Systems Engineering and Soft Systems Methodology : a Review

Abstract

In this paper, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), quite a recent development in Systems Engineering, is reviewed briefly. First, a historical background on Systems Engineering that led to the emergence of this area is provided. Here, the limitations of 'Hard' Systems Engineering in dealing with illstructured socioeconomic problems are summarised, and the reasons for SSM becoming a relatively more 'successful' approach are given. The paper is concluded by a review of the SSM Methodology.

The emergent realities of project praxis in socially complex project environments

“…The rationale will be further discussed in section 3.6, but one benefit SSM shares with ethnography and enactive research, is that it supports an action-reflection relationship of 'researcher and researched' immersed in context. SSM however, moves beyond these research strategies to construct a learning system as a social process to facilitate feasible and desirable change through actively seeking solutions to messy, ill-structured problems (Checkland and Scholes 1990;Yurtseven 1999). The interventionist nature of action research facilitates 'actionable knowledge' through cognition emerging as a process of learning, integrating action with reflection.…”