"What are your SDories, Jameses Hines and Lyneis?" Artwork

SD-cast

Podcast to promote system dynamics and systems thinking. The "What is your SDory?" series will be interviews of system dynamics and systems thinking practitioners. There may be more series on various topics depending on interest and time. Saeed Langarudi, PhD created the podcast artwork.

All Episodes

SD-cast

"What are your SDories, Jameses Hines and Lyneis?"

June 28, 2021 • Christine Tang • Season 1 • Episode 6

Jim Hines and Jim Lyneis were pioneers in online System Dynamics education at MIT and WPI. Both studied System Dynamics at MIT and worked together at Pugh-Roberts Associates.

Correction: Jim Lyneis earned his PhD in Business Administration from University of Michigan. Jim Hines earned his PhD in System Dynamics from MIT.

Transcript: https://bit.ly/SD-cast-Ep6-Transcript

Links to their works (which we referenced in the interview):
Corporate Planning and Policy Design: A System Dynamics Approach
”System dynamics for business strategy: a phased approach”
“System dynamics for market forecasting and structural analysis”
Mastercard project
Molecules of System Dynamics Structure

WPI System Dynamics Fundamentals micro-course

Picture of the end of the interview

Listen to more SDories on the WPI SD Club YouTube

Now, here is a poem I wrote about Professors Hines and Lyneis:

Professors Jim
Works are astute and impactful
You can read about them on a whim
Or take their SD 550 course to be successful
In your System Dynamics journey
They lay the foundation for your study
(And their humor may put you in a gurney)
Learning, modeling or teaching with a buddy
Is more fun and motivating
Join WPI online and learn with us
Jim Hines and Jim Lyneis
To have more accepts and not rejects
In the dynamics of a romance or projects
Who wants to rework a defect?
We want projects and products to be correct!
But learning is an interactive and iterative process
With cycles and periods for us to reflect
On our mistakes and how we digress
Listen, study, and practice to progress
So you can “Walk tall and model small”

Thank you for listening to SD-cast. Please subscribe to SD-cast to hear more SDories.

Email me, ctang@wpi.edu, if you would like to be on SD-cast or recommend someone.

See below for the WPI SD Social Media accounts:

https://twitter.com/WPISDclub

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1916314/

Music:

Intro and End

“Limelight” by Podington Bear is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License. I cut and moved the music track to fit the intro and ending.

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Haplessly_Happy/Limelight

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

“What are your SDories, Jameses Hines and Lyneis?”

Guests: James Hines and James Lyneis

Host: Christine Tang

Recording Date: May 4th, 2021

Introduction

Hello, SD-cast listeners. My name is Christine Tang. In this episode, we are bringing back the fantastic duo of professors who are the main creators and stars of the introductory System Dynamics Foundations course at WPI that WPI will be offering as three self-paced online micro-courses.

This is Episode 6. Titled: “What are your SDories, Jameses Hines and Lyneis?”

Biography

Both earned their PhDs in System Dynamics from MIT, worked together at Pugh-Roberts Associates and were pioneers in online System Dynamics graduate education. Prof. Hines is founder of astuteSD. Prof. Lyneis is semi-retired and was a professor of practice at WPI.

Note: For most questions, Prof. Lyneis answered first. Both also go by the nickname Jim.

Thank you for joining us today, Professors.

Jim Lyneis: It's good to be here. Thank you.

Jim Hines: Yes, thank you for having us.

Interview

Christine: The first question: when and how did you ‘discover’ System Dynamics?

Jim Lyneis: Well, I was a undergraduate at MIT and I think at the end of my sophomore year, two of my fraternity brothers, Dave Peterson (who you may know) founded Ventana [Systems] and a guy named Dick Foster who Jim [Hines] may be aware of. He's the guy that did the thesis with the Joslin Clinic--building the diabetes model that Forrester always talks about. So they were my fraternity brothers and they were working for Jay and they told me it was a great thing so I took Jay's seminar in the fall of 1968 (I think it was)...and then I decided to add that as a major and eventually became a TA and worked for the over the summer for him and that's how I got into it.

Jim? Other Jim?

