British academic Peter Checkland is the developer of soft-systems methodology (SSM) in the field of systems thinking. Systems thinking involves the use of various techniques to study systems of many kinds. ...
Peter Checkland was Professor of Systems at the University of Lancaster, prior to this he worked in industry for 15 Years. He is the author of two books on the Soft Systems Methodology.
Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981) Wiley Soft Systems in Action (1990) Wiley (with Jim Scholes)
Soft Systems Methodology emerged from the failure of the application of systems engineering in Management. Soft Systems is a branch of the systems thinking Systems engineering (or systems design engineering) as a field originated around the time of World War II. Large or highly complex engineering projects, such as the development of a new airliner or warship, are often decomposed into stages and managed throughout the entire life of the product or system. ... Systems thinking involves the use of various techniques to study systems of many kinds. ...
PeterCheckland acknowledges his affinity with the work on the philosophy of social science done by theorists such as the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey and the sociologist Peter Winch, but most of all the influence of Vickers and von Bertalanffy.
Checkland has claimed that cybernetics and mainstream systems analysis should be considered special cases of systems thought, useful where there is already agreement about what is to be done.
Peter Nielsen's 1990 Lancaster dissertation addressed the choice of methodologies appropriate to different situations, and concentrated upon SSM, which he viewed as a species of action research, in a "dynamic and situational approach" to individual and project-level problems.
Checkland is the founding father of soft systems methodology, and this book, along with his Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981) established both the field and his continuing reputation.
PeterCheckland acknowledges his affinity with the work on the philosophy of social science done by theorists such as the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey and the sociologist Peter Winch, but most of all the influence of Vickers and von Bertalanffy.
In classical SSM, (Checkland, 1981), as well as in the "developed form" of the methodology outlined recently (Checkland and Scholes, 1990), this CATWOE schema is used to construct "root definitions" of organizations, which identify all the principal participants and describe both the outcomes of activities and the belief-systems under which participants operate.
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