RSS Feed for the unit Systems practice: Managing sustainability

Introduction

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Systems thinking: managing sustainability is about systems practice and managing complexity in the domain of sustainable development. It introduces many examples from practitioners and you will be using systems ideas, and methods, for engaging with and developing your understanding of managing complexity.

The unit begins by looking at the way some systems approaches in the domain of sustainable development have evolved, providing a chance for you to appreciate some of their strengths and weaknesses. Some different modes of systems practice are introduced, using the question of ‘who learns what?’ as an integrating theme.

The unit continues by focusing on how you may use some of the material from the block in designing purposeful systems practice that could apply to your project. An example of process design for systems practice involving multiple stakeholders is introduced. You will also be given the opportunity to consider ‘learning systems’ and to extend your understanding of SS-method and methodology.

The perspectives of the authors of this unit

As recognition of multiple perspectives is an important skill to develop in relation to systems thinking you should note that this unit has been written by three authors who are referred to in the text – Chris Blackmore, whose background in education and environmental and rural development projects led to her use of systems ideas for exploring interconnections between environment, development and learning; Jake Chapman whose background in energy research, including campaigning for energy conservation and renewables, helped him develop an appreciation of systemic nature of these issues and Ray Ison whose experience of scientific approaches to natural resource management that historically excluded people from considerations led to his interest in more systems-based approaches to managing which enable participation by stakeholders in defining their systems of interest.

This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Managing complexity: a systems approach (T306).

Learning outcomes

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Once you have completed this unit you should be able to:

distinguish between a range of possible modes of systems practice and identify examples of each
recognise and identify how some modelling and particular systems dynamics approaches have been in used in the domain
recognise some particular demands that engaging with the domain of sustainable development has for effective systems practice
understand how the question of ‘Who learns what?’ provides an integrating theme through all modes of systems practice
recognise and suggest ways to formulate systems of interest in multiple stakeholder settings
use SS-method with greater confidence and creativity
appreciate that a process for managing complexity can be considered as if it were the design of a learning system
begin to consider designs for a personal scenario for systems practice in the domain of sustainable development based on all the elements of the juggling metaphor – i.e. engaging, being, contextualising and managing
appreciate how your systems practice in the domain of sustainable development might be contextualised in other domains
appreciate a range of ways in which your systems practice may be developed through doing the T306 project.

1 Systems practice for ‘managing’ sustainable development

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Systems approaches have a long and chequered association with the domain of sustainable development and its antecedents. In this unit I will follow some of the history of the application of systems thinking to this domain. My aim in doing so is to illustrate how the methods, tools and models employed in systems studies have evolved.

It is not surprising that systems practitioners have had a long engagement with the domain of sustainable development. As you have already seen the issues involved are characteristically large-scale messes. In any situation involving sustainable development there are many people and organisations involved, each with their own different perspective. There will not be any widespread agreement about the nature of the problem, its timescale or what any solution or resolution would look like. It is also usual for an issue to involve many different areas of expertise. By their very nature the issues in sustainable development require a holistic approach – so if ever there was a domain in which systems methods should be of use this is it. In practice systems studies have not always yielded the results or influence that its proponents would have hoped for.

Historically, the concept of sustainable development emerged from the period at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s when the post-war assumptions were powerfully challenged in many different ways. The first challenge was that industrial development could not continue to ignore its impact on the environment. As this challenge evolved it crystallised into a belief that there were significant limits to the scale of human activity on Planet Earth.

The second challenge was related but with a different focus. It was concerned with whether the economic assumptions, on which the western economies were based, were an appropriate basis for planning and policy making. This challenge came to be focussed and discussed in terms of a paper concerned with the management of ‘common land’.

The third challenge was to the assumption that science and technology were universally benign and could and would solve all development problems. Underlying this criticism was a profound challenge to the positivist and rationalist world-views, which then prevailed amongst scientists and other practitioners. We will use an example to illustrate the subtlety with which world-views can affect development and approaches to sustainable development.

What emerges from all these examples is a need to review not just the tools and theories used to think about and analyse development and sustainability issues but also the modes of engagement with the problems and opportunities and other participants.

1.1 Limits to growth

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Vignette 1

One of the landmark studies that initiated much of the debate that led to the development of the sustainable development concept was that reported in the book Limits to Growth by Meadows et al. published in 1972. Figure 1 shows one of the outputs from the model. It shows the variation in the main variables over time (i.e. through the calculation steps of the model) and, in this example, that economic growth peaks shortly after the year 2000 and the world population peaks around 2050, falling rapidly as food production declines. The authors explored the behaviour of the model under a range of assumptions. For example they found that the collapse in economic growth could be delayed by about ten years if they presumed that the stock of natural resources was twice as large. The model still showed a cessation of growth by 2050 followed by a sharp decline in population, but this time because pollution absorbed a growing proportion of economic output and also reduced life expectancy. The authors introduced technical ‘solutions’ including pollution control, birth control and unlimited natural resources. In all cases the model predicted a cessation of economic growth and dramatic population reductions within the next century. In short the authors claimed that their model convincingly demonstrated that there were substantial limits to the growth of human populations and the global economy. Such views had been expressed before but with considerably less conviction and with less supporting evidence. For example this was the first time that attention was drawn to the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and how this could affect global climate.

Figure 1 One of the outputs from the model (adapted from Meadows et al. 1972, p. 124)

As may be expected the book gave rise to a great deal of interest and controversy. Specialists in specific areas such as natural resources or food production raised detailed issues on which they disagreed. Economists questioned the whole basis of the model and asserted that it had underestimated the role of technical progress in avoiding the types of catastrophes predicted by the model. They pointed to the similarly dire predictions of Malthus some 200 years earlier that had not been realised. Despite all these objections the idea that human development would be constrained took root. Ultimately there would be constraints imposed on the growth of human population and industrial development because these were taking place on a finite planet. Exactly where and when these constraints would first ‘bite’ was not predictable with any certainty, but that did not mean that the limits did not exist.

One reason why this book created such a fuss was that it challenged the belief in economic growth, advocated by western governments as the main vehicle for solving many problems, including those of poverty and inequality. In a more recent book the authors state:

The predominance of growth in human activity comes as no surprise. In fact most people see it as something to celebrate. Most societies, rich or poor, seek some kind of expansion as a remedy for their most immediate and important problems. In the rich world economic growth is believed to be necessary for employment, social mobility, and technical advance. In the poor world economic growth seems the only way out of poverty. … Until other solutions are found for the legitimate problems of the world, people will cling to the idea that growth is the key to a better future, and they would do all they can to produce more growth.

(Meadows et al., 1992, p. 5)

In their more recent study the authors make use of the same model of the world economy with data updated to take account of the twenty years since the initial study. Their main concern has been to establish whether a sustainable future is possible, and if so at what level of material consumption. Their conclusions are (Meadows et al. 1992, p. xvi):

Human use of many essential resources and generation of many kinds of pollutants have already surpassed rates that are physically sustainable. Without significant reductions in material and energy flows, there will be in the coming decades an uncontrolled decline in per capita food output, energy use, and industrial production.
This decline is not inevitable. To avoid it two changes are necessary. The first is a comprehensive revision of policies and practices that perpetuate growth in material consumption and in population. The second is a rapid, drastic increase in the efficiency with which materials and energy are used.
A sustainable society is still technically and economically possible. It could be much more desirable than a society that tries to solve its problems by constant expansion. The transition to a sustainable society requires a careful balance between long-term and short-term goals and an emphasis on sufficiency, equity, and quality of life rather than on quantity of output. It requires more than productivity and more than technology; it also requires maturity, compassion, and wisdom.

