Soft Systems Methodology Approach Research Articles

Road freight information systems: a soft system methodology approach

Soft system methodology (SSM) is appropriate for studying complex systems such as human activity systems. Although the road freight information systems (RFIS) typically involve a large number of users, they are, in many cases, inefficient. Using SSM, the present paper studies the RFIS of a selected case study, delineates its disadvantages, and finally addresses its shortcomings through designing a new information system. The proposed system has the quality of bringing a lot of commercial and non-commercial benefits to the users by changing the form of communication among involved entities.

Student, Curricular and Public Agency Needs: A Focus on Competency Achievement

This paper presents a framework that addresses a public child welfare agency’s need for a highly trained child welfare workforce with specialized competencies, situating these competencies within the human services educational profession’s accreditation standards, while simultaneously meeting the learning needs of professionals returning to school for additional graduate training. The framework integrates three disparate literatures. The first that frames employees returning to a university setting for additional education and training as a human resources benefit. The second body of literature that addresses the annual review of employee performance via employment assessment systems. And the final body that examines parallel organizational processes related to the development of a product, in our case, a professional with a graduate degree. The framework, developed using a soft system methodology approach, and evaluated by means of an electronic portfolio, integrates these three bodies of literature and allows for the real time curricular and agency assessment of competency achievement. While using a professional graduate training program as an exemplar, implications for broader systemic practice are discussed.

Application of Soft Operations Research for Enhancing the Servicescape as a Facilitator

Servicescape provides a visual metaphor for an organization's total offering. It can also act as a facilitator by either adding or hindering the abilities of employees and customers in performing their activities. Repatronage of the service provider is assumed to be dependent on consumers' level of satisfaction with the service rendered. This paper discusses the use of Soft Operations Research in dealing with the issues of designing, improving, and managing the Servicescape for organizations delivering high contact services like shopping malls. Cross-functional co-operation in planning and management of Servicescape is of paramount importance because of participation of many actors having different perceptions, conflicting interests, etc. So, analytical approaches to decision-making must take into account the human dimensions like wider consultation with different stakeholders. This emerging trend in business strategy research is reflected in the growing application of Soft OR because it applies models to help group decision-making. A selective mixing of two Soft OR methodologies — Soft System Methodology and Strategic Choice Approach — has been applied for enhancing the Servicescape as a facilitator. This mixing can enhance and enrich the process of decision-making because each methodology can adequately emphasize only a particular aspect of the problem. Root definition and CATWOE (from SSM) are used for understanding and defining the business (Servicescape) model while uncertainty space and commitment package (from SCA) are used for handling risk and uncertainty inherent in it. AHP has been used to prioritize the major dimensions of the Servicescape, which gives general interiors as the most important dimension, followed by social dimension, internal display facilities, and then exterior facilities. While comparing the conceptual model with the real world, AHP indicated intangibility element and capital cost as the major concerns. Further, AHP prioritized various uncertainty areas in the process of development and management of Servicescape, with uncertainty about working environment as the most important problematic area. To reduce it, technical response has been used in the form of research investigation and analytical analysis (using optimization tools). Finally, a conceptual model for the project was developed after a number of detailed and structured discussion rounds, using the participative bottom-up Soft OR modeling process. Traditional OR tools were also deployed to decide upon three desirable and culturally feasible decision packages. These were compared using DEA with respect to their relative performance efficiencies and finally the most efficient decision package (commitment package) was decided upon. Throughout the action-research process, the emphasis has been on group decision-making, consensus building, and extracting cognitive commitment for the process of change. Thus, wider consultation and channelizing the discussion towards a common goal using Soft OR techniques may significantly contribute towards the success of developing and managing the service environment of shopping malls.

Is Initiatives in the Vocational and Technical Education Sector of Developing Asian Countries: A Systems Approach to the Management of Project Intervention Processes

AbstractThis paper is set against a background of national IS initiatives implemented in the Vocational and Technical Education (VTE) sectors of developing Asian countries through donor agency funded projects, which can be seen as Project Intervention Processes (PIPs). This research is based on a six year research study of IS initiatives implemented in nine VTE sector projects covering Laos, Sri Lanka and Vietnam undertaken through empirical investigations and a review of secondary data. The IS initiatives that were studied focussed on aiding strategy formulation and management in the VTE sector as opposed to classroom based training. The research reveals that the process of managing PIPs using traditional project management theory, which is based on hard approaches, is problematic in terms of generating desirable outcomes from the IS initiatives to address perceived VTE problems. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is based on a learning/enquiring cycle and is often used to manage problem situations that are poorly structured. The paper presents two key findings: namely the nature, scope and problems faced by PIP based IS initiatives; and a SSM approach to managing PIP based IS initiatives.

