Page 149 - DCAP405_SOFTWARE_ENGINEERING

Software Engineering

Notes

Now, in the 10th month the company notices its revenue has dropped from $1.5m/month to
$1.35m/month and it wonders what has happened. And where do you think it looks for the
problem? All around the 10th month of course. And what does it find? The company finds that
it still has 120 employees, yet there are now 30 professionals and 90 rookies. A most puzzling
situation!
As it turns out, there was an organizational policy change made in month 3 which seemed to
annoy professionals more than in the past, and the quit rate jumped from 10 to 15 professionals
a month. The system, with it’s built in hiring rule, essentially an auto pilot no thought action,
hired one rookie for each professional that quit. What this one time transition in quit rate
actually did was set off a 6 month transition within the organization leading to a new equilibrium
state with 30 professionals and 90 rookies. The following graph represents this transition.

Thus, one of the real benefits of modeling and simulation is its ability to accomplish a time and
space compression between the interrelationships within a system. This brings into view the
results of interactions that would normally escape us because they are not closely related in time
and space. Modeling and simulation can provide a way of understanding dynamic complexity.

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