Both books reported the results of a systems dynamics model of the global economy. Systems dynamics is a modelling procedure, which computes changes in stocks and flows of specified variables over time. It was initially developed for modelling flows of materials through industrial processes and is still widely, and successfully, used for this purpose. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) group who published Limits to Growth used this modelling procedure to examine the interactions between human population, food production, natural resources, pollution and capital production. The model was designed to represent the global economy, so local detail and differences were not represented. The aim was to explore ways in which the growth of the world economy might be limited, not to discover which nations would grow faster or slower than others. The level of aggregation involved can be gauged from Box 1 below which describes the way that the model calculated human population over time.

Box 1 The population model in Limits to Growth

There are two key feedback loops controlling the growth of population. The first is the number of births per year; this is a positive cycle since the more people there are the more births there will be. The second is the number of deaths per year. This is a negative cycle since the more people there are the more deaths will occur. Each loop is also influenced by outside factors that affect fertility and mortality. This is shown in Figure 2.

The overall model includes sections dealing with resources, pollution, food supply and capital production, all of which will impact the basic model of population growth. For example mortality rates are affected by levels of pollution, quantity of food per capita and the provision of health services, which itself depends upon industrial output and how much of this is diverted to the services sector. Services also influences fertility through education and family planning. There is also a well established relationship between the number of children per family (fertility) and the overall standard of living.

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Figure 2 The main feedback loops in the population model

In addition to these links to other sections of the overall model the calculation of population is separated into three age groups, 0–15, 16–45 and over 45. There are separate mortality rates for each age group with different effects from factors such as food and pollution. There are delays which link the numbers of people in each age band. There are also delays between some of the factors and changes in the population parameters; for example there is a delay between an improvement in health services and the corresponding reduction in mortality rates. The complete population calculation model is illustrated in Figure 3. Note the circles denote calculated parameters. Delays are shown by the rectangles divided into four sections. Rates are shown by the rectangles with two triangles, flows by solid arrows and causal relationships by broken arrows. Clouds represent sources or sinks that are not important to the model behaviour.

View larger image

Figure 3 The complete population model in World 3 (Meadows et al. 1972, p.102-103)

In a ‘run’ of the model each of the parameters and rates is calculated according to the influences shown in the diagram. This is an example of a dynamic model, one that repeats the same calculations many times using the results from the previous calculations as the data for the next set of calculations. The precise nature of the influence, for example the effect of food on life expectancy, has to be established by the modellers and entered into the model as a specific mathematical relationship. The data and curve used to deduce this relationship are shown in Figure 4 below. Each point on this graph represents an individual nation for which suitable statistics were available. The relationship used in the model is shown by the solid curve.

Figure 4 Data and curve used to deduce the relationship between food and life expectancy in the population model in Figure 16 (Meadows et al. 1992, p. 107)

Although the population model shown in Box 1 is clearly a gross simplification of the reality it is already too complex to be understood by simply ‘thinking about it’. Situations considered as systems with feedback loops and delays, are notoriously difficult to both comprehend and control. The example usually used to make this point is the difficulties individuals experience adjusting the temperature of a shower. An adjustment is made but seems inadequate, so a further adjustment is made, which then appears to be too much so a counter adjustment is made. This cycle continues with the temperature oscillating between too hot and too cold until the person waits long enough for the effect of the delay between making the adjustment and the change in water temperature striking their body – usually an annoying minute or so!

A larger scale example of the same problem is the attempt to control inflation by changes in interest rates, a task bequeathed to the Bank of England by the incoming Labour Government in 1997. As the Bank well understood there is a delay of about a year between a change in interest rate and its effect on inflation. So the Bank’s task is doubly difficult; it has to forecast the rate of inflation a year ahead and make adjustments to the interest rate now in order to correct any deviation from the target rate. Needless to say the Bank makes use of models of the economy to assist in this process.

Some time ago the International Institute for Advanced Systems Studies (IIASA) instituted a series of conferences to which different world modellers were invited to present the details of their models and their conclusions to a peer group. By 1980 several well developed world models had been presented in this way to the group – each with their own set of implicit values and beliefs. What emerged from this was that all the models represented a biased representation of the world economy. Despite the fact that all the models were using essentially the same world data they came to very different conclusions – largely as a result of the selection process used in the construction of the overall model.

Where such modelling is carried out to determine the optimum stock levels in a factory or the likely future rate of inflation in an economy both the objectives and necessary data are relatively clear. In the case of ‘world modelling’ the context, objectives and data are all more problematic. Yet the issues involved are of such potential significance that the difficulties and uncertainties in the modelling process are not sufficient reason for either dismissing the conclusions or ceasing this line of inquiry.

SAQ 1 Considering Limits to Growth as a systems study

To what degree would you classify the Limits to Growth study as a systems study? What was systemic, and what was systematic in the approach used?

Discussion

The authors certainly regard themselves as systems practitioners and claim that theirs is a systems study. It is clearly based upon an epistemological position that regards ‘systems’ as existing out there and capable of having their performance quantitatively modelled. This is consistent with the HS-method and VS-method.

What is systemic about their approach is the explicit concern with the whole, not the parts, the explicit inclusion of feedback, delays and a wider range of influences than would normally be considered.

From the limited information provided about the study you may find it hard to assess the degree to which they were engaging, contextualising, being and managing. From their books it is clear that they were fully engaged with the complexity of their chosen problem domain. Their books also place their work in a very clear context, namely of countering the conventional wisdom of indefinite economic and material growth – a context they have managed with great skill. Their work has undoubtedly affected the understanding and approach to world economics and development. The degree to which they are able to be self-aware is much harder to judge from published material, but the following quotation indicates that this is an aspect they have not neglected.

It is difficult to speak of or to practice love, friendship, generosity, understanding or solidarity within a system whose rules, goals and information are geared for lesser human values. But we try, and we urge you to try.

(Meadows et al. 1992, p. 234)

1.2 Tragedy of the commons

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Vignette 2

At about the same time as the Limits to Growth was published, Garret Hardin published a parable called The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin, 1968). Hardin was an economist and his exposition was aimed at economists. One of the main tenets of free market economics, first formulated by Adam Smith in 1770, is that economic wellbeing is maximised when all the participants in the market pursue their own self interest. This famous principle had been used to justify many excesses by those with wealth and power, nevertheless its fundamental veracity was not questioned and the sustained economic growth of the capitalist economies was attributed to the operation of this principle.

Hardin’s story concerns an area of common land on which a group of villagers are able to graze their cattle. Like any area of grazing land the commons will have a limited carrying capacity, that is the ability to provide food for animals on a sustainable basis. If the number of cattle on the common exceeds its carrying capacity then the animals will not have as much food as they could eat, with the result that the yield of meat or milk will be slightly reduced. Figure 5 illustrates the concept of carrying capacity and the decline in yield as more animals are introduced onto the land.

