Richard Adler rejoins us on March 8th to revisit Bending the Law of Unintended Consequences: More Decision Support Models.

We witness the unintended consequences of critical decisions all around us, like Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and the disastrous war in Gaza. My presentation for the Wilson Science and Technology group last year described a “test drive” method for improving critical policy and business decisions. Much like consumers try out cars before buying one, decision test drives help organizations explore the possible outcomes of decision options before committing to one alternative. This method helps leaders improve anticipation of the future and thereby avoid unintended outcomes. My follow-on talk will revisit the test drive method in more detail. I’ll present a rationale for our method by explaining how it improves upon existing decision support techniques. I’ll also describe our hybrid simulation approach, which improves realism in modeling the complex situational dynamics that shape decision outcomes. Finally, I’ll present a business example to illustrate these concepts. This test drive case study improves decisions about competitive marketing strategy in the pharmaceutical industry.

Rich Adler is a software architect, management consultant, and start-up executive. He spent most of his career building software tools and applications to improve business operations and critical decision-making. Richard worked for Control Data, MITRE, Computer Sciences Corporation, and three software start-up companies. Early in his career, Richard built AI programs, including one that automated operations support for the Launch Processing System for NASA’s Space Shuttle Fleet. As the founder of DecisionPath, he developed solutions to improve strategic decisions such as competitive marketing, counterterrorism, and organizational change, as described in his recent book Bending the Law of Unintended Consequences. Richard has published and spoken on topics including intelligent and distributed systems, simulation, homeland security, and knowledge management. Richard holds a BS degree in Physics and Philosophy (University of Michigan), an MS in Physics (University of Illinois at Urbana) and a PhD in Philosophy of Physics (University of Minnesota).