The intention of this paper is to discuss how to extend the use of System Dynamics (SD). The rationale to do the effort is its proved record to better inform decision making in complex environments. SD is a discipline helpful to recognize counterintuitive behaviors. By modeling and simulating different scenarios, complex situations can be studied and analyzed. Conceding that these activities may help on improving human action, the difficulty would strive on how to expand its use as it seems difficult to be caught by students, our future professionals. One possibility is to teach the discipline, another to show how to deal with complex situations by using SD. This paper elaborates on the latter by proposing an approach that looks at SD as a problem structuring method (PSM). Instances of this procedure are provided from a SD course delivered to undergraduate students in a Mexican university.

Keywords: OR education, system dynamics, problem structuring methods, problem solving

Status: The Journal of the Operational Research Society (Under review)