Figure 5 Illustrating the reduction in yield as the number of cattle on the common is increased

For simplicity assume that there are fifteen villagers each with one animal on the common land. Each animal produces a yield of 30 units. One villager decides to put a second animal on the common. Because the number of animals now exceeds the carrying capacity of the land the yield per animal will be slightly reduced, to say 28 units. However the villager who introduces the second animal is clearly better off because he now has two animals producing meat or milk rather than one; his produce increases from 30 units to 2 x 28 = 56 units. The other villagers will, if they adopt Adam Smith’s dictum, now act in their own self-interest and also add a second animal each. By this point with 30 animals on the common the yield per animal has dropped to 12 units, so each villager now has a produce of 2 x 12 = 24 units, less than the initial yield of 30 units when they each owned a single animal. Worse still, if the villagers persist in adding animals to the common the land will become overgrazed and be unable to support any animals at all – the commons are destroyed.

The logic of this parable is inescapable and runs directly counter to the free market assumption that pursuing self-interest results in the best outcome. With this simple example Hardin was able to demonstrate that when a resource is limited market economics would not produce a sustainable outcome. It had long been recognised that there were many social reasons for governments to intervene in markets, for example to promote more equable distributions of wealth or to provide universal education facilities. What Hardin’s publication justified was a new style of intervention, the management of a limited resource so as to produce a sustainable outcome.

Unfortunately some interventions based on Hardin’s model have subsequently proved problematic because the situations were misidentified as commons situations by outsiders. The parable is often incorrectly used as a justification for privatisation of natural resources, e.g. fencing of communal land in Africa (particularly Botswana) and water privatisation in less-developed as well as industrial countries. The concept of carrying capacity is also not simple, nor fixed, but can vary with season and patterns of use.

It is always difficult to know whether publications such as Limits to Growth and The Tragedy of the Commons really shaped opinion or whether they were noticed precisely because there was a growing awareness of the issues of sustainability. There is an important contrast in scale between the two publications. Whereas Limits to Growth was concerned with the global economy and global limits, Hardin’s paper focused on a much smaller scale, an area of common land. It is not difficult to see that the types of arguments used in both cases apply at all scales, local, national, international and global. Together they provided a powerful counter-argument to the accepted wisdom, namely that economic growth through the operation of competitive free markets would provide solutions to all the problems of development, poverty, food supply and so on.

SAQ 2 Identifying ‘commons’

Which of the following do you consider should be treated as a ‘commons’ in Hardin’s sense of a limited shared resource? In each case you identify as a ‘commons’ state the limiting resource/factor involved.

The Atlantic Ocean
The River Thames
The New Forest (an area of mixed woodland and pasture in the south of England)
The air in Paris
The oil and gas reservoirs in the North Sea
A village green
A nuclear power station.

Discussion

The Atlantic Ocean
- Not an obvious commons because it is well connected with other water resources. Fish stocks within the Atlantic Ocean could be regarded as a commons, but not the ocean itself.
The River Thames
This is a commons in the sense of providing a source of fresh water to a large population.
The New Forest (an area of mixed woodland and pasture in the south of England)
A commons in that it is tourist area open to a wide range of visitors.
The air in Paris
Whilst the whole atmosphere can be regarded as a common resource, the particular air over a city is in constant motion and exchange with other air and as such is not, of itself, a commons resource. Where air becomes trapped, as in the Los Angeles basin, then there is a stronger case for regarding it as a commons.
The oil and gas reservoirs in the North Sea
These are a commons which it is widely accepted will be exploited and depleted within a finite time period.
A village green
Whilst conforming to the description of Hardin’s parable this is only to be regarded as a commons if the green is exploited or used in some way. If it is simply regarded as a useful amenity to look at then it is not useful to regard it as a commons since no amount of ‘looking’ will deteriorate the resource.
A nuclear power station
Not a commons in any sense.

Before leaving this subject it is important to point out that whilst this parable is a valid criticism of market economics as a means of managing finite common resources, it does not mean that all such resources have been or will be exhausted by over-use. In most communities, which rely upon a common resource, there are traditions of rules and practices that ensure that the common resource is not over-exploited. In a review of commons issues (Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons, The Ecologist (eds.), 1993) there are many examples of such local regulation, ranging from water resources in the Philippines, forests in Finland, lobster harvesters in Maine, wild rice harvesting in Canada and grazing in Tanzania. This local control is a theme I will explore further in the next section. For the time being it is important to recognise that Hardin’s parable has often been incorrectly used as a justification for the imposition of external, centralised control on ‘common’ resources, a reflection of prevailing values and beliefs in many organisations and amongst many, but not all, professionals.

1.3 The developing world

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

The sustained economic growth through the 1950s and 1960s in what has been referred to as the developed world had caused an embarrassingly large and ever increasing gap in the wealth of the developed and developing nations. Many able and sincere people devoted much time and money to projects aimed at assisting developing countries to improve health, agriculture, and economic growth. There was a tacit assumption on the part of westernised people that what had proved so beneficial for Europe, Japan and North America could bring similar prosperity to Africa, India, South America and other regions in the South. At this time there was also, undoubtedly, a political agenda amongst many nations to reduce the appeal of communism. Many activists in developing countries saw communism as the only viable means to throw off the ‘shackles of colonialism’. Whilst this political agenda may have lubricated the flow of money into aid projects from governments, the people and organisations engaged on the ground were motivated largely by a combination of humanitarian concern and wishing to make a worthwhile contribution to those less well off than themselves. Many of the projects were worked out in great detail, some using the emerging ecological and systems frameworks.

In 1968 researchers in Washington initiated a review of development projects in the less-developed countries. They wrote to all the other national and international agencies engaged in development work requesting case studies of successful and unsuccessful development projects. The aim was to share experience through these cases so that there could be a mutual learning of what did and did not work. To this end they asked each agency to provide two case studies, one a success story and one a failure. To their surprise all the agencies wrote back with just one case study, a failure – there were no success stories to be told. The cases were presented at a conference in 1968 and published in a book entitled The Careless Technology (Farvar and Milton, 1973). In the Foreword to the book the researchers say:

Those responsible for international development can no longer afford to ignore these ecological problems. The very validity of the values, goals and methods of development are challenged here. One emerging implication is that the post-World War II idea that traditional societies can and should be overhauled overnight has not only proved virtually unachievable, but perhaps undesirable.

(Farvar and Milton, 1973, Foreword)

It is all too easy with the wisdom of hindsight to attribute shortsightedness or inadequacy to those engaged with projects that go wrong. It is much harder to actually uncover the real lesson – and to generalise it so that it can be applied elsewhere. Box 2 gives a modern example of a development project also not working as expected.

Box 2 Vignette 3: Engaging with commons issues in Namibia

A colleague of mine who worked in southern Africa in the 1990s has had first hand experience of attempting to engage in purposeful activity to manage the commons (Powell, 1998). For him it was a particularly powerful set of experiences that have quite literally changed the way he understands the world. He worked in Namibia in southern Africa in several capacities – as a community-based Natural Resources Management Project Officer and as researcher. His original work, as a professional geographer, was to construct a database model of the resources in the area so that future project managers could develop plans for use and conservation. The overall project aim was to foster sustainable development in the region.

