Soft systems are systems of human activity. Typically, we define a single goal that conflates the multiple, often conflicting, objectives of the system of organizational work. This complicates, rather than simplifies the design of work-systems, as it excludes support for the multiple other purposes that people aim for in their work. Many times, purposes conflict with each other (like a healthcare system aiming to both manage costs and optimize health improvement outcomes). We need to be nuanced in designing systems that balance support for various objectives. This nuanced design requires a systemic approach, where we consider what human-activities need to be performed for each outcome, before reconciling these with support for other change objectives. This requires a recursive (spiral) approach to design, where we periodically “complicate” our thinking – and then ask “so what do we do now, understanding this new information?”
Soft Systems Analysis
Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) takes a divide-and-conquer approach to analyzing a problem-situation. We represent the problem-situation with as little extraneous structure as possible, as a set of interactions between people-doing-things.
- We separate the subsets of activity performed for an identifiable purpose
- We model each subset as an “ideal world” process-flow.
- Comparing each to the real world allows us to define actionable changes, which recognize organizational, political, and economic constraints.
- Finally, we prioritize the resultant changes, to produce a plan of action.
