

(This model illustrates two new semantics in Southbeach 0.9 - 'prevents' and 'contributes to')

Analysing the water crisis in Australia's Marray-Darling Basin

This model was created as part of an open ideation event run by http://circleofblue.org/.

It shows some of the problems being caused by over extractraction of water from the Murray-Darling basin in Australia. And also some of the solutions (blue boxes) being considered. This is a world issue that has manifested in many countries and will continue to manifest as our water consumption increases with population and adoption of water hungry appliances and crops in areas that require artificial irrigation.

Here is how one might go about developing a model like this:

1. Create a model, a hypothesis - describing the problem, and consequences of attempted solutions to date 

2. Elaborate the model with subject matter experts - from all walks, agriculture, industry, government, science, ... - Bring in other people's perspectives on the model 

3. Elaborate further, creating sub-models for drill down into complex or contentious areas 

4. Perform a root cause analysis to understand how this situation arose 

5. Share the model and report with others to gather feedback iteratively

6. Capture the feedback in terms of model elaborations and ideas entered into the report 

7. Create a plan of action, and show the to-be model next to the as-is model 

8. Do an impact and risk analysis on the plan of action and refine it by mitigating risks and protecting against adverse impacts 

9. Create the final report and action plan for improving your situation

10. Execute

Viral Change (TM)

This model is based on the work of Leandro Herrero, a viral change specialist. The Southbeach model is based on a figure on page 16 of his book, Viral Change - The Alternative to Slow, Painful and Unsuccessful Management of Change in Organisations.

The model illusrates two new "experimental" effects in Southbeach - 'Specifies' and 'Implements'. These effects have no standard Southbeach visualization at this time, and are simply denoted by a standard closed arrow head and text label.

The concept of 'Implementation' is broad. A implements B means, in effect, that A is part of the 'engine' behind B, for example, a CPU chip 'implements' the logic required for a computer to work. A process engine, in BPM, implements the process design. Our brain 'implements' our conciousness. We are sure you can think of many other examples.

'Specifies' is another experimentation effect in Southbeach. It is a related effect to 'Implements'. A software design document 'specifies' a software program. A blueprint 'specifies' a building. A manager who sets out policy 'specifies' the way processes should be administered.

Experimentation effects in Southbeach are released in the software once it is clear that they are 1) useful, 2) have a well defined and distinct meaning (over other effects) and 3) once a clear visual representation has been agreed and developed.

You can now Draw in Southbeach too!

This image shows some of the drawing tools in Southbeach 0.9. It includes lines, boxes, circles, elipses, polygons and flexigons - solid, dashed and filled. Also provided is a text object and a block arrow.

These drawing tools are typically used sparingly to annotate key aspects of a model, for example, to draw a boundary around a set of agents. The tools provided are 'enough' for most purposes, and cover the common idioms we often see used in analytical diagrams.

Drawing tools in Southbeach have been implemented in their own 'layer', separate to the modeling agents, choices, decisions and effects. This makes selecting, moving, resizing and modifying agents and drawing objects separately very convenient. Even unfilled objects such as dashed boxes can be dragged by clicking anywhere inside the area.