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Book Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises

Download or read book Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises written by William B. Rouse and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-07-06 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains multi-level models of enterprise systems and covers modeling methodology This book addresses the essential phenomena underlying the overall behaviors of complex systems and enterprises. Understanding these phenomena can enable improving these systems. These phenomena range from physical, behavioral, and organizational, to economic and social, all of which involve significant human components. Specific phenomena of interest and how they are represented depend on the questions of interest and the relevant domains or contexts. Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises examines visualization of phenomena and how understanding the relationships among phenomena can provide the basis for understanding where deeper exploration is warranted. The author also reviews mathematical and computational models, defined very broadly across disciplines, which can enable deeper understanding. Presents a 10 step methodology for addressing questions associated with the design or operation of complex systems and enterprises Examines six archetypal enterprise problems including two from healthcare, two from urban systems, and one each from financial systems and defense systems Provides an introduction to the nature of complex systems, historical perspectives on complexity and complex adaptive systems, and the evolution of systems practice Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises is written for graduate students studying systems science and engineering and professionals involved in systems science and engineering, those involved in complex systems such as healthcare delivery, urban systems, sustainable energy, financial systems, and national security.

Book Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises

Download or read book Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises written by William B. Rouse and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains multi-level models of enterprise systems and covers modeling methodology This book addresses the essential phenomena underlying the overall behaviors of complex systems and enterprises. Understanding these phenomena can enable improving these systems. These phenomena range from physical, behavioral, and organizational, to economic and social, all of which involve significant human components. Specific phenomena of interest and how they are represented depend on the questions of interest and the relevant domains or contexts. Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises examines visualization of phenomena and how understanding the relationships among phenomena can provide the basis for understanding where deeper exploration is warranted. The author also reviews mathematical and computational models, defined very broadly across disciplines, which can enable deeper understanding. Presents a 10 step methodology for addressing questions associated with the design or operation of complex systems and enterprises Examines six archetypal enterprise problems including two from healthcare, two from urban systems, and one each from financial systems and defense systems Provides an introduction to the nature of complex systems, historical perspectives on complexity and complex adaptive systems, and the evolution of systems practice Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises is written for graduate students studying systems science and engineering and professionals involved in systems science and engineering, those involved in complex systems such as healthcare delivery, urban systems, sustainable energy, financial systems, and national security.

Book Visualizing Project Management

Download or read book Visualizing Project Management written by Kevin Forsberg and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2005-11-11 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASSIC-REVISED AND EXPANDED Now Includes Downloadable Forms and Worksheets Projects are becoming the heart of business. This comprehensive revision of the bestselling guide to project management explains the processes, practices, and management techniques you need to implement a successful project culture within your team and enterprise. Visualizing Project Management simplifies the challenge of managing complex projects with powerful, visual models that have been adopted by more than 100 leading government and private organizations. In this new Third Edition, the authors-leading thinkers and practitioners in the field-keep you on the cutting edge with a sophisticated approach that integrates project management, systems engineering, and process improvement. This advanced content can help take your career and your organization well beyond the fundamentals. New, downloadable forms, templates, and worksheets make it easy to implement powerful project techniques and tools. Includes references to the Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge and the INCOSE Handbook to help you pass: The Project Management Professional Certification Exam The INCOSE Systems Engineer Certification Exam (CSEP) "I recommend this book to all those who aspire to project management [and] those who must supervise it." —Norman R. Augustine, former chairman and CEO Lockheed Martin Corporation "The importance of this excellent book, able to encompass these two key disciplines [systems engineering and project management], cannot be overemphasized." —Heinz Stoewer, President, INCOSE

