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Learning For Action: A Short Definitive Account of Soft Systems Methodology, and its use for Practitioners, Teachers and Students, by Pete
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From the father of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), Peter Checkland, comes a new, accessible text which clearly and concisely looks at SSM. The book leaves out all of the development detail and historical/intellectual material which can be found in Checkland’s other classic works, but contains the practical essentials that will allow teachers to teach SSM accurately and students to learn it with real understanding.
Features:
� Short and definitive account of SSM containing the practical essentials.
� Written with great clarity and presented in a reader-friendly way.
� Contains examples of SSM in action.
� Includes cases.
- Sales Rank: #1085071 in Books
- Published on: 2007-04-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.96" h x .51" w x 6.10" l, .72 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 226 pages
Review
"This volume is a concise and definitive account of SSM for all who wish to use, teach or learn about it."Civil Engineering August 2008
From the Back Cover
The approach to tackling messy real-life situations known as Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) was developed in a 30-year programme of action research led by Peter Checkland. The approach is now used and taught around the world, and its development has been described in depth in four books published between 1981 and 1999, which are now regarded as classics in the field.
Peter Checkland and John Poulter now present a concise, crystal-clear and definitive account of SSM written for anyone who wishes to use, teach, or learn about it. This account also corrects the misunderstandings about the SSM approach, which plague its secondary literature.
Learning for Action first provides an overview of SSM and its use, then gives a detailed account of the techniques used within it. It also crisply summarizes many accounts of SSM in action in real situations in both private and public sectors, using the pattern: the situation; the use of SSM; outcomes, with references given to more detailed accounts.
Also covered are the craft skills which practitioners develop, the theory underlying SSM, and the fundamental shift in thinking away from the systems approaches of the 1960s which its development signalled – namely the transition from 'hard' to 'soft' systems thinking.
About the Author
Peter Checkland is the recipient of the 'Most Distinguished and Outstanding Contributor' Award of the British Computer Society Methodologies Group, 1994 Recipient of the Gold Medal of the UK Systems Society for 'Outstanding Contribution to Systems Thinking' and 1997 Recipient of a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship. Now retired from full time university work, Peter Checkland continues his research and writing.
John Poulter is a practitioner of SSM. He first used SSM formally when working with Peter Checkland in the UK's National Health Service in 1993. A founder member of the Soft Systems Research Group, he has presented papers and other publications on the use of SSM.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Five star lifetime achievement award
By Philippe Vandenbroeck
Peter Checkland is pushing 80 and this book may well be a valedictory statement on his life's work: soft systems methodology. For two reasons Checkland would like this to be a definitive account of the approach: first, because the authors are convinced that over the last decades the methodology has sufficiently matured to warrant full and definitive codification, and second, because something needs to stop the annoying profusion of faulty interpretations of SSM in the secondary literature. With this book, Checkland and Poulter are offering a bare bones, practical introduction to the methodology.
The book falls into two parts. The first one is conceptual and explains SSM in three passes (first a 5-page preamble for very busy people, then a skeleton version - about 20 pages long - followed by a more fleshed-out account). The second part is devoted to practical case studies, with one chapter focusing on management situations and another one on problematic situations in the field of information systems. Then there is a section on SSM "misunderstandings and craft skills". The final few pages once more sum up the basic principles behind the approach. Five short appendices contain optional material on the theory, concepts and history.
Soft systems methodology is an enormously useful contribution to the field of systemic problem solving. It combines conceptual rigour with an enormous flexibility in application to real-world problematical situations. In its zen-like purity, simplicity and modesty it is almost aesthetic. The subtlety of SSM is reflected by its vocabulary. In SSM we don't refer to "problems" but to "problematical situations"; we don't talk about "organisations" but about "human activity systems", not about "consensus" but about "accomodation". All these differences are vitally important in steering away from a hard systems approach that objectifies the process of enquiry and the problem under study.
So, SSM may be simple but it certainly isn't simplistic: applying SSM demands a very skilled and centered problem solver or facilitator. With the development of SSM, Checkland was one of the pioneers in creating problem-solving strategies that are more nimble, more adaptive, more local, and more socially robust than the heavy-handed, technical apparatus of erstwhile decision-making experts. Today this ethos of "learning for action" is taken further in the explosive development of action learning approaches worldwide.
