...Soft Systems Methodology A report by Dale Couprie Alan Goodbrand Bin Li David Zhu Department of Computer Science University of Calgary Table of Contents. Abstract. Introduction Map Stage 1. Problem situation unstructured. Stage 2. Problem Situation expressed. Rich Pictures Illustration of Stage 1 and Stage 2 as a whole in SSM Pitfalls that must be avoided. Stage 3: Naming of Relevant Systems Root Definitions CATWOE Stage 4: Conceptual Models Systems Thinking Formal Systems Model Monitoring a System Stage 5: Comparing Conceptual Models with Reality Using Conceptual Models as a Base for Ordered Questioning Comparing History with Model Prediction General Overall Comparison Model Overlay Stages 6 and 7. Implementing Feasible and Desirable Changes Case Study - Rethinking a Service Function in the Shell Group Stages 1 and 2 Stage 3: Naming of Relevant Systems Stage 4: Conceptual Models Stage 5: Comparing Conceptual Models with Reality Stages 6 and 7. Implementing Feasible and Desirable Changes Observations and Conclusions Exercise References Figures. Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. Soft Systems Methodology map. Transformation process for producing Rich Picture. The routing of Systems Thinking. Shell's MF Rich Picture. Shell's MF world view of training. Shell's MF training conceptual model. Tables. Table 1. One to one transformations involving different world views. Table 2. Shell's Comparison with reality. Abstract This document deals with...
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... Introduction Operations and Systems SSM Recomandations Management Issues REPORT THAT ANALYSES THE SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AT ATOKOWA ORGANISATION (SUPPLIED) WITH RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THEIR BUSINESS To :Jonothan Atokowa Analysis of Current Systems and Operations Business process mapping is defining exactly what an organisation does, who is in charge to what standard a process will be completes and how successful the business process can be determined. It will help understand the strengths and weaknesses within the existing process and help improve productivity increase efficiency , reduce errors and stimulate sales revenue. Process identification at Atokowa Description of Activity Atokowa retail outlet -Product scanned into Epos system | | Products are totalled | | Payment is taken | | Written in transaction table | | Decremented in stocks table | | Review of daily reorder report | | Delivery request | | (Melbourne )Warehouse,process ofr delivery request | | Purchase of supplies/ products from China | | Purchase of products from Hong Kong | | Table 1 The transactions table in the ASIS MS Access database serves almost the same purpose as the Table stocks, combining the two in to one could make the process faster and easier to understand. The system creates unnecessary work. The Stocks...
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...Introduction 66xxx This report uses management science models as a method of solving management issue in Economic Development Initiatives Ltd, a research and consultancy Company located in High Wycombe. The issue identified within the company will be analysed in terms of models in order to support decision-making from a qualitative perspective. The most appropriate method which can be used to solve the issue in EDI will be subsequently identified in EDI while taking into account its limitations. Finally, the systems implications with relevance to the model used and recommendations made will be discussed. Company background Economic Development Initiatives (EDI) is a globally focussed consultancy, research and training company currently operating in two countries; United Kingdom and Tanzania. The UK company is also actively involved in the development of the mobile survey software ‘Surveybe’ which meets the needs of researchers in all fields while its sister company specialises in data collection for clients. EDI has a niche in the market and works with clients such as the World Bank, Millennium Challenge Corporation and national governments. Currently the UK Company employs 10 people while the Tanzanian company employs over 75 members (Surveybe, 2013). Problematic situation Ragsdale (2008) state that a problem arises when a gap or disparity exists between the present situation and some desired state of affairs. The author also points out to the Key elements of...