Book Social Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems

Download or read book Social Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems written by Paul K. Davis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes frontiers in social-behavioral modeling for contexts as diverse as national security, health, and on-line social gaming. Recent scientific and technological advances have created exciting opportunities for such improvements. However, the book also identifies crucial scientific, ethical, and cultural challenges to be met if social-behavioral modeling is to achieve its potential. Doing so will require new methods, data sources, and technology. The volume discusses these, including those needed to achieve and maintain high standards of ethics and privacy. The result should be a new generation of modeling that will advance science and, separately, aid decision-making on major social and security-related subjects despite the myriad uncertainties and complexities of social phenomena. Intended to be relatively comprehensive in scope, the volume balances theory-driven, data-driven, and hybrid approaches. The latter may be rapidly iterative, as when artificial-intelligence methods are coupled with theory-driven insights to build models that are sound, comprehensible and usable in new situations. With the intent of being a milestone document that sketches a research agenda for the next decade, the volume draws on the wisdom, ideas and suggestions of many noted researchers who draw in turn from anthropology, communications, complexity science, computer science, defense planning, economics, engineering, health systems, medicine, neuroscience, physics, political science, psychology, public policy and sociology. In brief, the volume discusses: Cutting-edge challenges and opportunities in modeling for social and behavioral science Special requirements for achieving high standards of privacy and ethics New approaches for developing theory while exploiting both empirical and computational data Issues of reproducibility, communication, explanation, and validation Special requirements for models intended to inform decision making about complex social systems

Book Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering

Download or read book Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering written by Saurabh Mittal and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive text that reviews the methods and technologies that explore emergent behavior in complex systems engineering in multidisciplinary fields In Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering, the authors present the theoretical considerations and the tools required to enable the study of emergent behaviors in manmade systems. Information Technology is key to today’s modern world. Scientific theories introduced in the last five decades can now be realized with the latest computational infrastructure. Modeling and simulation, along with Big Data technologies are at the forefront of such exploration and investigation. The text offers a number of simulation-based methods, technologies, and approaches that are designed to encourage the reader to incorporate simulation technologies to further their understanding of emergent behavior in complex systems. The authors present a resource for those designing, developing, managing, operating, and maintaining systems, including system of systems. The guide is designed to help better detect, analyse, understand, and manage the emergent behaviour inherent in complex systems engineering in order to reap the benefits of innovations and avoid the dangers of unforeseen consequences. This vital resource: Presents coverage of a wide range of simulation technologies Explores the subject of emergence through the lens of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Offers contributions from authors at the forefront of various related disciplines such as philosophy, science, engineering, sociology, and economics Contains information on the next generation of complex systems engineering Written for researchers, lecturers, and students, Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems Engineering provides an overview of the current discussions on complexity and emergence, and shows how systems engineering methods in general and simulation methods in particular can help in gaining new insights in complex systems engineering.

Book Universities as Complex Enterprises

Download or read book Universities as Complex Enterprises written by William B. Rouse and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-06-06 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the nature of academic enterprises, including why they work the way they do and where such enterprises are headed, with the goal of gaining insights into where change can and will happen This book looks at universities from a whole-enterprise perspective. It explores the steady escalation of the costs of higher education and uses a computational economic model of complex academic enterprises. This model includes component models of research, teaching, administration, and brand value. Understanding the relationships among practices, processes, structure, and ecosystem provides the basis for transforming academia, leveraging its strengths and overcoming its limitations. More specifically, this architecture helps the reader understand how various elements of the enterprise system either enable or hinder other elements of the system, all of which are embedded in a complex behavioral and social ecosystem. Each topic is explored in terms of the levels of the architecture at which it primarily functions. Levers of change within each area are discussed, using many experiences of pursuing such issues in a range of academic enterprises. • Provides a new methodology by taking a more systems-oriented approach to education systems as a whole • Shows how various elements of the enterprise system either enable or hinder other elements of the system • Offers alternative strategies for transformation of academic enterprises Universities as Complex Enterprises: How Academia Works, Why It Works These Ways, and Where the University Enterprise Is Headed is a reference for systems scientists and engineers, economists, social scientists, and decision makers. William B. Rouse is the Alexander Crombie Humphreys Chair within the School of Systems & Enterprises and Director of the Center for Complex Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He is also Professor Emeritus, and former Chair, of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. Rouse has written hundreds of articles and book chapters, and has authored many books, including most recently Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises (Wiley, 2015).