Christine: Professor [Hines was saying something but was on mute. Haha]

Jim Hines: What was Jay like as a teacher? Was he good?

Jim Lyneis: [laughing] Well, he was like Jay is. It was a class that had a lab and a seminar and he was working on his Urban Dynamics [model/book] at that time so he talked about that and he was also working on his book Principles of Systems. I don't know if anybody looks at that anymore but that was, I think, the greatest book ever. And if you really want to learn System Dynamics, that's what you need to go through...but he would (you know) ask a question and sit there and wait for an answer and you know [say] ”Well…” [laughs] whatever his typical way.

Jim Hines: Well, okay so...well, I entered the field the following way. I was planning to do a PhD in finance. Before applying, I thought I'd visit the campuses that I was applying to and so I visited MIT which had a great finance department. I'd arrange to sit in on the class of a very famous finance guy--Fischer Black but when I got to the class, he was nowhere to be found and the TAs were handing out a midterm exam to everybody and so obviously I wasn't going to sit there and watch people scribble down answers. The good thing was that by this time I had had a chance to look at the brochure of the Sloan School at MIT and there was this interesting program that was called System Dynamics. I'd never heard of that [at the time] but it sounded interesting and so I managed to sneak into a class that happened to be taught at that time by John Morecroft and I was just blown away by it. I really...I thought it was so wonderful and then John was kind enough to talk to me for another hour or so after class. That caused me to change my direction completely. Immediately, I applied for this doctoral program in System Dynamics based on a one and a half hour class and a one-hour conversation. I can say it was the best impulsive decision I've ever made.

Christine: Thank you. What was the first model you encountered in your coursework or outside of coursework?

Jim Lyneis: I guess it must have been Urban Dynamics because that's what Jay was working on then. He hired me over the summer along with a couple of other people and we were supposed to do some more work on Urban Dynamics. This was in 1970 and that's what we started on but that was when he took off for (I guess it was Geneva) where he met with the Club of Rome and he [asked them to visit MIT for further discussion]. So he came back from that and we were in a panic to get ready for the Club of Rome people to come to Boston. And so I was making computer runs for him because back then, of course, we didn't have our own personal computers. You had to go use the mainframe. So I would make computer runs for him--getting ready for his meetings and so I guess those are the first models I encountered.

Jim Hines: And the Club of Rome model was the World Dynamics model?

Jim Lyneis: Yes, he sketched it out on the airplane back from Geneva and I guess he got it to work over the weekend and that was what he brought in and we were working on...and I have a car story about that [to tell as a funny story later]. [Laughs]

[Christine gestures to Jim Hines to talk]

Jim Hines: The first model I encountered was the one at the class that I just mentioned, John Morecroft's class. It was the project model. I’d been managing projects at a large bank and so the model really clarified a lot for me. And it was just so intuitive and so relevant to what I happen to be doing at the time. Of course, it turns out that the project model is probably the most commercially successful model that has ever been done in System Dynamics.

When I was at Pugh-Roberts with Jim [Lyneis] I think that well over half of the projects of the consulting engagements we had were using the project model. Right?

Jim Lyneis: Yes

Jim Hines: So it turned out to be pretty useful for me and also there are a number of good formulations in that model. If you get the...a small version of the model like what's in George Richardson's Introduction to System Dynamics with DYNAMO [laughs] just to date myself.

It has a number of really good formulations that are good to tuck into your mental warehouse.

Christine: Was that the first model that you built?

Jim Hines: No, by then the model was actually built by David Peterson who Jim mentioned...

Jim Lyneis: Ken Cooper.

Jim Hines: Ken Cooper and Weil...

Jim Lyneis: Henry Weil.

Jim Hines: Henry Weil and it was another napkin story. I understand that the three of them went to a company and they talked to the client and then over drinks--the three of them got together for drinks. And over drinks, one of them said...and exactly who depends on who you asked but the most likely of them, I think...Henry Weil said, “Oh, I know the structure for this--for this client.” And of course Ken...Oh, I don't know that David was there...Ken would have said of course, “Oh, you do not.” And right there, Henry Weil just sketched out the basic stock and flow rework--what's called the rework cycle of the model and it turned out to be quite a wonderful thing and Jim is an expert on that.