I think this short, definitive account is a very welcome addition to the SSM literature and a good reference point for anyone - both beginners and more advanced professionals - wanting to learn more about the approach. However, I have one or two reservations about the book. In their discussion of craft skills, Checkland and Poulter focus on the application of the methodology. In my practical experience there is also a lot of craft skills involved in convincing potential clients to adopt the methodology. Indeed, "SSM" may not be the most helpful label to denote the approach. Many people instinctively shy away from the notion of "systems" - they think it has something to do with computers - or they assume that a "soft" methodology will hardly be capable of dealing with their "hard" problems. So some practical advice about how to build confidence in the approach with people that have not been initiated to it would be helpful.
Another skills issue which is overlooked in this book concerns working across the boundaries of a given organisation. Working with a dispersed set of actors brings its own challenges, such as lacking problem ownership and potentially much more outspoken tensions between interests and worldviews. I would love to have some practical advice on this aspect.
My second reservation concerns a conceptual point that lies at the heart of the methodology. SSM users create an organised process of enquiry and learning by making models of purposeful activity. Ironically, Checkland is very ideological about a non-ideological point, namely that these models should reflect a single, "pure" worldview, not some kind of consensus model everybody assumes to be a part of the real world. SSM-based activity models are conceptual devices to ask good questions about the real-world situation and nothing else. As these models only reflect one way of looking at reality and one is invariably working in the tectonic zone of non-overlapping (and potentially conflicting) worldviews, one usually doesn't stop with developing one single activity model: one builds several models, each of them grafted on a particular worldview. This underlines the relative nature of each of these constructs and expands the basis for asking relevant questions.
However, in practical situations it may not always be so easy or even desirable to go beyond a single model. For example, in dealing with complexity people are prone to premature cognitive lock-in: they cling to the first speck of structure they see emerging from the chaos and are unwilling to go beyond and reaffirm the multiplicity by developing several activity models side by side. As a practitioner you may well be facing a problem solving team that would rather embrace a quasi-consensus than to keep several activity models in suspension. So I sometimes wonder whether the accomodation can also happen at a another point. If, for whatever reason, there is no basis to go beyond a single activity model, is it then possible to build a kind of consensus model in which there is a specific module dedicated to dealing with the tensions between different worldviews? The multiplicity remains, but is absorbed by the model itself. Checkland doesn't entertain this option and I doubt that he has any sympathy for it. (It is, on the other hand, an approach that is defended by Brian Wilson, another very prominent practitioner of the methodology whose contribution to its development is nowhere acknowledged in Checkland's definitive account).
A final, but minor point, is the fact that none of the section headings in the book is numbered. This makes navigating this slim volume unnecessarily complicated.
Despite these few reservations there is no doubt that this book deserves five stars for "lifetime achievement". Thank you, Mr. Checkland.
2 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
No understanding of information systems from the author
By B. J. Dzomba
I don't care how scholarly the authors are, they have no clue about systems methodology and are only focused on creating their own academic version of systems theory. The chapter on information systems is completely bogus, and only someone such as a mediocre history professor would understand and agree with this lame explanation of the subject matter.
If you truly want to understand systems, and especially information systems, don't read this book, unless you just want to pre-read it to make sure it doesn't contain any poison when you throw it to your dog to get chewed up like an old newspaper. Only people who cannot see the forest through the trees, someone who takes pride in bullying others, and is not satisfied with his or her own accomplishments would think this is a book worthy enough to spend time reading, or using in a university classroom.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Practical guide for reducing practical problems.
By Amazon Customer
Peter Checkland's soft system methodology has fascinated me for many years as a practical tool that I might potentially apply to improving problem situations involving people. However, in the past Checkland has always allowed his academic bent and difficult writing style to get in the way of teaching people how to use his potentially valuable tool. I have recently joined a small non-profit organization, Sustainable Silicon Valley, and want to contribute to improving the sustainability of Silicon Valley in particular, and the world in general in a timely manner. Even if most of us agree there is this enormous problem that needs immediate attention, and we're getting to that point, then what practical steps must be take to effectively address it? Just in time for me, this book coauthored by Peter Checkland and John Poulter was published in 2006. It is the first book coauthored by Checkland that lays out the soft system methodology in a relatively well organized, brief and useful way that helps me to apply it in my own planning. It starts with a useful "Ten-Minute Account of Soft Systems Methodology for Very Busy People," and adds detail from there. I would very much like to see people who are already skilled in using the methodology link up with people who are concered about sustainability, and see what we could come up with together by way of action plans and learning about our grave situation. Because of this potential application of soft system methodology, I believe this could be a most valuable book for our and successive generations. Well done, Peter Checkland, and thanks to John Poulter as well.
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