Book Universities as Complex Enterprises

Download or read book Universities as Complex Enterprises written by William B. Rouse and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-06-13 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the nature of academic enterprises, including why they work the way they do and where such enterprises are headed, with the goal of gaining insights into where change can and will happen This book looks at universities from a whole-enterprise perspective. It explores the steady escalation of the costs of higher education and uses a computational economic model of complex academic enterprises. This model includes component models of research, teaching, administration, and brand value. Understanding the relationships among practices, processes, structure, and ecosystem provides the basis for transforming academia, leveraging its strengths and overcoming its limitations. More specifically, this architecture helps the reader understand how various elements of the enterprise system either enable or hinder other elements of the system, all of which are embedded in a complex behavioral and social ecosystem. Each topic is explored in terms of the levels of the architecture at which it primarily functions. Levers of change within each area are discussed, using many experiences of pursuing such issues in a range of academic enterprises. • Provides a new methodology by taking a more systems-oriented approach to education systems as a whole • Shows how various elements of the enterprise system either enable or hinder other elements of the system • Offers alternative strategies for transformation of academic enterprises Universities as Complex Enterprises: How Academia Works, Why It Works These Ways, and Where the University Enterprise Is Headed is a reference for systems scientists and engineers, economists, social scientists, and decision makers. William B. Rouse is the Alexander Crombie Humphreys Chair within the School of Systems & Enterprises and Director of the Center for Complex Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He is also Professor Emeritus, and former Chair, of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. Rouse has written hundreds of articles and book chapters, and has authored many books, including most recently Modeling and Visualization of Complex Systems and Enterprises (Wiley, 2015).

Book Body of Knowledge for Modeling and Simulation

Download or read book Body of Knowledge for Modeling and Simulation written by Tuncer Ören and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-27 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commissioned by the Society for Modeling and Simulation International (SCS), this needed, useful new ‘Body of Knowledge’ (BoK) collects and organizes the common understanding of a wide collection of professionals and professional associations. Modeling and simulation (M&S) is a ubiquitous discipline that lays the computational foundation for real and virtual experimentation, clearly stating boundaries—and interactions—of systems, data, and representations. The field is well known, too, for its training support via simulations and simulators. Indeed, with computers increasingly influencing the activities of today’s world, M&S is the third pillar of scientific understanding, taking its place along with theory building and empirical observation. This valuable new handbook provides intellectual support for all disciplines in analysis, design and optimization. It contributes increasingly to the growing number of computational disciplines, addressing the broad variety of contributing as well as supported disciplines and application domains. Further, each of its sections provide numerous references for further information. Highly comprehensive, the BoK represents many viewpoints and facets, captured under such topics as: Mathematical and Systems Theory Foundations Simulation Formalisms and Paradigms Synergies with Systems Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Multidisciplinary Challenges Ethics and Philosophy Historical Perspectives Examining theoretical as well as practical challenges, this unique volume addresses the many facets of M&S for scholars, students, and practitioners. As such, it affords readers from all science, engineering, and arts disciplines a comprehensive and concise representation of concepts, terms, and activities needed to explain the M&S discipline. Tuncer Ören is Professor Emeritus at the University of Ottawa. Bernard Zeigler is Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona. Andreas Tolk is Chief Scientist at The MITRE Corporation. All three editors are long-time members and Fellows of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International. Under the leadership of three SCS Fellows, Dr. Ören, University of Ottawa, Dr. Zeigler, The University of Arizona, and Dr. Tolk, The MITRE Corporation, more than 50 international scholars from 15 countries provided insights and experience to compile this initial M&S Body of Knowledge.

