The First Experiment

The First Experiment ^PDF - This 15 page chapter opens Part Three of the Analytical Activism manuscript. It introduces The First Experiment and then goes into why experimentation is important, and how good experimentation builds the knowledge pyramid until it is tall and sound enough to solve a problem. The General Model of System Behavior is explained from a process and experimentation point of view.

The chapter closes with The Ultimate Scenario: Using Micro Experiments to Build the Model Until the Emergent Solution Appears. This leads to these strategic conclusions:

"This scenario ties together the essential elements it will take to solve the sustainability problem as fast as is humanly possible. These elements appear to be:

1. A guiding coalition to manage the large project.

2. An appropriate formal process driving the entire work effort. This is the Analytical Method, its domain specific subprocess, the System Improvement Process, and the many smaller processes, such as the Building the Knowledge Pyramid loop.

3. A formal model whose growth reflects the project’s progress and whose growth builds the Knowledge Pyramid.

4. An unusually large amount of experimentation to turn Model Conjectures into Model Facts. Most of this is micro experiments.

5. Shifting gears into the new mode of ultra high experimental efficiency.

6. Reliance on the power of emergent solutions."

This chapter sets the tone and strategy for the rest of the book. It allows you to begin to see where environmentalism needs to go to solve the sustainability problem, after the Transformation Problem is solved.