[Both Jims laugh]

Jim Lyneis: Yeah. Well...I'm still working on that as we'll get to later.

Jim Hines: Oh really? Oh good.

Christine: Sorry, we went out of order. I think that's okay. It was more natural. Professor Lyneis?

Jim Lyneis: Well, I think I did some models when I was an undergraduate still for my bachelor's thesis but I don't really remember them. I think the first model I did from scratch was what I did for my PhD thesis on corporate growth and financing corporate growth. When I came back to teach at Sloan after I got my PhD, that became the basis for my Industrial Dynamics course and the book that I ended up writing from that. And we eventually used that at Pugh-Roberts to do our executive training system of strategy models so I think that was the first model I did--real model.

Christine: I have a question: what is the title of your book? I'm ignorant about this. I apologize.

Jim Lyneis: Yeah, no no. It was called Corporate Planning and Policy Design: A System Dynamics Approach. [Jim Hines grabbed the book off his bookshelf to show us]. Right, I still have a few copies. Yes, Jim has it there.

Christine: Thank you. What are you currently working on, Professor Lyneis?

Jim Lyneis: Well...I'm still doing a little bit of teaching on project dynamics at MIT in the System Design and Management program which Jim also taught in. so I'm doing a little bit of that but most of my time...I'm only working about half time because I'm much older than Jim--the other Jim. [Laughs] I’m semi...supposed to be semi-retired but I'm working on project dynamics. I'm trying to write a book but it'll all be online and a bunch of models that support it--builds from but is quite a bit different from the model Jim mentioned that Pugh-Roberts did. It still has a rework cycle structure which I think all project dynamics models have. But I've also incorporated a lot of things that I think Jim would appreciate and are tied to things that we teach in other parts of the course when people are teaching project management. So...hopefully I'll be done with that someday [laughs] but hopefully soon...within the year. I'm just going to put it on a website and anybody can have it with citing it appropriately.

Believe it or not project dynamics.org is already taken by some company that does cons[ulting]--setting up proj[ect] meetings. I have the name project systemdynamics.org and dot com.

Christine: Professor Hines, what are you currently working on?

Jim Hines: Wait, you were asking the question what was your first model right?

Christine: Oh yes. That too. [facepalm]

Jim Hines: [laughs]

Jim Lyneis: You never finished that one.

Christine: Yes.

Jim Hines: So [laughs] alright so um [laughs]

Jim Lyneis: Yeah, you finished your first model. You never finished answering the question.

Jim Hines: [laughs] The first model I built was while I was still a doctoral student and it was a model of the early stages of a romance. Back in those days, I was not the suave older guy that I am now and I had a number of...well, a friend of mine had a number of relationships where they seemed perfectly compatible and yet the relationship would go up and down and up and down and then finally down and out and I wanted to understand those dynamics so I built a model for it. I'm happy to report that my very first girlfriend after building that model is now my wife of about 35 years.

Jim Lyneis: Say hi to Nancy for me.

Jim Hines: So System Dynamics works.

[Laughter]

Jim Hines: In fact, that's what really convinced me that it was really useful and I know that because you can use it for the really important things--your wife, your kids, things that you know in your everyday environment--the really important things to you.

Christine: That is the most lovely System Dynamics story I’ve ever heard. Do you currently use that model?

Jim Hines: I occasionally bring it out and tinker with it. Usually, it's to teach a class with that model. So I don't use it anymore. And my wife, Nancy, will be happy to hear this. I don't use it anymore for the early stages of romance.

[Jim Lyneis and Christine laugh]

Christine: Okay. Moving on to what are you currently working on?

Jim Hines: I'm currently working on a model looking into why managers at the various managerial levels in a company that I'm consulting to...why they are not working up to or doing the work that the very senior guys expect for that level of work. It's been going on for about a year and a half or so...which is way too long and I could explain why that happened in this particular case. But we now have eight or nine theories of what could cause this and eight or nine small models through which we could explore the possible causes and we are now onto figuring out and creating policies that can actually be implemented in the company to correct that. That’s it.

Christine: Professor Lyneis, what is your most memorable consulting project and why was it memorable?