My colleague (Powell, 1998, p. 7) describes the area in which he originally worked as:

... at first glance ... conspicuous by its homogeneity, characterised by low flat, sparse, grassy expanses intermingled with bushes and low stands of thorny Acacia trees. But as one begins to interact with the landscape in space and through time its richness and diversity unfolds. Thousands of tracks previously disguised by my ignorance become visible, empowering the space by enabling people and animals to travel through stands of Tambutti woodlands, past groves of fruit bearing Mangetti trees and to rest at one of the numerous seasonal pans [an area where water collects following rain] in the shade of an ancient Baobab tree. … The local inhabitants depend on their embedded knowledge to varying degrees in order to subsist from hunting and gathering, craft making, gardening, herding and waged labour.

The story as it unfolds has for me all the elements of a systems practitioner trying to juggle the B, E, C and M balls described in T306_1. For example, only after a period of being with local inhabitants was Powell able to begin to make the distinctions about tracks and the role of particular groups of trees. This involved a process of becoming aware of the history of distinctions that the indigenous people made, of his own traditions of understanding (many of which he had to discard) and of reassessing the approach he needed to take to engage with the complexity he was perceiving. Only then could he begin to think of what he was doing as purposefully ‘managing’ the complexity he was experiencing and begin to contextualise particular approaches for managing.

Powell’s work shows how attempts to capture the local Bushmen’s classification of natural resources in maps, including sophisticated geographic information systems, can fail because of their static nature and inability to be constantly reinterpreted in relation to an unfolding context. The Bushmen’s interpretation of their landscape and what constitutes a resource for their survival changes dynamically in space and time. Powell’s story is also about a practitioner growing in his epistemological awareness. The tragedy of the story is that his learning was in the end swamped by the more powerful traditions of understanding held by a western-based international conservation organisation. He describes how a culturally sensitive form of practice by Community Rangers, which respected the consensus and dialogic processes of decision making by Bushmen, was replaced by a set of practices driven by a scientific worldview. In the new scientific view the vegetation had to be recorded with an acceptable level of accuracy and precision and repeatability. This resulted in upgraded data sheets – and instructions not to talk to local people as this might influence the objectivity of the data! The desire to obtain scientifically valid data for effective wildlife management replaced a form of practice in which it had been recognised and accepted that the indigenous community was the ears and eyes of the Community Rangers.

There are several themes that emerge from reading The Careless Technology and Vignette 3. From the former, one is that too many projects failed to consider the systemic impact of the changes that were being introduced. However even where these were considered the projects still failed to achieve their developmental goals. Another theme is arrogance and yet another is lack of participation. These complement each other. In almost all the cases documented in the book the aid teams engaged with the situation from a position of ‘knowing better’. There were clear and objective reasons for adopting such a stance; members of the team were better educated, they had better access to resources and expertise and they regarded their understanding of the world as clearly superior. For example the medical workers had an understanding of disease and bacteria and so on; engineers knew how to construct larger and more robust buildings or dams or roads. So in one sense there was ‘better’ knowledge. However there was another area where the team was woefully inadequate – namely comprehending the culture, aspirations and worldviews of the people they were trying to assist. In some cases described in The Careless Technology the multi-disciplinary team implementing the project included cultural anthropologists who had ‘expert’ knowledge of the culture of the beneficiaries of the project – and still the project failed. One overriding lesson drawn from the book is that it is crucial to include the full participation of the potential beneficiaries in the project. Without such full participation the project will simply not work as the originators intended.

The lessons from Powell’s experience in Namibia are similar but subtler. In that case the international conservation organisation had an explicit ethos, an espoused theory, of participation in the project. However it also insisted that the project be executed in a way that conformed to its own beliefs about how best to tackle the issues. It insisted on a scientific approach that required data to be ‘objective’ and ‘verifiable’. This caused it to define resources in a way that was inconsistent with the way the local people used the land, interacted with wildlife and generally perceived their environment as a resource. As a result the conservation organisation ended up imposing its worldview onto the project, the participants and ultimately the region. As with the examples from The Careless Technology this imposition, in the end, failed to benefit the local people. Thus it is not sufficient to espouse a participative approach, nor is it enough to include local people in the project – the participation has to be sufficiently deep that the different worldviews, perspectives, values and beliefs are genuinely reflected in the process and operation of projects.

The issue of participation will be a major theme through the remainder of this unit because it is central to the question: Who learns?

1.4 Managing systems practice in contexts of sustainable development

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Both of us value using systemic approaches to problems and situations and have often been struck by the fact that people without any formal training in systems intuitively adopt a very systemic approach to messy problems. Some managers instinctively ask penetrating questions about boundaries and stakeholders and perspectives and find ways to use models and metaphors to engage others in finding ways to proceed. We have revelled in the natural systems skills displayed by some politicians, administrators, businessmen and academics. For us they are all being systemic even though they are not espousing any particular systems thinking or method. When we ascribe systems practice to these people we may claim they are doing it naturally or implicitly. We are of course ascribing a purpose to their behaviour from our perspective – this is an example of purposive behaviour.

Of more interest here are the various ways in which systems may be used explicitly because only then can an individual take responsibility for managing their systems practice – for juggling the M ball. I (Jake) have used my systems skills for managing in three different modes:

I have been invited into an organisation or situation to become involved as a consultant or advisor in a messy situation.
I have used systems methods explicitly in various management roles. For example I used SSM with a management team in a small company whenever strategic issues became intractable or stuck.
Finally I will use systems tools and methods without the involvement of others to gain insights into situations I am finding difficult. For example in business negotiations I often use rich pictures and influence diagrams to help me gain insight into other participants’ perspectives on the situation.

In many of these examples it is a reasonably straightforward process to identify the main stakeholders in an issue of concern. For example it may be a concern about a particular firm’s strategy for managing sustainability which is of concern to the Managing Director. There are other scenarios, such as managing commons issues, where it is not clear who the stakeholders are, or what processes might enable individuals or groups to consider themselves as stakeholders able to contemplate, and perhaps engage in, purposeful activity. In these situations the task of defining who stakeholders are and of bringing them together in some form of decision making or situation improving project is often very difficult. Examples include the management of whole watersheds; strategies for regional wildlife conservation; the forging of new national and international agreements and policies (for example climate change policies); managing sustainable regional tourist developments and so on.

In these contexts we would suggest that an aware systems practitioner has three choices in how they manage their engagement with stakeholders when pursuing any form of purposeful activity. These are differentiated on the basis of a particular model of power, with each position constituting an ethical choice. The choices are to:

decide for other stakeholders
decide with other stakeholders, or
enable stakeholders to decide.

SAQ 3 Classifying examples

Classify the following examples into one of the three categories of managing the engagement with stakeholders:

The approach used in Limits to Growth.
My use of SSM with my management team.
A public inquiry into a new road scheme.
Location of out-of-town supermarkets and other businesses.

Discussion

Classify the following examples into one of the three categories of managing the engagement with stakeholders.

Limits to Growth
The study itself involved a great deal of ‘deciding for others’. However the main thrust of the authors’ publications is to encourage others to make different decisions in the light of their analysis. In this sense it is an invitation to ‘decide with others’.
My use of SSM with my management team
A straightforward example of deciding with others.
A public inquiry into a new road scheme
Whilst this may appear to be a process for deciding with others, in fact the decisions are taken by an Inspector or Minister for all other stakeholders.
Location of out-of-town supermarkets and other businesses
Effects range from increased use of cars, to taking business away from small local shops, to the suggestion that Councils felt they had little choice but to grant planning permission. This seems to imply decision-making processes that leave stakeholders feeling the decision is not theirs, hence these are probably examples of processes where some ‘decide for’ others.