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...SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY Soft Systems - Modified December 2005 Bob Williams 1 bobwill@actrix.co.nz The Kellogg Foundation http://users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) was developed by Peter Checkland in the late 60’s at the University of Lancaster in the UK. Originally it was seen as a modelling tool, but in later years it has been seen increasingly as a learning and meaning development tool. Although it develops models, the models are not supposed to represent the “real world”, but by using systems rules and principles allow you to structure your thinking about the real world. The models are neither descriptive or normative, though they may carry elements of both. One of the interesting things about SSM is that it constrains your thinking in order for you to expand your thinking. Thus blowing away the idea that system thinking is always expansive. Like many other systems approaches the heart of SSM is a comparison between the world as it is, and some models of the world as it might be. Out of this comparison arise a better understanding of the world ("research"), and some ideas for improvement ("action"). In classic SSM the researchers begin with a real-world problem (or perhaps “situation” is a better word). They study the situation in a fairly unstructured way. Following this, they develop some models of that situation. The particular strength of SSM for evaluators is that it can be used to untangle the evaluative lessons...
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...4/4/2016 49004 Systems Engineering for Managers Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) - An Introduction Last Lecture 2 We completed our introduction to systems concepts: Definitions Characteristics Significance Feedback 1 4/4/2016 This lecture 3 We will give a brief description of Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM); We will indicate where it is appropriate to use; We will distinguish it from “hard” approaches. 4 Lecture Relevant Reading Checkland P (1993), “The Development of ‘Soft’ Systems Thinking”, Jackson MC (2004), “Soft Systems Methodology”, Optional Reading: Staker RJ (1999), An Application of Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology to the Development of a Military Information Operations Capability for the Australian Defence Force 2 4/4/2016 “Classical” Systems Engineering 5 One way of thinking suggests… engineering begins when a need is established. the engineer’s task then provides a solution ... A “how to” oriented activity the need is expressed in terms of a system with defined objectives If there is a current situation S0 and a future, desired situation S1, then select the best of the available ways of getting from S0 to S1 so that the process becomes one of evaluating alternative solutions using models and criteria However… 6 More often than not, for managers, the problem is ill-defined – or the need is not readily established “What is the issue?” is the relevant question before...
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...Applied Information Technology Soft Systems Methodology in action: A case study at a purchasing department Using SSM to suggest a new way of conducting financial reporting at a purchasing department in the automotive industry OLLE L. BJERKE IT Universtiy of Göteborg Chalmers University of Technology and Universtiy of Gothenburg Göteborg, Sweden 2008 1 Using Soft Systems Methodology at a purchasing department to conduct a study of financial reporting needs Olle L. Bjerke Department of Applied Information Technology IT University of Göteborg Göteborg University and Chalmers University of Technology SUMMARY The aim of this essay has been to try out Soft Systems Methodology on financial reporting at Volvo Cars Corporation (VCC). VCC saw a possible opportunity to improve their reporting processes, and SSM was chosen to deal with this possible problematic situation. Action Research became the natural way of conducting the study since it is almost a mandatory way of conducting SSM. A delimitation was made due to limited resources and only a small part of the purchasing department was involved, namely electrical purchasing. The result of the study is the artifacts from the different SSM steps that points upon how the participants would like the reporting system to be as well as many issues with the current reporting process. These outputs from the method were regarded as successful by both practitioner and participants. In essence the method was considered to be effective...
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...Chapter 1 Information Systems backbone Why is Information systems considered as company’s background? This section of report is focused towards the primary goal of the research i.e. Why is information systems considered as a backbone of any organization. Secondary data is used to prove the primary aim of report. Information systems perform three vital roles in any type of organization: 1. Support business operations 2. Support managerial decision making 3. Support strategic competitive advantage Ref: http://csob.berry.edu/faculty/lleblanc//newpage31.htm How information system is integrated in company Figure taken from Kristin Wischow, Rob Ward, Ryan Odell, David Sjoquist, Rahul Shah() Systems and Information Systems Cited from (http://homepages.wmich.edu/~r4ward/Systems%20and%20Information%20Systems%20Project.htm) On Wall-mart store All medium to large organisations depend on Information technology for their continued survival. Consider organisations like British Gas, British Telecom, the Power and Water companies having to manually calculate, millions of customer bills every month or quarter! Clearly the clerical effort involved would make it difficult if not impossible for the organisation to make a profit. Similar arguments apply to many other organisations such as the high street banks, central and local government. A recent article in the Daily Telegraph IT supplement suggested that many large organisations could last no longer than 24 hours without IT...