Book Systems Engineering Demystified

Download or read book Systems Engineering Demystified written by Jon Holt and published by Packt Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-01-29 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get to grips with systems engineering life cycles, processes, and best practices and discover techniques to successfully develop complex systems Key Features Discover how to manage increased complexity and understand systems better via effective communication Adopt a proven model-based approach for systems engineering in your organization Apply proven techniques for requirements, design, validation and verification, and systems engineering management Book DescriptionSystems engineering helps us to understand, specify, and develop complex systems, and is applied across a wide set of disciplines. As systems and their associated problems become increasingly complex in this evermore connected world, the need for more rigorous, demonstrable, and repeatable techniques also increases. Written by Professor Jon Holt – an internationally recognized systems engineering expert – this book provides a blend of technical and business aspects you need to understand in order to develop successful systems. You'll start with systems engineering basics and understand the complexity, communication, and different stakeholders' views of the system. The book then covers essential aspects of model-based systems engineering, systems, life cycles, and processes, along with techniques to develop systems. Moving on, you'll explore system models and visualization techniques, focusing on the SysML, and discover how solutions can be defined by developing effective system design, verification, and validation techniques. The book concludes by taking you through key management processes and systems engineering best practices and guidelines. By the end of this systems engineering book, you'll be able to confidently apply modern model-based systems engineering techniques to your own systems and projects.What you will learn Understand the three evils of systems engineering - complexity, ambiguous communication, and lack of understanding Realize successful systems using model-based systems engineering Understand the concept of life cycles and how they control the evolution of a system Explore processes and related concepts such as activities, stakeholders, and resources Discover how needs fit into the systems life cycle and which processes are relevant and how to comply with them Find out how design, verification, and validation fit into the life cycle and processes Who this book is for This book is for aspiring systems engineers, engineering managers, or anyone looking to apply systems engineering practices to their systems and projects. While a well-structured, model-based approach to systems engineering is an essential skill for engineers of all disciplines, many companies are finding that new graduates have little understanding of systems engineering. This book helps you acquire this skill with the help of a simple and practical approach to developing successful systems. No prior knowledge of systems engineering or modeling is required to get started with this book.

Book Healthcare System Access

    Book Details:
  • Author : Nicoleta Serban
  • Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
  • Release : 2019-11-21
  • ISBN : 1119601363
  • Pages : 189 pages

Download or read book Healthcare System Access written by Nicoleta Serban and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-11-21 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to a holistic approach to healthcare measurement aimed at improving access and outcomes Healthcare System Access is an important resource that bridges two areas of research—access modeling and healthcare system engineering. The book’s mathematical modeling approach highlights fundamental approaches on measurement of and inference on healthcare access. This mathematical modeling facilitates translating data into knowledge in order to make data-driven estimates and projections about parameters, patterns, and trends in the system. The complementary engineering approach uses estimates and projections about the system to better inform efforts to design systems that will yield better outcomes. The author—a noted expert on the topic—offers an in-depth exploration of the concepts of systematic disparities, reviews measures for systematic disparities, and presents a statistical framework for making inference on disparities with application to disparities in access. The book also includes information health outcomes in the context of prevention and chronic disease management. In addition, this text: Integrates data and knowledge from various fields to provide a framework for decision making in transforming access to healthcare Provides in-depth material including illustrations of how to use state-of-art methodology, large data sources, and research from various fields Includes end-of-chapter case studies for applying concepts to real-world conditions Written for health systems engineers, Healthcare System Access: Measurement, Inference, and Intervention puts the focus on approaches to measure healthcare access and addresses important enablers of such change in healthcare towards improving access and outcomes.

Book Model oriented Systems Engineering Science

Download or read book Model oriented Systems Engineering Science written by Duane W. Hybertson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Systems engineering (SE) is experiencing a significant expansion that encompasses increasingly complex systems. However, a common body of knowledge on how to apply complex systems engineering (CSE) has yet to be developed. A combination of people and other autonomous agents, crossing organization boundaries and continually changing, these hybrid sy