Jim Lyneis: [laughs] Boy, that's a tough one...except for the ones I did with Jim, you mean?

[laughter]

Christine: Mhmm

Jim Lyneis: Jim and I worked on a few.

Jim Hines: Yes

Jim Lyneis: [Laughing] Remember? We were nor--we were in northern...Belfast, Northern Ireland together and it was still...the troubles are still going on and in fact I guess. [Jim Hines,] were you around when Ken gave me that picture? Ken Cooper gave me a picture of myself (I probably still have it) in a Rambo outfit because at that time I was going to Belfast and Santiago, Chile when Pinochet was still there and we were traipsing around Paris when they were having their bombings so we had...but my most memorable projects, I suppose are the ones that I wrote about--the Airbus project and the Mastercard project, which I had a couple of System Dynamics Review articles on. And I suppose those are my, in terms of accomplishment, most memorable.

I do remember traveling around with Jim and those are my most memorable projects from that standpoint. [Laugh] We had a lot we...had fun when we were consulting.

Jim Hines: Question to me now?

Christine: Yes.

Jim Hines: I don't have a very good memory so my most memorable project just concluded a few months ago. That was a project that took two years. And I don't mean to tell you that I always take these extraordinary amounts of time. Most of my modeling projects are done in four or five months. Modeling goes, of course, quicker than that if I didn't have a client.

But this project took two years. It's related to 10-year oscillations in the IT--Information Technology department at a particular company. 10 years from peak to peak. It took us--the group that I worked with- took us two years to build it and the reason is sort of interesting. The reason was that we were sure we had the right theory of what caused those cycles. And we built a model and we tinkered with it and we adjusted parameters for about a year or more. All that was wasted effort because we realized--we finally admitted that there was no way that that model could produce 10-year oscillations. The most it could do was maybe four years and so we had to throw all that work out and start another [model]. Start again. I guess the lesson for me on that project is “Don't try to fit a round model into a square project.”

Christine: Mmm...

Jim Hines: You'll have to think about that just for a moment.

Christine: In an earlier [SD-cast episode], I think it was Karim’s. Karim said, “Don't fall in love with your model.”

Jim Hines: That's very good advice people do tend to fall in love with their models and not only is it hard to abandon them...if you do. And it was hard for us--hard for me. It was the CEO's theory and I was convinced it was right...but anyway, it also relates to having some objectivity about your model. So...as you fall in love with it, you tend to take it too seriously. I think. And particularly if you tune it up so it matches a number of data series, you really can convince yourself that your model really represents--is really the world. But it's not, of course. The model is nothing like the real world and you have to keep that in mind as you think about the model. The model will help you understand the world but the model is not the world. The model can be used to predict what might happen in the world but it's not the world. And you can't fall in love with your model. You can't view your model as your child.

Christine: Professor Lyneis, do you have anything to respond to that?

[Jims laugh]

We can move on too.

Jim Lyneis: No, not at the moment but of course Jim is always right.

Christine: Which Jim?

[Jims and Christine laugh]

Jim Lyneis: Which Jim...well, you take your pick!

Christine: What wiSDom do you have for students and those new to System Dynamics?

Jim Lyneis: Oh, I'll get to go first again here. Well, I suppose...and I'm coming from a perspective of a modeler and someone who wants to do modeling and so I guess my advice would be [to] strongly urge people to learn the basics. And nobody does Principles of Systems anymore but if you could, it'd be--I would think it'd be worth going back and doing that book, making sure you understand that and all the basic simple structures like stock management model and so forth. Really understand those. Test them yourself so you can internalize those dynamics. And I think it helps you a lot in building models if you have a really solid foundation.

Jim Hines: Could I add onto that? Another great book to read--an old one...actually it’s not a book. It's Alan Graham's doctoral dissertation.

Jim Lyneis: Mm.

Jim Hines: It's available at MIT System Dynamics and it's very good, as a modeler, to help you analyze the causes of the output that you're getting from the model--what inside the model could be causing that. It's very good for that.

Christine: What is your wiSDom for students?

Jim Hines: Walk tall and model small.

Christine: [laughs] May I add another [question]. You, Professor Hines, built a website and you share the molecules.

