Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems

Systems thinking was designed to improve people's ability to manage organizations comprehensively in a volatile global environment. It offers managers a framework for understanding complex situations and the dynamics those situations produce. Systems thinking is a response to the rapid changes in technology, population, and economic activity that are transforming the world, and as a way to deal with the ever-increasing complexity of today's business.

Senior managers can use systems thinking to design policies that lead their organizations to high performance. The program is intended to give participants the tools and confidence to manage organizations with full understanding and solid strategy.

This complex problem-solving course introduces participants to MIT's unique, powerful, and integrative System Dynamics approach to assess problems that will not go away and to produce the results they want. Through exercises and simulation models, participants experience the long-term side effects and impacts of decisions and understand the ways in which performance is tied to structures and policies.

Participants play the Beer Game, a table game developed by Jay Forrester. Played with pen, paper, printed plastic tablecloths, and poker chips, it simulates the supply chain of the beer industry. The game illuminates aspects of System Dynamics, a signature mode of MIT thought and illustrates the nonlinear complexities of supply chains and the way individuals are circumscribed by the systems in which they act.

Learn more about the in-person course experience.

Learn more about the live online experience. 

Upon successful completion of your course, you will earn a certificate of completion from the MIT Sloan School of Management. This course may also count toward MIT Sloan Executive Certificate requirements.

The program will offer a new way of thinking about and resolving complex, persistent problems that emerge from change. Applying systems thinking along with intuitive principles of feedback control, participants will learn to:

• Assess the likely impact of different policies and decisions that relate to their organization's growth, stability, and performance
• Recognize business system archetypes that can trigger persistent, long-term problems
• Use state-of-the-art management tools to identify relationships
• Intervene effectively to make fundamental changes

This program is designed for executives with decision-making responsibility who are looking for fresh ideas to resolve organizational problems.

Past participants have included

• CEOs
• Presidents
• COOs
• CTOs
• VPs and EVPs
• Corporate planners and strategists
• Senior Project Managers
• Product Development Managers