Book Enterprise  Business Process and Information Systems Modeling

Download or read book Enterprise Business Process and Information Systems Modeling written by Iris Reinhartz-Berger and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-22 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the proceedings of two events held at the CAiSE conference and relating to the areas of enterprise, business process and information systems modeling: The 20th International Conference on Business Process Modeling, Development and Support, BPMDS 2019, and the 24th International Conference on Evaluation and Modeling Methods for Systems Analysis and Development, EMMSAD 2019. The conferences took place in Rome, Italy, in June 2019. The 7 full and 2 short papers accepted for BPMDS were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 20 submissions; for EMMSAD 15 full papers were accepted from 38 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections named as follows: BPMDS: large and complex business process modeling and development; execution and understandability of declarative process models; novel approaches in enterprise modeling; transformative business process modeling, development, and support. EMMSAD: foundations of modeling and method engineering; enterprise process and capability modeling; information systems and requirements modeling; domain-specific and ontology modeling; and evaluation of modeling approaches.

Book Social Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems

Download or read book Social Behavioral Modeling for Complex Systems written by Paul K. Davis and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 992 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume describes frontiers in social-behavioral modeling for contexts as diverse as national security, health, and on-line social gaming. Recent scientific and technological advances have created exciting opportunities for such improvements. However, the book also identifies crucial scientific, ethical, and cultural challenges to be met if social-behavioral modeling is to achieve its potential. Doing so will require new methods, data sources, and technology. The volume discusses these, including those needed to achieve and maintain high standards of ethics and privacy. The result should be a new generation of modeling that will advance science and, separately, aid decision-making on major social and security-related subjects despite the myriad uncertainties and complexities of social phenomena. Intended to be relatively comprehensive in scope, the volume balances theory-driven, data-driven, and hybrid approaches. The latter may be rapidly iterative, as when artificial-intelligence methods are coupled with theory-driven insights to build models that are sound, comprehensible and usable in new situations. With the intent of being a milestone document that sketches a research agenda for the next decade, the volume draws on the wisdom, ideas and suggestions of many noted researchers who draw in turn from anthropology, communications, complexity science, computer science, defense planning, economics, engineering, health systems, medicine, neuroscience, physics, political science, psychology, public policy and sociology. In brief, the volume discusses: Cutting-edge challenges and opportunities in modeling for social and behavioral science Special requirements for achieving high standards of privacy and ethics New approaches for developing theory while exploiting both empirical and computational data Issues of reproducibility, communication, explanation, and validation Special requirements for models intended to inform decision making about complex social systems

Book Case Studies in System of Systems  Enterprise Systems  and Complex Systems Engineering

Download or read book Case Studies in System of Systems Enterprise Systems and Complex Systems Engineering written by Alex Gorod and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 799 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suitable as a reference for industry practitioners and as a textbook for classroom use, Case Studies in System of Systems, Enterprise Systems, and Complex Systems Engineering provides a clear understanding of the principles and practice of system of systems engineering (SoSE), enterprise systems engineering (ESE), and complex systems engineering (C

Book Modeling and Simulation Based Systems Engineering Handbook

Download or read book Modeling and Simulation Based Systems Engineering Handbook written by Daniele Gianni and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The capability modeling and simulation (M&S) supplies for managing systems complexity and investigating systems behaviors has made it a central activity in the development of new and existing systems. However, a handbook that provides established M&S practices has not been available. Until now. Modeling and Simulation-Based Systems Engineering Handbook details the M&S practices for supporting systems engineering in diverse domains. It discusses how you can identify systems engineering needs and adapt these practices to suit specific application domains, thus avoiding redefining practices from scratch. Although M&S practices are used and embedded within individual disciplines, they are often developed in isolation. However, they address recurring problems common to all disciplines. The editors of this book tackled the challenge by recruiting key representatives from several communities, harmonizing the different perspectives derived from individual backgrounds, and lining them up with the book’s vision. The result is a collection of M&S systems engineering examples that offer an initial means for cross-domain capitalization of the knowledge, methodologies, and technologies developed in several communities. These examples provide the pros and cons of the methods and techniques available, lessons learned, and pitfalls to avoid. As our society moves further in the information era, knowledge and M&S capabilities become key enablers for the engineering of complex systems and systems of systems. Therefore, knowledge and M&S methodologies and technologies become valuable output in an engineering activity, and their cross-domain capitalization is key to further advance the future practices in systems engineering. This book collates information across disciplines to provide you with the tools to more efficiently design and manage complex systems that achieve their goals.