Jim Hines: Yeah.

Christine: Would you talk a little bit more about the molecules of structure?

Jim Hines: It relates quite directly to what the other Jim was saying about getting the fundamental structures in your head. The difference between an experienced modeler like Jim and somebody who is relatively new to the field but knows System Dynamics enough to build models. The difference between them is that Jim will be oh 10, maybe 20 times faster than that new person and also the models will be much better. And what accounts for them...well, of course, Jim is Jim Lyneis.

But also, Jim has a mental warehouse of structures that he has gathered over the years from working on and reading...studying other models like the project model is a good one to go with. There are some others...Forrester’s market growth. And anyway, that's a primary reason that experienced modelers are so much faster and create so much better models than inexperienced people. They don't have to think so carefully about “Well, what could this structure be?” They already have faced similar problems and they know a series of structures that probably will serve them pretty well. And they just plug that in and they spend their mental horsepower--their mental hours on thinking about the model (e.g. thinking about what the model is becoming, what the lessons so far are coming out of the model, etc.). The molecules were my attempt to externalize some of those mental warehouse structures.

I think I made a mistake in the last one that I created too many molecules so my next version will be a lot smaller. But when I used to teach at MIT, I occasionally would ask students to almost memorize the molecules. And then their final exam would be sitting in class and they'd be given an issue and they had to create a model. The students in the classes that had pretty much memorized the molecules were actually able to do that. Students that had not, found that incredibly challenging

Is that [explanation] good enough?

Christine: Yes, thank you. Professor Lyneis, do you have any fun or funny SD stories that you're willing to share?

Jim Lyneis: [laughs] I’m not sure that I do. I'm the straight man usually. That's why it's good Jim Hines is here and maybe after he tells his car story if you're going to go into that I'll tell my car story if it seems appropriate.

Christine: So you are the play-by-play announcer and Jim Hines is the color commentator, if we're talking sports analogies.

Jim Lyneis: Yes. Yes, I guess. [laughs]. Don't forget to unmute yourself, Jim.

Jim Hines: I have to say that what I just said well if needed was absolutely brilliant

[The Jims and Christine are laughing without making noise]

But I'm going to move on, if that's okay?

Jim Lyneis: [laugh] So you’re not going to say what you were gunna [say while muted]

Jim Hines: I'll continue the story that Mike Radzicki or give the other side of the story that Mike Radzicki told. He told a story where Jim Hines somehow got his car stuck on a block of ice. The rear wheels would not turn. And this was while I was visiting WPI and it was parked on the side of the street and he told the story of how, basically, he, leading me around, was able to get the tools to get me out. But now here's for my side.

So first of all...so I had no idea this had happened. I went out to the car and I turned it on and revved it and I thought maybe you know a little more gas, Vrrr! [makes a revving noise]

But nothing would work and so I got out of the car finally and noticed that my rear wheels and my front wheels--none of the wheels were touching the ground actually and so...that's sort of embarrassing but another aspect of this you see is that...I'm not the handiest guy in town and I wasn't sure that even with the right tools I'd be able to figure out how to get the car off of that block of ice. But anyway, hope springs eternal. And actually I was thinking that I'd have to wait until spring to be able to drive my car away. I went back to Mike's office and I asked for an ice pick. And I, you know...I had no idea what an ice pick was except for the kinds of ice picks that you use to loosen up the ice for alcoholic beverages but I figured that's what I needed. I needed something to go into the ice and so Michael said, “Well, okay. We'll find that.” And we went all around and he tells the story of how we got the tools. Finally, it was time. I got the tools...of course, I didn't know any of their names. It was time for me to go out to actually use these tools to do something to the ice and I was so relieved when Mike Radzicki accompanied me out.

And I don't know...it might be the sense-y thing that Michael has going on for him but somehow he realized that I should be the observer and he should be the doer and he...I have to say...he went after that ice like a demon. [Christine laughs] It was like the ice had insulted his wife and in a remarkably short time he had reduced that ice block to a mere shadow of itself and I was able to drive out.

Christine: I don't know if you're aware of this but Professor Radzicki is from...Wisconsin, if i remember correctly. And they also have a lot of snow and ice so he probably knows...

