Second Annual Science of Laws Institute Conference
November 2015
Claudia Rose
Sea Lions: A case Study in SoS Modelling Support for Law Makers in a Multi-User Conflict: Untangling a "wicked problem"
Growth of the sea lion population in the La Jolla beach area and human use of seafront property is causing conflicts between stakeholder groups that are competing for limited resources. The best solution is not clear, all solutions will have to continuously evolve as users increase, the amount of resources change and the environment causes shifts in use. Current attempts to solve "the problem" create unintended consequences evolving from complex relationships which create a "wicked problem". We propose applying SoS and Enterprise modelling to support better vision of solutions and impacts. This will support the crafting of more rational legal actions to create sustainable balances amongst the stakeholders.
We intend to demonstrate the applicability of this approach using the over population of sea lions in San Diego as a case study. We will create decision support tools through a combination of disciplines and present these to the city council and any others who might benefit from their use to create solutions and to inform all stakeholders of the issues involved and of the anticipated social, economic and legal costs of practical solutions.
David Schrunk, MD
This presentation discusses the classification of the concepts and principles that underlie lawmaking. Both the traditional (present) method of lawmaking and the scientific (proposed) method of lawmaking are explored. The present method of lawmaking has many defects and omissions and it is incapable of creating laws that consistently serve the public interest. To correct the defects of the traditional method of lawmaking, a new science, the science of laws, is being established. The promise of the science of laws is that it will transform lawmaking into a knowledge industry and enable governments to satisfy their public-interest obligations.
Yves Theriault, PhD
Requirements Management Applied to Lawmaking
By Yves Theriault, PhD, PMP, The California Institute for Performance Management
The need for well-performed requirements management is highly documented in both the Project Management literature as well as the Systems Engineering literature—and for good reason! Failure to manage requirements inevitably leads to dissatisfied customers, schedule slips, and costs overruns. These same symptoms are often discussed on nightly news programs when discussing current government programs. Unfortunately, this is not surprising as lawmaking is generally devoid of requirements management.
This paper and presentation will provide an overview on requirements management techniques and discuss how they can be applied to the generation of specific laws as well as to the management of the collection of laws that exist at any point in time. Specific topics include: requirements elicitation, requirements clarification, requirements de-confliction, requirements traceability, configuration control of requirements, and requirements management tools.
Steve Wallis, PhD
Integrative Propositional Analysis: The missing Link for Creating More Effective Laws
Historically, there has not been a way to objectively evaluate laws "on paper" before they are enacted to determine if they would work as expected. Instead, the history of creating and enacting laws has been based on a patchwork approach – marked by conflict between advocacy groups and the creation of a large number of laws each having little value. This problem is common across the social/behavioral sciences. Like laws, the development of models, theories, and policies has not met with great success.
The present paper briefly presents a stream of research for evaluating conceptual systems (including theories, policies, models, and laws) culminating with Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA). IPA has been used to objectively evaluate theories, policies, and proposed laws to predict their potential for successful application. Here, IPA is used to evaluate a bill before Congress as an example for how IPA may be used to objectively evaluate and improve laws before they are implemented. This systems-based approach is a new tool for creating and evaluating laws to identify the potential for unanticipated consequences. Additional directions for research are suggested along with the suggestion that IPA be adopted as an ISO quality standard for the evaluation of laws.
James ter Veen, PhD
Potential Benefits and Challenges of CMMI in Lawmaking
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement model developed by Carnegie Mellon University. The origins of CMMI date back to the late 1980’s where it was initially developed to provide guidance for developing or improving processes relating to software development. The effort has since expanded to serve as a general framework and appraisal tool for any processes aligned to meet business goals (whether or not software is involved). Organizations applying CMMI have been shown to improve performance in categories including cost, schedule, productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. This paper and presentation will examine the potential benefits and challenges associated with implementing CMMI for lawmaking bodies.
Josette Rice
Environmental Laws vs Laws of Nature, Using Enterprise Architecture to Model the Balance of these Systems
Environmental protection laws have become complex and far reaching, impacting every aspect of our lives, sometimes to the extent of great inconvenience and annoyance. Nevertheless, we’ve learned to appreciate them because we’ve experienced remarkable improvements in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the environment we live in. The intent of environmental laws is to protect our natural resources, and for the most part, this has been the outcome. But have we gone too far in some cases? Have some environmental laws gotten so complex they have become conflictive and ineffective? Is there a limit to what we can do to save the planet?
The EA is a structured and scientific approach to tackle complex problems and develop long term solutions. This presentation shows how the EA approach using information modeling can address these issues head-on and manage the problems and conflicts that arise when we are doing our utmost to protect our natural resources and simultaneously achieve a happy balance with everything else.
A powerful case study will illustrate the impacts of environmental laws that are showing signs of having outlived their usefulness and will likely need to change or eventually be overcome by the laws of nature.