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...A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT Amanda J. Gregory Centre for Systems Studies, Business School, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom, A.J.Gregory@hull.ac.uk ABSTRACT Strategic management involves decision-making about an organization's objectives together with the formulation and implementation of plans, particularly regarding the allocation of resources, to support their achievement. As such, strategic management is a dynamic and complex process involving consideration of internal and external factors, and the short and long term. The effectiveness of an organization’s strategic management can critically impact upon its viability and there are many reasons why the stategic management process may fail. Such reasons include failure to: think creatively about the likely affects of plans obtain external/internal participation and commitment co-ordinate and control resources. In this paper it is argued that many of the reasons for failure may be attributed to the successive dominance of different reductionist approaches to strategic management. From a systems perspective it may be argued that such approaches represent partial approaches to strategic management that neglect the complex, embedded and dynamic nature of modern organizations. Accordingly, the reasons why strategic plans fail are taken to provide a framework for the evaluation of the potential contribution of a range of systems methodologies to the strategic management process...
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...having successful project completion. There is a need for a common framework for requirement analysis. Some organizations have their own process but still it is required to create a conceptual model for requirement analysis. As requirement analysis is human centered activity it is considered as Soft System. As there are many stakeholders involved in the FPSO projects it is considered as fuzzy problem to record all their objectives for requirement analysis. Soft System Methodology will be tool for creating the conceptual model. Most frequently used framework is indicated below in figure 2. [pic] Figure 2: Existing requirement analysis framework by JSPL We will modify Checkland’s SSM to more succinct model for improving the existing requirement model of JSPL as indicated in the figure 3. [pic] Figure 3: Improved Checkland’s SSM for JSPL In These ‘Formulate Root Definitions’ and ‘Build Ideal Systematic Model’(Conceptual Model) blocks are known as basic ‘building block’ of SSM. The main aim of Root Definition is to capture the purpose and conceptual model is to represent the structured activities which are needed to solve the purpose. In short Root Definition is about ‘What System is ‘and...
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...EM 900 /Engineering Management March 22, 2014 QUESTIONS: 1. What is innovation management? Innovation management is the regulation of managing processes in innovation. According to Richard Feynman innovation is all about discovery. Innovation management is the process of capturing and managing organizational innovation. Today many companies have organization-wide innovation management programs. This is due to increased recognition that innovation is essential for motivating business growth and maintaining competitive advantage. Competency: Every institute/organization has its own history and set of capabilities, which determine its innovation competency. And innovation has build a powerful framework based on competence and obligation that will help organization to become a world-class innovator Strategy: As manager knows, resource allocation is critical to strategy and therefore needs to be an integral part of aligning innovation to strategic objectives. Management: Any top company in this world should arrange resources cleverly and needs to manage innovation efficiently; this should be the primary objective of a organization. 2. Why is entrepreneurship training considered important for engineers? In the article it states clearly why it is so significant for engineers to understand entrepreneurship training. Engineers need to be entrepreneurial in order to understand and contribute in the framework of market and business pressures. For engineers...
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...most sophisticated, state-of-the art information systems technology that already exists in the human resources department (Riordan Manufacturing, 2006). In the development phase, it is important for one to gather information from various sources to ensure the project efficiently performs its preferred job. To begin the information-gathering process, one will need to meet with the key management personnel, IT staff, and users to talk about what tasks are involved. Through this collaboration, the developers will be allowed to ask questions, as well as invite comments, ideas and acknowledge concerns. This collaboration will help to brainstorm and to comprehend better what the corporation needs to do to improve the overall process. Another method that will be used to gather information for this project is conducting interviews. By interviewing selected individuals, it would help to figure out what works best for the company and what can be done to improve the human resources department in the future. After all the information is collected, documented, and studied, then the design phase can begin. The design method that would be used for Riordan Manufacturing would involve the use of Joint Application Development (JAD). Joint application design (JAD) is a process used in the prototyping life cycle area of the Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) to collect business requirements while developing new information systems for the company. "The JAD process also includes...
