Backward Qualitative Simulation of Structural Model for Strategy Planning

In the process of estimating the effectiveness of plans or policies, it is useful to construct a diagrammatic causal model, named the structural model, that represents causality between several factors in the target organization. We have already proposed a method for qualitative simulation that can predict behaviors of a target system modeled with a structural model for the strategy planning. The effectiveness of a supposed plan is estimated by reviewing a predicted behavior of the target as a simulation result. However, trials of the simulation have to be iterated many times in order to find out a better plan, if the model is large and complex. This paper proposes the backward simulation method that can generate possible initial states of the operable nodes from the desirable behavior of the utility nodes to cope with this problem. Through the comparison with the forward simulation, the efficiency of the method is clarified.