Jim Hines: Ahh...

Christine: how to use that and he's also a martial arts master so I wouldn't be surprised that he knows how to use any type of weapon…so, I also would like to ask if you could tell any back stories of your taping of SD 550: System Dynamics Foundations, you taped those in…

Jim Hines: Could you ask Jim...can we go back to Jim about stories because he said he had one about a car…

Christine: [facepalm] Oh, yes. Sorry, [I forgot].

Jim Lyneis: Well...all I have to say is I think I have a better helper than you did. When the Club of Rome people were here at MIT that summer of [19]70, Forrester had a little party out at his house and so he had all of us grad students or undergrad students drive the people out there and I was one of them and my car was not the greatest of cars back then...so on the way home the muffler fell off and or partly, it was dragging. One of my--the people I was chauffeuring was Aurelio Peccei who was the head of Fiat and so I pulled into a gas station and that was when they still had service bays and he jumped out and he got them to lift the car up onto the whatever they call those things...jacks. And he was under there fixing the car for me so I stayed out of that one too. [laughs] Let him do the work. He seemed to know what he was doing.

Jim Hines: Yeah, the lesson is to always have a partner who can really do things.

Christine: Mhmm.

Jim Hines: Okay.

Christine: So the back story to the videos of System Dynamics Foundations which WPI has been working on. Specifically, Raafat Zaini has been working on chopping up into three micro-courses to offer at a discounted price. Do you have any stories you can tell?

Jim Hines: Well, I can tell you where that course and a number of other ones that are offered...still probably offered at WPI came from, and I'd started a distance program at MIT and my thought was to invite the people who were really good in their fields to teach a course in whatever basically was their specialty and I think...well, Jim, I think you were...did you do...you did Project Dynamics.

Jim Lyneis: Yeah, I did the project one.

Both Jims: Yeah.

Jim Lyneis: I think it was six lectures. Right? Something like that.

Jim Hines: Yeah, so Jim did one and I did foundations and system dynamics for insight. Bob Eberlein did one, I think, and maybe I'm sure I'm forgetting something. But after a year, year and a half or two, we had four or five uh courses in the sequence and that was when MIT came to the conclusion or decided--not because of our work--but they decided that they were not interested in distance education so we were able to transfer the whole program--all the videos over to WPI. That body of courses became the core (at least for a while) of the graduate program. A new graduate program. One that hadn't existed before graduate program in policy and social sciences...is that right?

Christine: Social Science and Policy Studies

Jim Hines: Social Science and Policy Studies department. For some reason, they...WPI-- Khalid, who was in charge of the department at that time, wanted me to redo Foundations. He probably figured that if I had another whack at it I might be able to actually do something (right [audience?]) that would be watchable but I had this idea that having two people in front of a camera where they were able to talk to each other (because we didn't have a live audience but could talk to each other) and play off of each other would be much more entertaining to watch than just one person droning on and on and on. Of course, I was lucky enough to somehow convince Jim Lyneis to do that with me and well, I don't know if we did a good job or not. I'd like to think so...but we certainly had a good time.

Jim Lyneis: It’s true. We did. And I think you were also teaching a Foundations equivalent course at MIT.

Jim Hines: Yeah. Yes.

Jim Lyneis: And you did it for the program I was talking about before--the System Design and Management program. You did that and then you couldn't do it one summer so I did it and I added a few things to your lectures and then we use that as the basis for starting the taping sessions at WPI.

Jim Hines: Very good

Jim Lyneis: And it was fun. It was certainly a fun way to teach a course.

Jim Hines: And I don't know why it didn't catch on. Why there weren't more courses done with two people there because it's--I think it's much more entertaining to have some interaction going on.

Jim Lyneis: Well, we did Real World together.

Jim Hines: Oh, we did?

Jim Lyneis: Yeah!

[Both Jims laugh]

I know your memory again.

Jim Hines: Yeah, well there you go!

Jim Lyneis: So we did that one but I think that was pretty much the only one that was like that. When I did project dynamics, I did it by myself so it was just those two.

[We chatted for a bit about why there weren’t more people teaching together. I cut this part out.]