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...This is method of managing software development which allows rapid and flexible response to change. It is based on iterative and incremental development. It makes adaptive planning evolutionary development possible. It was introduced in 2001 Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Our main objective is to satisfy our customers through distribution of our software at highest standard. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage. Even If the changes are made on late stage in the development of the project It is better introduce them resulting in the satisfaction of costumer. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. Deliver software so it is shown that the progress is made and that there is a certain pace Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. People working on software as well as people that focus on business part of the project must work daily throughout the project. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. Motivated staff is more likely fisnish on time as they would focus on the job But they need resources to produce an output. The most efficient and effective method of ...
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...venture is worth pursuing. He is focusing on an untapped market—a new kind of restaurant menu service built on the Apple iPad platform. Members of the team are excited and have been furiously working o the project while retaining their full-time jobs. They have developed a prototype of the technology and business offering, pitched the idea to several clients and generated significant interest. The case, as you will notice as you read, is set at the end of 100 days, when Hutcherson must decide on the next steps. Address separately each of the following directional questions in sufficient detail with associated analysis/rationale. It may help to go through the additional reading material (Fang & Neufeld, Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS) 2009; Hamilton et al., Sloan Management Review (SMR) 2010; and Shane & Venkatraman, Academy of Management Review 2000 – on my G:\2014 Spring 433\Harvard Case folder) PLUS Http://www.marketingteacher. com/lesson-store/lesson-pricing.html site (for pricing strategies) in answering the questions. 1. Discuss the key enablers that have allowed Binnj to engage in this “science experiment”. When working in a virtual team what tools would one rely on and what problems are likely to be experienced? a. The key enablers of Binnj in the “science experiment” are: i. Clay Hutcherson, founder and CEO of Binnj ii. Nancy Philip, CFO and COO of Binnj iii. Scott Corscadden, CIO of Binnj iv. James...
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...SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: 1. Introduction Computers are becoming a key element in our daily lives. Slowly and surely they are taking over many of the functions that effect our lives critically. They are now controlling all forms of monetary transactions, manufacturing, transportation, communication, defence systems, process control systems, and so on. In the near future, they will be found in our homes, controlling all forms of appliances. Left to themselves, they are harmless pieces of hardware. Load the right kind of software, they can take you to the moon, both literally and figuratively. It is the software that gives life to them.When they are going to play such a crucial role, one small flaw either in the hardware or the software can lead to catastrophic consequences. The sad part is, while there are well defined processes based on theoretical foundations to ensure the reliability of the hardware, same thing can not be said about software. There is no theory for software devlopment as yet. But at the same time, it is mandatory that software always behaves in a predictable manner, even in unforeseen circumstances. Hence there is a need to control its development through a well defined and systematic process. The old fashioned 'code & test' approach will not do any more. It may be good enough for 'toy' problems, but in real life, software is expected to solve enormously complex problems. Some of the aspects of real life software projects are: Team effort: Any large...
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...more advanced state-of-the art information systems technology that readily exists within the company’s human resources department. The information gathering techniques and the planned design methods that will be utilized will be outlined. The business requirements for the improvement of an HR system to maintain the intention of this request will also be defined. Significant points that will assist in making sure that the information required for this project is collected effectively will be identified and a thorough project plan will be produced. This plan will make available a list of all day to day tasks, resources, and a schedule coupled with a financial plan required to complete the project. Information Gathering Techniques and Design Method Developing a plan is important to Riordans success, it is very crucial to gather information from numerous sources to make sure the designed plan performs its intended application. Initiating the information gathering process will begin with an essential meeting with key management personnel, the end user and most important the IT staff to discuss the project. This business meeting will consist of a question and answer portion in addition to a forum to voice idea, comments and concerns. Providing this dialog, which will be made available for the length of the project, will make it better to have a handle on what the organization need to enhance its employees jobs. An additional method used to collect information is to perform...
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