Soft systems methodology
problem-solving method
Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an organised way of thinking applicable to problematic social situations and in the management of change by using action. It was developed in England by academics at the Lancaster Systems Department on the basis of a ten-year action research programme.
Overview
The Soft Systems Methodology was developed primarily by Peter Checkland, through 10 years of research with his colleagues, such as Brian Wilson. The method was derived from numerous earlier systems engineering processes, primarily because traditional 'hard' systems thinking was not able to account for larger organisational issues with many complex relationships. SSM has a primary use in the analysis of these complex situations, where there are divergent views about the definition of the problem.
These complex situations are known as "soft problems". They are usually real world problems where the goals and purposes of the problem are problematic themselves. Examples of soft problems include: How to improve the delivery of health services? and How to manage homelessness with young people? Soft approaches take as tacit that people's view of the world will change all the time and their preferences of it will also change.
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This entry incorporates text from “Soft systems methodology” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.