This paper addresses a gap in the System Dynamics literature, concerning the role of participants' goals and preferences in Group Model Building interventions. More specifically the paper discusses the role of changes in individual preference structures and the possibility to detect such changes with the use of traditional judgment modelling techniques. A review of the literature suggests that the importance of individual preferences has already been discussed in SD, and that their relevance is even higher to the Group Model Building setting where consensus and shared understanding of a problem situation is a key deliverable. The main proposition is that eliciting and structuring individual preferences from participants in the beginning and the end of the intervention can: (1) inform us about possible interpersonal conflicts on a value level, and (2) help us capture the effect of the intervention on individual preference structures. Several alternative methodologies for structuring objectives and measuring preferences are discussed and a suggestion is made that SMARTER and MACBETH seem to be most applicable in a Group Model Building intervention. This author emphasizes on the fact that this is a purely theoretical inquiry into the subject and suggests that a follow-up case study should be made.
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