Activity 1 Considering learning in systems practice based on different ethical choices

Suggest some answers for the questions ‘Who learns?’ and ‘How will the quality of learning differ?’ for systems practice based on each of the ethical choices:

deciding for other stakeholders
deciding with other stakeholders
enabling stakeholders to decide.

Now that you have tried to answer these questions let me try to clarify what we mean by these choices. A systems practitioner could manage their engagement as an intervention in which they took control of the situation and used their expertise to tell, or recommend to stakeholders what they should do. This would be an example of deciding for. In this situation the systems practitioner would have the most potential for learning about the issue and about their own practice. Alternatively, the systems practitioner could act as a facilitator for other stakeholders in the situation and participate in decision making with other stakeholders. This would be an example of deciding with. Based on my experience the role of facilitator could be conducted in a number of ways. The systems practitioner could facilitate and involve other stakeholders in using the systems approach but he or she may do so in a way that protects (rather than shares) their specialist knowledge and skills. In this case the outcome may be owned jointly by the participants but the process to achieve the outcome would not. In the longer term this scenario would be less sustainable because learning about the process has been limited to the ‘expert’ rather than residing in what Wenger (1998) describes as a ‘community of practice’.

Alternatively a systems practitioner as facilitator may go out of their way to ‘give away’ the particular systems approach they are using to those involved (including the thinking that underpins the approach) so that the participants may use it themselves in some future situation. Or they may explain what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of a particular method in a given context so that the stakeholders could choose for themselves (e.g. Midgely, Munlo and Brown, 1996). These are examples of creating an enabling process for stakeholders to decide. In this situation in my experience there is the potential for the Systems practitioner and stakeholders to become co-learners or co-inquirers.

The term ‘give away’ at the start of the last paragraph is used in a very colloquial sense – of course one does not give away ‘thinking’ but rather provides participants with experiences which might enable them to grasp both the practical and theoretical ideas that underpin a process design so that they themselves could base future designs on this experience. The reason we use ‘give away’ is because for us it describes the emotional basis of the engagement. If one approaches participants as if you were offering a gift, then it is often done in an emotion of caring and excitement.

Learning is happening in all of these situations but in terms of systems practice it will be qualitatively different for the stakeholders in the latter two situations (deciding with and enabling) compared to the former (deciding for). There are some other variations on the role of the systems practitioner as facilitator, which I will refer to later. These focus on the systems practitioner as a facilitator of a process design, which is enabling for stakeholders. Another example is that of a systems practitioner as participant in a collaboration to formulate a system of interest. This is an example of deciding with, but where the systems practitioner has no privileged role. Each of these situations requires a different set of skills for effective practice and will result in different capacities and potentials for learning. They involve juggling all of the B, E, C, M balls in different ways (further details in the unit A systems approach).

Why is the question of ‘who learns what?’ important and why do I think it relevant to a unit concerned with sustainable development? For me (Ray) it is because I believe that aware practitioners, using systems approaches, are able to orchestrate a process of action research in which the key systems ideas of connectivity, emergence, communication and control are appreciated and in which multiple perspectives are valued. I see this as one of the key strengths of systems approaches. When I use the phrase action research I also mean action learning as I see research and learning as essentially the same process. This is a particular type of learning, which many have recognised as being a desirable pathway towards sustainable development. As a concerned citizen I am apprehensive about our collective capacities to respond quickly enough to the issues which sustainable development raises. I express my concerns in terms of who is able to take responsibility for managing sustainable development? Taking responsibility is a form of purposeful activity – willed behaviour driven by emotional and intellectual concerns. Taking responsibility starts when you engage with an issue in such a way that purposeful activity results. This involves learning in a particular way.

Let me now try to exemplify what I mean by asking you to complete a series of activities relating to your own systems practice so far in this course. You will be required to use your learning journal to answer these questions so make sure it is accessible before you start.

Complete the following activity before continuing with your reading of the unit – even if this is your first read through the material.

Activity 2 How have you used systems maps in the units so far?

I would like you to consider the way in which you have used systems maps in this course so far. Refer back to SAQ and activity discussions in your learning journal where you used a systems map.

Whose perspective informed your choice of boundaries and your naming of the system of interest? Find an example where a perspective other than your own was employed and outline how you achieved this.

In many of the earlier exercises in the course you were asked to create systems maps from the perspective of either the author of a case study or someone represented in a case study. Essentially you were being asked to put yourself in someone else’s position and construct a representation of the world from their perspective. Where you are not engaged with a problem or opportunity this is not too difficult a task, though you will inevitably miss aspects of the other’s perspective because not all their values, beliefs and circumstances can be conveyed in short case study material. However in situations where you are engaged – either as a consultant or as a stakeholder – then putting yourself in someone else’s position is much harder. This is because your own beliefs, values and history will be determining your cognitive processes. It is only by becoming aware of your own perspective that you can create a mental space from which to construct a version of someone else’s perspective. It is critical that you are willing to admit another view of ‘reality’ and not regard your own as in some sense absolute or correct.

One device that many systems practitioners employ to facilitate this, especially when working with stakeholders who may have different perspectives, is to encourage each to draw their own rich picture of a situation. The advantage of a rich picture is that everyone accepts that it is not a perfect representation of reality – it is not intended to be. There is thus an opening to accepting other people’s rich pictures where it might be more difficult to accept their verbal description of what they believe to be the way things actually are. The results of using rich pictures in groups can be dramatic because they often open up new types of dialogue, or give insights into different ways of thinking about an issue.

For example a colleague of mine was invited to assist resolve a disagreement between directors of a company who were negotiating a deal with a developer. After some introductory exercises he suggested that they each draw a rich picture of the situation as they saw it. One drew a picture in which the developer was a plutocrat driving in a Rolls-Royce and smoking a cigar, another drew the developer as a navvy with a pick axe and a flat cap and the third drew him as a gorilla stamping on all the various plans of the project. Since the project involved each of them negotiating with the developer, these differences in perception were, to put it mildly, significant. The rest of the day was spent discussing these rich pictures – no other tool or method was needed. (They resolved the situation by having just one of them conduct all the negotiations with the developer – the one who saw him as a plutocrat.)

Once I facilitated the Board of a company, of which I was a managing director, to explore strategies for increasing business using SSM. My rich picture was of a sheet of paper being torn apart by pressures from staff, members, legislation and the need to make profits.

One of my colleagues drew a picture of our company as a very small building surrounded by sky-scrapers representing fuel companies and government departments. The technical director drew a picture in which his team was being dictated to – by the Board, by legislators and by customers – all with conflicting demands. Someone else drew the business as an attractive woman successfully enticing punters to part with cash in return for our products. As you can gather these represent very different perspectives on the business in which we all worked! Sharing these perspectives and understanding how they arose and what it felt like in those perspectives enabled the group to develop a shared understanding of the richness of the situation as well as a sensitivity to each other.

