Soft Systems Methodology: Conceptual Model Building and Its Contribution

Since its inception more than thirty years ago, the benefits of using Soft Systems Methodology for problem solving has gained worldwide recognition. Yet, despite recognising the importance of SSM, students and practitioners still experience considerable difficulty with the intellectual process involved.

Based on a lifetime experience as an academic and consultant, Brian Wilson provides guidance on how to develop a range of conceptual models across a variety of business problems. Building on his earlier work in Systems: Concepts, Methodologies and Applications he takes a practical approach to the topic based on the premise that all organisations are unique. He develops concepts to articulate ways of thinking about complexity. These are an alternative to mathematically-based concepts, and they offer rigorous, and defensible ways of answering the question 'What do we take the organisation to be?' A model of the most appropriate and relevant concept for your own organisation can then be successfully developed and applied.

Of relevance to organisations of any type, or any size, this book shows how model building within SSM can be used to cope with real-life problems. It will be an invaluable resource for students and practitioners in both the public and private sectors.

 

BRIAN WILSON has a background in nuclear power engineering and control system design. In 1966 he became a founding member of the Department of Systems Engineering at the University of Lancaster, where he pursued the application of control principles to management problem solving.

There he was involved in the development and use of Human Activity Systems and 'verbs in the imperative' in place of mathematics as the modelling language for the intellectual processes involved and maintained particular interest in the application of SSM to information and organisation-based analysis. This research was published in Systems: Concepts, methodologies and Applications by John Wiley Sons.

In 1992 he founded his own consulting company, Brian Wilson Associates, where he continues to develop and apply his unique brand of Soft Systems Methodology.