Systems Thinking for Better Decision Making

Some problems are like clocks: take them apart, you can predict how they'll behave. Others are like clouds: shifting, unpredictable, never fully knowable. Most policy work treats every problem as a clock — a habit that causes real harm once human beings are involved. Drawing on his OCPM public consultation work, his transport strategy background, and his systems thinking teaching at SCS, Marc looks at how to tell a clock from a cloud and why it matters for policy.