SAQ4 Classifying the last two examples

Classify the last two examples of using rich pictures in terms of managing systems practice and the three modes of power sharing (deciding for, deciding with and enabling deciding). In each case who was learning?

Discussion

Both examples are, in principle, ‘enabling deciding’. In each case the participants themselves were learning both a simple technique for expressing their perspective on a situation and learning to appreciate others’ perspectives on the same situation. There was not any explicit decision to be made by the process, but the increased understanding led to significant changes in the way that the group and the individuals acted in the future.

Having established a framework to consider issues of participation and systems practice I now want to examine another example.

1.5 Learning from Brent Spar?

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Vignette 4

The Brent Spar was a very large (14,500 tonne) floating oil storage and loading buoy that was in service for fifteen years in the Shell/Esso Brent Field in the North Sea until it was taken out of operation in 1991. In the early summer of 1995 an unprecedented series of events took place. Shell, one of the largest multinational oil companies in the world planned to dispose of the Brent Spar by sinking it at a site in the deep Northern Atlantic, with full UK Government approval. But a combination of the NGO Greenpeace, European Ministers and the public stopped them. The decision was revoked and on 29 January 1998 Shell UK announced that they had selected a new option for disposal that did not include sinking it in the sea. Different parts of the Brent Spar structure were to be dealt with in different ways. The Brent Spar’s hull was to be cut into slices, cleaned and reused to build an extension to the Mekjarvik quay, near Stavanger in Norway. The Brent Spar Platform was to be largely dismantled in Norway, and its topside facilities removed and scrapped onshore.

There are many different perspectives on the decisions and the processes by which they were reached. Different sets of values are clearly evident. Different boundaries were clearly drawn around systems of interest, particularly regarding stakeholders and issues. Thinking of an issue in technical, economic, environmental or social terms raises some very different expectations regarding who should decide what happens and what factors should be taken into account.

Ronnie Harding, an academic from the University of New South Wales in Australia included her brief analysis of the Brent Spar situation in her book Environmental Decision Making: The Roles of Scientists, Engineers and the Public. The extract in Box 3 indicates her perspective on the situation.

Box 3 What was the Brent Spar dispute about?

For Shell and the British Government the Brent Spar was simply about how ‘best’ to dispose of a decommissioned oil platform. For them the proposed solution was clear-cut since scientific analysis showed deep sea dumping to be the ‘environmentally preferred’ option. The fact that Greenpeace, which led the campaign against deep sea disposal, later admitted it had mistakenly provided incorrect estimates of the extent of toxic substances involved, simply meant that Greenpeace had ‘got it wrong’ and hence its opposition to the disposal choice was shown to be flawed.

At a deeper level – more than one rationality?

However, the dispute can be seen to have far deeper roots deriving from the ‘rationalities’ or ‘worldviews’ of the protagonists. For Greenpeace, the existence of an oil rig containing toxic materials and requiring disposal, is a ‘symptom’ of a world on a flawed development path. Greenpeace’s long-term key campaigns have been to argue the need to shift the world’s economies from their dependence on fossil fuels to a more sustainable base relying on renewable energy sources (such as solar and wind), and secondly to move industry away from discharge of harmful wastes into the world’s ecosystems and towards clean production processes. Judged against this rationality, the actual quantity of toxic substances to be dumped is not critical to their argument. Greenpeace said that:

The basic argument … was not about the contents of the Brent Spar, nor the physical characteristics of the proposed dump site. The argument was about whether it was right to dump industrial waste of any sort into the deep oceans … as opposed to reducing waste, and recycling, treating or containing harmful materials. (Peter Melchett, Executive Director, Greenpeace, UK, 1995)

(Harding, 1998, p. 2)

In this section we wanted to focus on particular aspects of learning. The questions we wanted to investigate were what exactly was learnt, by whom and how? What had helped this learning and what hadn’t? So we didn’t exactly start writing this section without bias and assumptions! – and soon ran into difficulties in trying to answer these questions. I (Chris) was particularly interested in one stage of the process – the dialogue process facilitated by an independent charity, the Environment Council, at Shell’s request. Details of their meetings were posted on web pages giving a seemingly very open account with a full range of individuals’ comments and reactions, several very appreciative of the opportunity but also critical of the process. I was struck by the apparent attempts to take account of what I interpreted as ‘requisite variety’, even though as far as I was aware, their facilitation processes were not informed by theory related to VS-method. Seminars were held in four different countries and to me the process seemed quite participative, even though issues regarding who was invited and how and who was and was not represented had clearly surfaced.

Individuals involved in these seminars had made comments about their own learning and deepening understanding of the issues and it is interesting to note in the Environment Council’s summary of the seminars the following statement:

Participants tended to express one of the following perspectives:

Values and emotions should be incorporated into the decision making process and information on technical details was not necessary.
Technical issues needed to be understood in great detail before any judgements could be made.
Shell should undertake all the technical decision making but leave the value judgements up to the politicians, who as elected representatives should be able to account for public acceptability.

It seemed clear to me that differences in values and beliefs had been discussed and recognised. But I also began to recognise that my own discussions with facilitators working at the Environment Council had left me with some very positive impressions regarding their facilitation skills and their awareness of the issues of participation in decision making which may well have influenced how I read the reports.

I then read Tony Rice and Paula Owen’s interpretation of events, in their book Decommissioning the Brent Spar (1999). They presented some quite different perspectives, for instance questioning whether the seminars were really part of a dialogue or an effective public relations exercise. Their analysis suggested that Shell was certainly more interested in rescuing its public image than changing its environmental policies.

I was at this stage beginning to question the significance of the apparent learning that had taken place at individual, organisational and societal levels. What was learnt and by whom still remained a largely unanswered question, unsurprisingly perhaps as the learning process cannot be evaluated out of context and without clear evaluation criteria. Box 4 gives another extract from Ronnie Harding’s analysis of the situation.

Box 4 Lessons learnt or not?

Failure to establish a transparent (open) decision-making process, to involve a cross-section of the public in discussions from an early stage and to recognise how the ground has shifted in terms of environmental concern among the general public, caused the proponents, the government and many professionals involved in the Brent Spar saga great anguish. Continued failure to read the ‘bigger picture’ beyond what scientists and engineers often consider to be ‘black and white’, ‘indisputable evidence’, is likely to lead to continued disputes and confrontation whenever major projects, developments and new technologies are proposed.

Indeed an editorial in The Times (22 June 1995) at the time of the Brent Spar issue concluded:

Greenpeace’s latest victory is no victory for the North Sea. But there is a lesson for governments to draw from this bruising. However technical an issue – and decommissioning the detritus of the North Sea oil industry is highly technical – it is not enough to have sound strategies. They must be more effectively and openly explained. Where public trust is lacking expect the Greenpeaces of the world to storm the field.

(Harding, 1998, pp. 2–3)

Clearly an improved understanding of the different perceptions that people have, and of the different values they place on natural and human resources is a vital requirement for professionals contributing to environmental decision making. In our view only then will they be able to help resolve the complex, social and environmental challenges we face today in a manner that minimises unproductive conflict.