Christine: I also suspect maybe on the WPI side...WPI is mainly an undergraduate engineering school and the professors have a heavy teaching load for undergrads too so that might also be another factor.

Jim Hines: Could be…

Christine: Okay and we're getting off topic. This is actually supposed to be more about your stories so do you have any other stories you would like to share they don't have to be funny.

Jim Hines: Well, I have one...so I have a story about Jay Forrester, founder of System Dynamics. There was a dinner one evening in Boston for the main people who were active in the field of macro engineering and...I think the dinner was celebrating...probably their 20th anniversary of being a field and the people invited were quite a distinguished group of people. A number of them--quite a number of them--coming from Europe and Jay was there given the work that he had done on the Whirlwind computer and I was there. And I think I was invited only so that someone (I hadn’t...I didn't know anything about macro engineering) so that they'd have someone who would be impressed by what they were talking about.

Christine: [laughs]

Jim Hines: Anyway, the speakers...one by one they were getting up to the microphone and talking about what their current project was. So one guy was going to tow an iceberg to Africa to the desert regions and thereby really improve the standard of living--water for crops and for herds of animals and for people. And another guy was going to build a tunnel from South America to Africa under the Atlantic ocean. The idea there, as he explained it, was that that would allow trade flows to go back and forth between these two very populated continents and by doing that, increase their standard of living as well.

After (I don't know) five or six or seven of these folks had spoken, Jay got up. Jay went to the microphone and he said, (Well, the fundamental problem facing mankind [or humankind. I think he used humankind.] “The fundamental problem facing humankind is overpopulation. All of the proposals I've heard thus far will make that problem worse. Not better.” And, of course, there was stunned silence after that and Jay walked off the little podium and came around the side of the...we were in a big kind of horseshoe table...and as he walked behind my chair, he said either to himself or to me. He said, “Well, maybe they won't invite me next year.”

[Laughter]

And so I've thought about that and it's remarkable that here was a man who judged the impact that he had on a group based on whether he wasn't invited back to the same group again.

[Laughter]

So...it was wonderful.

Jim Lyneis: That seems to be the way he viewed many other disciplines as well, like economics and everything else.

Jim Hines: Yeah. Yeah. I think he thought that if he didn't shake people up, really jostled what they were fundamentally thinking, that he hadn't done his job somehow and also he was just a contrarian I think.

Christine: Thank you for agreeing to this interview and I appreciate your stories.

Jim Hines: Well, Christine, it's a pleasure to meet you.

[We then started chatting about meeting in person at an International System Dynamics Conference. Prof. Lyneis was nodding and smiling during this and most of the interview. I posted a picture of the above moment with his nice smile on the WPI SD Club Twitter account.]
https://twitter.com/WPISDclub/status/1390815873456394240

Ending
Subscribe to the WPI SD Club YouTube to see extra material that did not make it into this episode. Prof. Hines is the storyteller of the two and he told a few more stories about Jay Forrester: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3AD1IqQP7EGSNRDzNkIYQ

Below is the link to the WPI System Dynamics Fundamentals self-paced micro-course that we mentioned. System Dynamics Society members receive a discount so pay attention to emails from the Society!
https://wpi.catalog.instructure.com/browse/system-dynamics/courses/system-dynamics-foundation

Below are links to their works (which we referenced in the interview):
Corporate Planning and Policy Design: A System Dynamics Approach
”System dynamics for business strategy: a phased approach”
“System dynamics for market forecasting and structural analysis”
Mastercard project
Molecules of System Dynamics Structure

Now, here is a poem I wrote about Professors Hines and Lyneis:

Professors Jim

Works are astute and impactful

You can read about them on a whim

Or take their SD 550 course to be successful

In your System Dynamics journey

They lay the foundation for your study

(And their humor may put you in a gurney)

Learning, modeling or teaching with a buddy

Is more fun and motivating

Join WPI online and learn with us

Jim Hines and Jim Lyneis

To have more accepts and not rejects

In the dynamics of a romance or projects
Who wants to rework a defect?
We want projects and products to be correct!
But learning is an interactive and iterative process

With cycles and periods for us to reflect
On our mistakes and how we digress

Listen, study, and practice to progress

So you can “Walk tall and model small”