Draft

Checkland: a flux of interactibg events and ideas.

Source: A broad concept of ‘managing’ (Checkland and Casar, 1986) cited in Checkland 1989).
Methods
C.A.T.D.O.G(Z)
Zeitgeist
Author

F. Patel

Published

2025-04-15

Why SSM

Soft systems thinking (SST) approaches are the natural consequences of failures in hard systems engineering.1 Notably, SST relies on more than critical thinking. Linear analysis methods cannot yield outcomes that need strategic creative aspects, suggesting that we must draw upon tools from other domains (or multiple schools of thought).

The Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is named to distinguish itself from preceding approaches to systems engineering, consequently coined as Hard Systems Thinking (ST). As a [knowledge] domain agnostic approach, it applies to any management scenario, with “an ever-changing flux of interacting events and ideas. The world immerses all of us in such a flux. ‘Managing’ means reacting to that flux: perceiving and evaluating [action]”.2

A broad concept of 'managing' (Checkland and Casar, 1986) cited in Checkland 1989.
Figure 1: Source: A broad concept of managing (Checkland and Casar, 1986) cited in Checkland 1989.”

SSM is a learning system, ensuring adaptability to diverse management contexts.3

Footnotes

  1. (Checkland, 1989)↩︎

  2. (Checkland, 1989)↩︎

  3. (Checkland, 1989)↩︎