There are many other interpretations of the events associated with this story. For example one commentator on an earlier draft of this material felt that many statements, particularly in the press, reinforced the myth that there was a ‘scientific answer’ to Brent Spar. Another pointed out that Shell had, up to the Brent Spar episode, congratulated itself on being sensitive to and in touch with ‘green issues’. It had numerous publications promoting a view of Shell as an environmentally responsible corporation. According to the commentator the problem was the prevailing worldview within Shell.

Activity 3 What was learnt?

From the material presented here, and from any experience or engagement with the Brent Spar episode, what, if anything, was learnt by any of the participants in your opinion? Do you think that the cause of sustainable development has been furthered or impaired in the process?

Despite the cynicism evident in many comments on the episode, it seems to me that Brent Spar has changed the way that Shell, the government and Greenpeace approach such issues. I will now make my own values quite clear by summarising my position.

For Shell and other large multinational corporations the loss of public image is not a trivial matter and will affect the way that decisions are made within the company. Brent Spar has demonstrated that dumping at sea is not acceptable to the European public, regardless of the technical arguments. Thus a public value has percolated into a large multinational – and frankly I am not concerned whether that happened through the consultation seminars or by the PR department throwing a fit about the damage to the company’s image.

Similarly government has discovered that technical arguments are not an adequate basis for decisions in this domain. The significance of public opinion is bread and butter to politicians, but not, in my experience, to civil servants who advise ministers on such matters. Again it does not concern me whether civil servants have broadened their perspective on the issue due to publicity about the incident, the consultation process or by being hauled over the coals by their political masters. There has been a shift, and one that encompasses a larger perspective on such matters.

For Greenpeace this was clearly a public relations success in terms of the particular issue. As such, it is one they are likely to try to repeat in other arenas with other issues such as genetically modified organisms (GMO) release. Public relations and attention of the media have been used effectively in many campaigns. It seems to me a suitable tool for progressing greater global consciousness. In one sense it is the ultimate vehicle for fostering widespread participation in the issues. But use of the media is also a potentially dangerous tool for two reasons. First, from the campaigner’s perspective, it can backfire. For instance, in the Brent Spar campaign Greenpeace clearly experienced what they saw as a ‘Government counter-attack’ (Rose 1998). Rice and Owen (1999) also suggest that the UK television media appear to be less willing to accept and transmit Greenpeace images uncritically that they were before Brent Spar. Secondly, the media can also be manipulated or used by some for their own agendas, that may or may not serve the interests of other stakeholders.

SAQ 5 Applying systems tools or techniques to Brent Spar

Write a sentence or two on what you might expect to emerge from the application of each of the following systems tools or techniques to the Brent Spar case study.

variety management
unfolding complexity (recursion and levels)
root definition of an issue based system
conceptual model of the root definition above
influence diagram
systems map
detailed modelling of Brent Spar disposal.

Discussion

Variety management
I could not see a direct application of this tool to the Brent Spar that would yield any insight or useful perspective.
Unfolding complexity (recursion and levels)
The system in focus is the Brent Spar oil platform. Going up levels takes in oil production in the North Sea, oil production and exploration in general. It could also follow a different recursive chain and include the North Sea as an ecology. Going down levels focuses on (some possible) systems within Brent Spar – the oil pumping system, the gas system, the life support systems and so on. The insight I gained from this was that it was likely that Shell had the Brent Spar in a different recursive chain – they seemed to have missed the dumping anything in the North Sea as a key issue.
Root definition of an issue based system
With hindsight it is easy to suggest that conceptualising a detailed root definition of the system to dispose of Brent Spar may have thrown up the issue of ‘in a manner acceptable to public opinion and the green lobby’. But there is evidence that this had been included in the original plans and had simply been misjudged.
Conceptual model of the root definition in question 3 above
This might have been more useful because, assuming that the root definition includes reference to public opinion and the green lobby, it would have thrown up the activities of ‘finding out’ what public opinion and the green lobby thought about the issue.
Influence diagram
I could not think of anything that this technique would be likely to illuminate in this case. This is not to say that it may not be a useful tool to explore this situation. Perhaps if I drew a systems map first and developed it from there I might be able to see how I could use it.
Systems map
It is possible that a systems map might have alerted the decision makers to the significance of dumping anything in the North Sea and may have caused them to enquire further about public opinion.
Detailed modelling of Brent Spar disposal
There is evidence that quite a lot of detailed modelling of the disposal methods did take place. It was on this basis that the government and Shell agreed that dumping at sea was the best environmental solution. However the model was not made public and Greenpeace did not have access to the correct data, so in fact the model did not assist resolve the issue – but had it been used participatively it could have helped.

The Brent Spar vignette provides a springboard into the next section of the unit, which is particularly concerned with how many different stakeholders might participate in the design of learning systems for ‘managing sustainable development’.

2 Designing ‘learning systems’ for purposeful action in the domain of sustainable development

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

In the previous section the focus was on managing systems practice according to three distinctions about power – ‘deciding for’, ‘deciding with’ and ‘enabling deciding by’. It was suggested that each of these possibilities placed different demands on the systems practitioner as juggler – juggling the B, E, C and M balls (discussed further in the unit Managing complexity: a systems approach). The question of who learns when systems practice is managed in each of these ways was also posed, because, it was argued, the question of who participates in a learning process affects their capacity to be responsible – to be able to respond purposefully. The rationale for this is my claim, based on experience, that it is much easier managing systems practice in the ‘deciding for mode’ but that ultimately this is a trap in contexts such as sustainable development. It is more challenging to be a systems practitioner in the ‘decide with’ or ‘enabling deciding by’ modes. Practice based on either ‘deciding with’ or ‘enabling deciding by’ involves much more attention to process issues, and other stakeholders are involved, often as co-practitioners or ‘co-researchers’. For example the ‘managing the commons’ issues referred to, where it is not clear who the stakeholders are, is an important context, e.g. Brent Spar. In these and similar situations the task of identifying stakeholders and bringing them together in a decision making or situation-improving project is often very difficult but despite these difficulties experience shows that if key stakeholders are not involved decisions do not stick.

A focus of this part is the systems practitioner as a facilitator of a process design which is ‘enabling for stakeholders’. This is the main subject I want to address by drawing on my own personal experience of process design in the modes of ‘deciding with’ and ‘enabling’ stakeholders to decide. Whilst the ‘deciding for’ option is given short shrift in this section, my colleague Martin Reynolds has pointed out:

... this tendency [i.e. deciding for] is often requisite e.g. (a) where stakeholders are non-human or (b) where stakeholders cannot be involved with decision making either because they have: (i) no capacity, where capacity might be determined by time constraints as well as bio-physical restraints; (ii) no desire to be involved as in scenarios where those affected do not wish to give legitimacy to a process of decision making which they feel is ultimately coercive, e.g. advocates of direct action; or (iii) not yet been identified – e.g. the incipient ‘unforeseen consequences’ in any decision making.

Whilst I value Martin’s perspective my own view is that however much we might try to put ourselves in the shoes of another, or acknowledge other perspectives, it is never the same as having these stakeholders participate. I do recognise that participation is not always possible and that any process which makes us reflect on the stakeholding of others is likely to be much better than not doing it at all. My experience suggests that as with many aspects of systems practice the choices that are made are a function of context, skills and ethics (largely awareness)!

