Peter Checkland

Information, Systems and Information Systems: Making Sense of the Field

From the Publisher: This book makes sense of the large, sprawling, confusing field of information systems (IS) and helps readers distinguish between information systems and information technology (IT). Based on author Peter Checklands years of experience working with top international companies, this book explores the concept of IS as well as its practice in the real world.

Soft systems methodology: a thirty year retrospective

Although the history of thought reveals a number of holistic thinkers — Aristotle, Marx, Husserl among them— it was only in the 1950s that any version of holistic thinking became institutionalized. The kind of holistic thinking which then came to the fore, and was the concern of a newly created organization, was that which makes explicit use of the concept of ‘system’, and today it is ‘systems thinking’ in its various forms which would be taken to be the very paradigm of thinking holistically. In 1954, as recounted in Chapter 3 of Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, only one kind of systems thinking was on the table: the development of a mathematically expressed general theory of systems. It was supposed that this would provide a meta-level language and theory in which the problems of many different disciplines could be expressed and solved; and it was hoped that doing this would help to promote the unity of science. These were the aspirations of the pioneers, but looking back from 1999we can see that the project has not succeeded. The literature contains very little of the kind of outcomes anticipated by the founders of the Society for General Systems Research; and scholars in the many subject areas towhich a holistic approach is relevant have been understandably reluctant to see their pet subject as simply one more example of some broader ‘general system’!

Soft Systems Methodology

Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an approach for tackling problematical, messy situations of all kinds. It is an action-oriented process of inquiry into problematic situations in which users learn their way from finding out about the situation, to taking action to improve it. The learning emerges via an organised process in which the situation is explored using a set of models of purposeful action (each built to encapsulate a single worldview) as intellectual devices, or tools, to inform and structure discussion about a situation and how it might be improved. This paper, written by the original developer Peter Checkland and practitioner John Poulter, gives a clear and concise account of the approach that covers SSM’s specific techniques, the learning cycle process of the methodology and the craft skills which practitioners develop. This concise but theoretically robust account nevertheless includes the fundamental concepts, techniques, core tenets described through a wide range of settings.

Action research: its nature and validity

The process of knowledge acquisition which has the strongest truth claim is the research process of natural science, based on testing hypotheses to destruction. But the application of this process to phenomena beyond those for which it was developed, namely, the natural regularities of the physical universe, is problematical. For research into social phenomena there is increasing interest in “action research” in various forms. In this process the researcher enters a real-world situation and aims both to improve it and to acquire knowledge. This paper reviews the nature and validity of action research, arguing that its claim to validity requires a recoverable research process based upon a prior declaration of the epistemology in terms of which findings which count as knowledge will be expressed.

Systems Theory and Management Thinking

Two inquiring systems developed since the 1960s—Vickerss concept of the appreciative system and the soft systems methodology, are highly relevant to the problems of the 21st century. Both assume that organizations are more than rational goal-seeking machines and address the relationship-maintaining and Gemeinschaft aspects of organizations, characteristically obscured by functionalist and goal-seeking models of organization and management. Appreciative systems theory and soft systems methodology enrich rather than replace these approaches.

Process and content: two ways of using SSM

Soft systems methodology (SSM) includes several ways of gaining a rich appreciation of the problem situation addressed. ‘Analysis One’, exploration of the intervention itself, is the subject here, since it is sparsely covered in the literature. The analysis is conducted in terms of three roles: ‘client’, ‘problem solver’ and ‘problem owner’. Whoever is in the role of ‘problem solver’ is free to define a list of possible ‘problem owners’, which brings many perspectives to bear on the situation. It was realized that ‘client’ and ‘problem solver’ should themselves feature in the ‘problem owner’ list. The ‘problem’ owned by the ‘problem solver’ is that of undertaking the intervention. This led to a realization that SSM is relevant to both the content of a perceived situation (SSMc) and the process of dealing with that content (SSMp). This development is described and illustrated by work in the National Health Service. The focus of the SSM use was to define the intellectual process for a service specification project which NHS professionals would themselves carry out.

Reflecting on SSM: The Link Between Root Definitions and Conceptual Models

In a previous paper the authors argued that the line dividing the ‘real world’ from the ‘systems thinking world’ in Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) should be disregarded lest it be taken to indicate a false dualism. One of the supporting reasons for the elimination of this line was the problem that arose in practice concerning the link between root definitions and conceptual models, constantly encountered during the 25 years in which SSM has been used and developed. The relationship between root definitions and conceptual models was taken to be based only on an instrumental ‘logic’. Here it is argued that root definitions define and induce dispositions. The dispositions root definitions define are expressed in terms of conceptual models, while the dispositions they induce are the source of the effects they have on the problem-solving practice. In this way, the sole dependency on instrumental logic as the link between the two is loosened, allowing different forms of relationship between the two to emerge, including ones linked more closely to the evolving content of a systems study.

Science and the Systems Paradigm

We live in a largely artificial world, one made by man as a result of the most powerful activity man has discovered: the activity of science. The intellectual and practical adventure which began in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th Centuries with Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, has made our world. Only 100 years ago there was little doubt that the application of science, leading to the creation of wealth and the elimination of much disease had shown the way to a happier future. Today, noting the manifest inability of the most scientifically advanced countries to solve the problems of the real world (as opposed to the self-defined, artificial problems of the laboratory) we wonder whether the fragmentation of science into its many separate disciplines is not a significant weakness.

Information management and organizational processes: an approach through soft systems methodology

Abstract. This paper explores an approach to understanding information provision in organizations which is built around soft systems methodology (SSM). It also, from recent research in both industry and the National Health Service, derives a sense‐making framework for work of this kind. A view of the fundamental nature of information systems is presented. This is compatible with SSM, and uses of SSM in information‐focused studies are illustrated. These cover the rethinking of the Manufacturing Function in the Shell Group and a number of studies in the NHS concerned with the information implications of current changes. Out of this work, in order to make sense of disparate experiences, a framework is derived which captures three necessary domains (conceptual, organizational, technological) whose interaction defines an organizations response to its information provision.

Reflecting on SSM: The dividing line between ‘real world’ and ‘systems thinking world’

Soft systems methodology (SSM) has been used and developed over a quarter of a century. This is an appropriate time for appraisal, and this is the first in a series of articles which will make such an appraisal of the approach. After investigating the kind of knowledge articulated in an SSM study in terms of the categories ‘knowing-how’, ‘knowing-that’, but also ‘knowing-from-within’, the explicit or implicit ‘dividing line’ in the various representations of the methodology are re-examined. This line, in the original representation of the methodology, separated the real world of the problem situation ‘above the line’ and the consciously-organized systems thinking world ‘below the line’. It is argued that this divide, initially helpful in drawing attention to the conscious use of systems thinking to explore real-world complexity, can be taken to indicate a false dualism; it is necessary to move beyond it if we are to make sense of contemporary sophisticated uses of SSM.