Minding the abstraction gap: approaches supporting implementation

Abstract

Regardless of insights gained from building and analyzing dynamic models, the only strategies people can act on are those in their heads. The strategies people internalize are related to their perceived capacities to act—the verbs they believe they can do. If we want others to implement model-informed policies, then we must connect model abstractions with new situated, concrete actions stakeholders can take. We can emphasize opportunities to act with SD representations, navigating levels of abstraction cleanly, identifying flows as verbs, and choosing variable names that signal who is acting. By drawing on social-science theories as we offer our grammar of accumulations, activities, and relationships in the language of actions accessible to stakeholders, we help connect experiential understandings to richer, dynamic explanations people can internalize and so discover situated steps to implement policies informed by modeling. © 2024 The Author(s). System Dynamics Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of System Dynamics Society.