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Robert N. Phillips
CEO, Lasotell Pty Ltd.
www.lasotell.com.au
Read
Part One
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Part Two
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Part Three
How often have you been discussing what could be done to
resolve a perceived problem situation when you or someone
else said, "If it were up to me, I would do <this>"? Soft
Systems Methodology (SSM) is about understanding what took
place in the speaker's mind to formulate the <this>. It is
also about determining if the <this> is, in fact, complete,
comprehensive, desirable, and feasible.
In the simplest view, what took place in the speaker's mind
was: formulating a view of the situation, extracting the key
differences between that view and reality, and putting the
most pertinent differences forward as corrective actions.
But have you also noticed that, in all but the simplest
situations (or when the boss is speaking), the speaker's
contribution is generally swallowed up by the tide of events
and life in general? Because SSM brings rigour and coherency
to this overall process, it facilitates selecting and
implementing the most appropriate and commonly agreed upon
activities. These statements must be qualified because a
methodology, in contrast to a method and especially in
contrast to a technique, cannot guarantee or ensure the
outcome. But the logical assertion is that the outcome will
be better for following a rigorous and coherent approach
versus a wandering ant approach.
What I have just said may sound vaguely familiar because SSM
is actually a formal description (and understanding) of the
mental processes we perform, to some degree or other,
whenever we make non-trivial decisions. The value of
understanding, and subsequently internalising, the
methodology is that we gain an independent ruler for
checking the sanity and completeness of the thinking and the
decision?making processes—especially when dealing with a
messy, real-world problem situation. In this article, I
summarise taking an SSM approach, but you will need to read
Peter Checkland's book, Soft Systems Methodology in Action
(Wiley 2003), to be able to work with SSM properly.
The processes for investigating a perceived problem
situation take place on several fronts and can be in any
order. In the first front, you get as many views of the
problem situation as is sensible—usually everyone has a
different internal view of what happens. Of particular
interest is each person's opinion of what works and what
does not. The second front is what SSM calls analysis one,
two, and three. These analyses are not sequential, just
different. Analysis one seeks to identify who is the client
(usually the person(s) who caused the investigation to take
place), who is the problem solver (usually the person(s)
making the investigation), and who are the problem owners.
The latter is an interesting concept, because the problem
solver assigns the problem owners. They are any persons or
entities that have an interest in the outcome of the
investigation. As such, problem owners also have their views
of the situation.
Analysis two is concerned with understanding the social and
cultural aspects of the problem situation. What are the
norms, values, and nature of the social interactions that
take place in the environment of the problem situation and
of the overall situation? Analysis three is concerned with
understanding the politics of the problem situation and, in
particular, the commodities of power (the means by which
power is obtained and expressed). This analysis is
particularly relevant to appreciating that, through the
interplay of the powers involved, the differing interests of
the people will finally be accommodated.
Once all this information starts becoming available, we can
begin to consider what systems, in the everyday sense of
that term, might be useful in terms of elucidating the real
problem(s) within the problem situation. These systems are
defined as a system to do what, by whom, to achieve what
end. These definitions are intended to be high-level (called
root definitions), and they fall into two
categories—primary task and issue based&mdsah;but we will skip
that distinction in this summary. Sometimes, once you
actually try to define several plausible systems in this
way, the scope and perspective of what we thought was the
underlying normal situation starts to change. To help
formulate such systems, you also need to consider the
constituents of the system, summarised as CATWOE—customers,
actors, transformation, worldview, owner, and environment.
The customers are the recipients or victims of the system.
The actors operate the system. The transformation is the
actual change that is applied to the system's input to
transform it into the output. The transformation needs
careful consideration. If the input to the system is not
transformed, then the system has not done any useful work.
Filling in a blank form with data received as an input and
sending the form on its way is an example of a
transformation—the form of the data has changed (and we
hope it has become informative).
The worldview is the overall perspective taken in creating
this system. For example, consider a system for an
independent body to transfer wealth from the rich to the
poor. If the independent body were Robin Hood, the worldview
of that system would be quite different for the Sheriff of
Nottingham, the peasants, and the nobility. Similarly, if
the independent body were the government, the worldview of
the taxpayers, businesses, and the welfare recipients would
also be very different.
The owner has the authority to stop the transformation
process. Typically, the owner is close to the process but
superior to it. The system operates within the
environment—the constraints that are typically treated as
givens for the situation. (One thing SSM teaches you is to
never assume that the givens are unalterable—they require
as much consideration as everything else.)
A root definition is usually supported by what SSM calls
rich pictures—typically, hand drawn because they are quick
sketches of the activities and relationships implied by the
workings of the root definition. They consist of five to
nine clouds (not neat, computer-drawn circles!). The text
describing the activity of each bubble is verbose—clauses
rather than a single, simple phrase (for example, provide,
create, make, receive, appreciate this <thing>, with bullet
lists, and so on).
Once the activities of the root definition have been drawn,
they are enclosed in their own cloud and three external
clouds are added to show the communication and control
components. These are required because, first, we are
drawing holons, so by definition, communication and control
elements must be present, and second, drawing them forces us
to actively consider the monitoring task in more detail. SSM
requires us to consider holons (and any resultant changes)
in terms of at least three, but preferably, five Es: Is the
system at least effective, efficient, and efficacious, and
even better, is it elegant and ethical? The first three Es
assist in determining what to monitor. For example,
effective means that the system works—what parameter(s) can
you use to monitor that the system is actually working?
Efficient means the system is using minimum resources, which
is obviously measurable, and efficacious means that the
transformation is satisfying the long-term goals of the
owner (and those goals will have measurable components). So,
one cloud is the task of determining what to monitor, one
cloud is the monitoring task, and the last cloud is the
control task—to take controlling action when the monitoring
task indicates it is required.
In the final article in this series, I will draw together
all the articles from the "what is in this for me"
perspective.
Reference
Soft
Systems Methodology in Action
Peter Checkland and Jim Scholes
2000, New York, NY
John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471986054
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