SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY (SSM)

Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for Organisational Problem Solving



Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for Organisational Problem Solving

Introduction

Soft systems methodology presents a structure for structuring, investigating, and explaining difficulties in systems that engage people. It incorporates ordered, heritage, and political investigates of a difficulty position in alignment to envisage, talk about, and then apply activities to advance the position, with the agreement of the participants (Wilson, 2002). Soft systems methodology is utilised mainly by managers and advisors employed on mechanical or organizational problems; it has verified especially helpful in the Information Technology/Information Systems sector.

Peter Checkland evolved soft systems methodology because classic systems technology and systems investigation (hard systems methodologies), which work excellently in numerous technology positions, often let down in administration situations. Hard systems methodologies are well-suited for conceived systems where the task of the analyst is to find the most effective entails of coming to a well-defined aim, but they will not deal with the heritage and communal proportions in what Checkland periods human undertaking systems, which are systems that encompass human self-consciousness and flexibility of choice. One of the characteristics of human undertaking systems is the broad variety and significance of world-views, or Weltanschauungen, held by the participants in the scheme, and the consequent need of apparently characterised or acquiesced goals inside such a system. Soft systems methodology is conceived to deal with human undertaking systems where "in the complexity of human activities the unequivocal pursuit of objectives which can be taken as granted is very much the occasional exceptional case" (Andrews and Kacmar, 2001).

Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for Organisational Problem Solving

Soft systems methodology (SSM) has been evolved at Lancaster University over the last 25 years, through activity research. Professor Peter Checkland is the best renowned constituent of the group in the Department of Systems and Information Management engaged in this development. Other constituents of the group encompass Dr Brian Wilson, Professor Gwilym Jenkins and Dr David Rippin, all of who have their backgrounds in “hard” areas, for example engineering. The methodology has evolved mostly as a outcome of consultancy work. As more know-how was profited considering with distinct kinds of difficulty positions, the discovering was analysed and integrated into the methodology (Andrews and Kacmar, 2001). What we have as a outcome is a generic methodology which should be acclimatized to any granted situation.

SSM agreements with difficulty formulation at the strategic level. It partially aspires to structure before unstructured positions, other than to explain well-structured problems. It agreements with “fuzzy” difficulty positions - positions where persons are examined not as passive things, but as hardworking topics, where objectives are unclear or where multiple objectives may exist.

There is a tendency in the direction of engagement by the client(s) in the formulation and investigation of the locality of concern. The days when the analyst or advisor proceeds away with a apparently characterised difficulty and turns up with a pre-prepared answer are long gone. Now, associations seem the require not only to be engaged with the formulation and investigation of the ...