Public Services Information Management 7. Soft Systems Methodology

Public Services Information Management Many computer systems fail to realise their potential… why ? Insufficient systems analysis Not congruent with user expectations Hardware/software incomptabilities

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis

Elements of the Life Cycle Development Model..

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis Soft Systems Analysis (SSM) is particularly associated with the work of Peter Checkland: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice Soft Systems Methodology in Action (with Holwell) Information, Systems and Information Systems

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis

CATWOE components of the root definition CCustomer The client, benficiary or victim of the system AActors The agents who carry out, or cause to be carried out, the activities or the transformations of the system TTransformations The core of the root definition. A process carried out by the system i.e. the changes that take place within/ because of the system (conversion of input  output)

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis WWeltanschaung The (often unquestioned) outlook or taken-for-granted framework which makes this particular root definition a meaningful one OOwnership The owners of the system, control, concern or sponsorship (i.e. to whom answerable) EEnvironment Environmental impositions. Wider systems in which the transformations must operate’

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis Soft systems are used when we are not sure what the problem is i.e. the problem is vague or ill-defined. Many organisational problems come into this category The solutions may or may not involve computers! SSM is often used to help us define the problem.

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis  Systems thinking looks at the emergent properties of the whole – more than the sum of the parts  Systems thinking sets system models (abstract wholes) against the real world in order to learn about it  ‘Hard’ tradition assumes that the world is a system  ‘Soft’ tradition creates the process of enquiry as a system  SSM (Soft systems methodology) makes use of systems models and subsumes the hard approach ( which is a special case of it)

Public Services Information Management 7: Soft Systems Analysis The word ‘system’ can be ambiguous : is it what actually exists in the world out there? a conception that we have in minds of how to model the world out there ? Because of this, Checkland suggests that we use the term holon for the second meaning (and reserve the use of the word system for the first meaning)  SSM uses a particular kind of system which is a human activity system  There is never only one relevant holon but several.

Public Services Information Management comp_ss.doc