Unpacking developmental local government using Soft Systems Methodology and MCDA tools

This paper presents two different analytical approaches that may be useful in developing an understanding of developmental local government (DLG). DLG implies a significant commitment with respect to poverty relief at the local administrative level as well as strong emphasis on participation and accountability to communities1. This paper attempts to apply Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to clarify the activities that DLG implies for local authorities and focuses specifically on their ability to be developmental and to effectively impact upon poverty. An expected product of this approach will be the identification of specific indicators of (inter alia) poverty that may be used to monitor the effectiveness of local government from a constitutional and developmental perspective. Indicators may also be generated from the perspective of community needs and this paper reports on a case study which identifies the needs of a small community, Pniel, in the South African Western Cape, using a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis approach. This approach allows for both the identification and prioritisation of issues from the perspective of the community. Further, it is suggested that the SSM approach can be used to provide a context within which community needs may be considered. This framework clarifies what it is that local government have the aims, powers and functions to perform. Viewing the community needs within this framework provides a mechanism for realistically linking the community needs to the local authority’s budget. A process of ongoing monitoring and evaluation of DLG, using the two sets of indicators, can assist to focus the functioning of local government on effective poverty relief.

Using Soft Systems Methodology for Performance Improvement and Organisational Change in the English National Health Service

The Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) advocated by Checkland and Scholes (1990) has considerable potential. It can provide policy makers, professionals, and managers in complex health organisations with a valuable addition to management approaches leading to practical improvements through innovative organisational change. With reference to the English National Health Service (NHS), this author argues that SSM can enable managers and others to address problem situations holistically, identify critical issues, and reach an accommodation of different viewpoints as a basis for improvement. The SSM approach can usefully compliment strategic frameworks, such as the Balanced Scorecard, in achieving clarity of thinking about performance and change issues'.

Using SSM to rethink the analysis of energy efficiency initiatives

This paper reflects an attempt to rethink the process of analysis of energy efficiency initiatives using soft systems methodology (SSM) as a problem structuring tool. The aim of the work is to provide public and private initiative promoters or evaluators with a structured support for a more informed decision regarding the implementation of energy efficiency measures. The SSM approach contributed with the identification of all market players and their relations, as well as the insight into the deficiencies of current methodologies. Some future work directions are also proposed.

A soft-systems methodology approach for product and process innovation

Soft-systems methodology (SSM) has been recommended as a tool for scientifically evaluating complex environments. One such environment is the development of organizational processes and products delivered by organizations. This paper proposes a methodology for organizational product and process innovation based on SSM theory incorporating quality function deployment (QFD) and IDEF0 (integrated definition functional modelling tool) techniques. The methodology relies on a series of phases that elicit information from complex and amorphous real-world practices, processes, and information, and develops models of these systems. The paper illustrates the utility of the methodology and tools using a case example: development of an organizational decision support system used to justify strategically important technologies for the enterprise.

A Paradigmatic Analysis Contrasting Information Systems Development Approaches and Methodologies

This paper analyses the fundamental philosophical assumptions of five “contrasting” information systems development (ISD) approaches: the interactionist approach, the speech act-based approach, the soft systems methodology approach, the trade unionist approach, and the professional work practice approach. These five approaches are selected for analysis because they illustrate alternative philosophical assumptions from the dominant “orthodoxy” identified in the research literature. The paper also proposes a distinction between “approach” and “methodology.” The analysis of the five approaches is organized around four basic questions: What is the assumed nature of an information system (ontology)? What is human knowledge and how can it be obtained (epistemology)? What are the preferred research methods for continuing the improvement of each approach (research methodology)? and what are the implied values of information system research (ethics)? Each of these questions is explored from the internal perspective of the particular ISD approach. The paper addresses these questions through a conceptual structure which is based on a paradigmatic framework for analyzing ISD approaches.

Patient-centred performance monitoring systems and multi-agency care provision: a case study using a stakeholder participative approach.

We describe the processes involved in the development of an information system which can assess how care given by a number of agencies could be monitored by those agencies. In particular, it addresses the problem of sharing information as the boundaries of each agency are crossed. It focuses on the care of one specific patient group--the rehabilitation of elderly patients in the community, which provided an ideal multi-agency setting. It also describes: how a stakeholder participative approach to information system development was undertaken, based in part on the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) approach (Checkland, 1981, 1990); some of the difficulties encountered in using such an approach; and the ways in which these were addressed. The paper goes on to describe an assessment tool called SCARS (the Southampton Community Ability Rating Scale). It concludes by reflecting on the management lessons arising from this project. It also observes, inter alia, how stakeholders have a strong preference for simpler, non-IT based systems, and comments on the difficulties encountered by stakeholders in attempting to reconcile their perceptions of the needs of their discipline or specialty with a more patient-centred approach of an integrated system.

Information systems for primary health care: the case of the Aegean islands

The concern of this paper is the creation of an information system for primary health care. The problem environment is characterised by its location – health centres and agrarian surgeries serving small to medium size communities, which make up insular societies on the Aegean islands in Greece. The approach adopted was based on soft systems methodology (SSM) with the aim of obtaining operational models of the problem situation requiring the information system (IS). The SSM approach has proved most efficient in identifying important subsystems within the primary health care system. It also aided in this way the debate about the solutions to the problem of creating an IS in a health centre on the island of Samos.