author : Peter B. Checkland

The straightforward transfer of SE to the broader situations of management was not possible, but by insisting on a combination of systems thinking strongly linked to real-world practice Checkland and his collaborators developed an alternative approach – Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) – which enables managers of all kinds and at any level to deal with the subtleties and confusions of the situations they face.

This work established the now accepted distinction between ‘hard’ systems thinking, in which parts of the world are taken to be ‘systems’ which can be ‘engineered’, and ‘soft’ systems thinking in which the focus is on making sure the process of inquiry into real-world complexity is itself a system for learning.

Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981) and Soft Systems Methodology in Action (1990) together with an earlier paper Towards a Systems-based Methodology for Real-World Problem Solving (1972) have long been recognized as classics in the field. Now Peter Checkland has looked back over the three decades of SSM development, brought the account of it up to date, and reflected on the whole evolutionary process which has produced a mature SSM.

SSM: A 30-Year Retrospective, here included with Systems Thinking, Systems Practice closes a chapter on what is undoubtedly the most significant single research programme on the use of systems ideas in problem solving.

The straightforward transfer of SE to the broader situations of management was not possible, but by insisting on a combination of systems thinking strongly linked to real-world practice Checkland and his collaborators developed an alternative approach – Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) – which enables managers of all kinds and at any level to deal with the subtleties and confusions of the situations they face.

This work established the now accepted distinction between ‘hard’ systems thinking, in which parts of the world are taken to be ‘systems’ which can be ‘engineered’, and ‘soft’ systems thinking in which the focus is on making sure the process of inquiry into real-world complexity is itself a system for learning.

Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981) and Soft Systems Methodology in Action (1990) together with an earlier paper Towards a Systems-based Methodology for Real-World Problem Solving (1972) have long been recognized as classics in the field. Now Peter Checkland has looked back over the three decades of SSM development, brought the account of it up to date, and reflected on the whole evolutionary process which has produced a mature SSM.

SSM: A 30-Year Retrospective, here included with Soft Systems Methodology in Action closes a chapter on what is undoubtedly the most significant single research programme on the use of systems ideas in problem solving.

Conventional theory bears little relation to the experience most people have with computer-based systems in organizations. Based on real-world experiences in both the private and public sectors, this book from Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell tackles the subject afresh. Information, Systems and Information Systems provides a practice-based approach to the thinking needed to underpin provision of information support in organizations. Starting from fundamentals, the book develops a coherent account of the field.

The book is thus a work of conceptual cleansing. It presents a well-argued and tested account of IS and IT which is both holistic and coherent. The sense-making models which emerge can encompass any particular assumptions about the nature of organizational reality and management, whether ‘hard’ functionalist or ‘soft’ interpretive ones, though the authors’ sympathies are with the latter.