Book Modeling and Managing Interdependent Complex Systems of Systems

Download or read book Modeling and Managing Interdependent Complex Systems of Systems written by Yacov Y. Haimes and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to the theory, methodology, and development for modeling systems of systems Modeling and Managing Interdependent Complex Systems of Systems examines the complexity of, and the risk to, emergent interconnected and interdependent complex systems of systems in the natural and the constructed environment, and in its critical infrastructures. For systems modelers, this book focuses on what constitutes complexity and how to understand, model and manage it.Previous modeling methods for complex systems of systems were aimed at developing theory and methodologies for uncoupling the interdependencies and interconnections that characterize them. In this book, the author extends the above by utilizing public- and private- sector case studies; identifies, explores, and exploits the core of interdependencies; and seeks to understand their essence via the states of the system, and their dominant contributions to the complexity of systems of systems. The book proposes a reevaluation of fundamental and practical systems engineering and risk analysis concepts on complex systems of systems developed over the past 40 years. This important resource: Updates and streamlines systems engineering theory, methodology, and practice as applied to complex systems of systems Introduces modeling methodology inspired by philosophical and conceptual thinking from the arts and sciences Models the complexity of emergent interdependent and interconnected complex systems of systems by analyzing their shared states, decisions, resources, and decisionmakers Written for systems engineers, industrial engineers, managers, planners, academics and other professionals in engineering systems and the environment,this text is the resource for understanding the fundamental principles of modeling and managing complex systems of systems, and the risk thereto.

Book Bigger Pictures for Innovation

Download or read book Bigger Pictures for Innovation written by William B. Rouse and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book comprises a set of stories about being an engineer for many decades and the lessons the author learned from research and practice. These lessons focus on people and organizations, often enabled by technology. The settings range from airplanes, power plants, and communication networks to ecosystems that enable education, healthcare, and transportation. All of these settings are laced with behavioral and social phenomena that need to be understood and influenced. The author’s work in these domains has often led to the question: "Well, why does it work like that?" He invariably sought to understand the bigger picture to find the sources of requirements, constraints, norms, and values. He wanted to understand what could be changed, albeit often with much effort to overcome resistance. He found that higher levels of an ecosystem often provide the resources and dictate the constraints imposed on lower levels. These prescriptions are not just commands. They also reflect values and cultural norms. Thus, the answers to the question were not just technical and economic. Often, the answers reflected eons of social and political priorities. The endeavors related in the book frequently involved addressing emerging realities rather than just the status quo. This book is an ongoing discovery of these bigger pictures. The stories and the lessons related in this book provide useful perspectives on change. The understanding of people and organizations that emerges from these lessons can help to enable transformative change. Fundamental change is an intensely human-centric endeavor, not just for the people and organizations aspiring to change, but also for the people helping them. You will meet many of these people in this book as the stories unfold. The genesis of this book originated in a decision made early in the author’s career. He had developed a habit of asking at the end of each day, "What did I really accomplish today?" This was sometimes frustrating as he was not sure the day had yielded any significant accomplishments. One day it dawned on him that this was the wrong question – He needed to ask, "What did I learn today?" It is always possible to learn, most recently about public health and climate change. In planning this book, the author first thought in terms of accomplishments such as projects conducted, systems built, and articles and books published. He could not imagine this being interesting to readers. Then, it struck him – It is much more interesting to report on what he learned about people and organizations, including how he helped them accomplish their goals. This is a book of stories about how these lessons emerged. In planning this book, the author first thought in terms of accomplishments such as projects conducted, systems built, and articles and books published. He could not imagine this being interesting to readers. Then, it struck him – It is much more interesting to report on what he learned about people and organizations, including how he helped them accomplish their goals. This is a book of stories about how these lessons emerged.