Following Churchman (1971) my concern is with developing practice through a process of ‘designing’ purposeful inquiry. At its simplest ‘inquiry’ is an activity which produces knowledge, but as Churchman argues this is not very helpful unless we ask what ‘produces’ and ‘knowledge’ mean. His definition of ‘produces’ is that it ‘makes a difference’, i.e. it must really matter to someone. In order to test whether it matters one determines whether the absence of the activity would have resulted in something different. However this is not easy to do – the problem is a bit like the driver not sure of where they are going who has to choose which turn to take. Employing a systems approach often takes you down some turns rather than others and it is sometimes hard to distinguish whether this leads to a better place or just a different place. However, for me the aware systems practitioner has more choices at their disposal and is more aware of why certain turns seem better. When practising in a ‘decide with’ or ‘enabling deciding by’ mode it is helpful for both the practitioner and those stakeholders who become involved to have a route map of the process they are beginning. Figure 6 is one possible route map that appeals to me.

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Figure 6 A model of a systemic inquiry process that can be used for managing systems practice in different contexts and according to different aspects of power viz deciding for, deciding with or enabling deciding by. When enacted the model can be described as a ‘learning system’ (Source: Adapted from Checkland, 2002)

Activity 4 Seeing the seven step SS-method as an inquiring system

Consider the SS-method used in T306_2 and reconfigure the seven step model in terms of those presented in Figure 6.

Based on your use of SS-Method thus far suggest some implications for practice from what you have learned by carrying out this activity

Discussion

I have drawn two diagrams for my answer. I started by using the seven-step model of SS-method. (In my two diagrams I have numbered the original seven steps from 1 to 7. What I found different was that Checkland now places greater emphasis on setting up a structured exploration at the beginning (step A in my two new diagrams). He is thus making much more explicit his commitment to enacting SS-method as both an action research process and as an ‘inquiring system’. This suggests to me that an important part of this stage could be to ask the question: who should or ought to participate in this inquiry? Put another way this could be asked as: ‘Who will learn from engaging in an exploration of the situation?

I also have the sense that Checkland now makes less distinction between the so-called ‘real world’ and the ‘conceptual world’ as steps 1 to 7 of the original seven step model now seem to me to fall within the boundary of what he called a ‘make sense of situation ... sub-system’. I found it difficult not to conflate his new activities ‘tease out possible accommodations between different interests’ and ‘define action to change’ (C and D) in my diagram. His reworking seemed to me to imply iteration between steps 5 and 6 in the original model (as well as with earlier stages).

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Figure 7

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Figure 8

I shall say more about designing purposeful inquiry later in this section. A particular concern I have is to provide you with opportunities to become more aware of different ways of managing your systems practice in relation to the question: who learns?

In my own systems practice I have found the following schema helpful in addressing the question of who learns:

All systems practice requires me to be concerned with my own learning – managing my reflective practice.
By using systems thinking to formulate systems of interest I may help to improve a situation for myself, a client or clients. By doing all of these I might learn about my systems practice and, my clients and I might have new insights into the situation as well. This is an example which often results in ‘deciding for’.
In order that the changes I might be able to facilitate in the process described in point 2 above are more sustainable, it might make sense to ‘design’ my practice in a way that involves ‘giving away’ (or embedding) systems thinking and practice skills so that the stakeholders in the situation can use them in an on-going action-learning manner (i.e. for me to facilitate learning about the process and the situation). This could be ‘deciding with’ or ‘enabling deciding by’.
In some special cases it may make sense to design my practice in a way that enables those with whom I am engaged to develop their skills to ‘give away’ their systems thinking and practice to others (i.e. to facilitate individuals to learn about how they might help others to learn). This is a further elaboration of ‘enabling deciding by’ in that it aims to enable participants to be able to decide on both outcomes and process in the current context but also in future contexts.

Of course the four different ways of managing practice that I present in my schema are not mutually exclusive. Later I shall be presenting a section which exemplifies some of these choices for managing practice in the domain of sustainable development. This section is presented to illuminate some of the issues that are involved in the design of an inquiring process which can produce a ‘learning system’ and to contribute to answering the question: what must occur in order for it to be describable as a learning system? Before moving on, however, I want to reconnect with the domain of sustainable development and your practice of SS-method thus far in the course. I will then say something about what I mean by ‘design’.

2.1 Creative use of SS-method for ‘managing’ sustainable development in multiple stakeholder situations

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Many nations are grappling with how to implement sustainable development strategies as part of international agreements they have entered into in the wake of the Earth Summits. Implementing sustainable development is no longer merely a vision for the future. Increasingly jobs are appearing for individuals with the skills to ‘manage’ sustainable development (Figure 9).

As explained earlier, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – to give the Earth Summit its full title – was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Out of this conference came Agenda 21, the comprehensive action plan for the pursuit of sustainable development in the 21st century. In common with many other countries, and in line with agreements made at Rio, the UK developed a strategy and local government in particular picked up on this quite strongly. Since the original Earth Summit in 1992 the many recommendations in Agenda 21 have been taken up in varying degrees. There is a series of issues around implementation ranging from finance to participation. However, many people worldwide have been, or are becoming, involved in the overall process of Agenda 21, from before the Rio conference to the present time, and it has been a major focus in many different countries for a great deal of activity on environment and development. Local Agenda 21 (LA21) programmes have been developed in several countries.

A 1997 review of LA21 activity in the UK by the Local Government Management Board (LGMB) (1997) based on returns by 170 local authorities, reported concerns with, and activities relating to, transport (especially motor car congestion and air pollution), energy efficiency, recycling and waste minimisation, noise, land use, protection of habitats and open spaces, water conservation and management and environmental education in schools. The report says LA21 ‘is really starting to make a difference … in the integration of environmental concerns with social and economic considerations. This linkage of the environment with issues around housing employment, crime, health, poverty, equality, under the banner of sustainable development is making the community look at things differently; making issues which previously seemed a luxury become pertinent’ (LGMB, 1997, p. 4) This report also noted that LA21 is starting to trigger a debate about enhancing local democracy and ensuring community involvement in local decision-making processes. For example a number of local authorities are using LA21 as a basis for developing strategies new to them that involve trying out community participation techniques and rethinking past ‘givens’ about how the authority interfaces and interacts with local people.

I wonder if your experience of LA21 accords with what is claimed by the LGMB report? From the perspective of being an English resident I certainly perceive a number of these issues (e.g. congestion) as affecting the quality of my daily life; they have not gone away as issues despite the increase in LA21 activity. As you might imagine things have moved on in terms of sustainable development policy. The European Union now has pursuit of sustainable development as one of its aims (this was a later development than the implementation of LA21 in the UK but is, of course, applicable to all EU member states).

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Figure 9 Some of the posts that are appearing for people with the ability to ‘manage’ sustainable development

Box 5 Towards sustainable development – European Policy

The Treaty establishing the European Community, as amended by the Single European Act, explicitly provides for the development and implementation of a Community policy on the environment. The Maastricht Treaty sets the European Union the objective of promoting sustainable growth while respecting the environment. A further step was taken with the Treaty of Amsterdam, which incorporates the principle of sustainable development as one of the European Community’s aims.

The fifth programme of policy and action

The objective of the fifth programme of action in relation to the environment is to transform patterns of growth in the Community in such a way as to promote sustainable development.

The fifth programme sets out a new approach to Community environment policy based on the following principles:

the adoption of a global, proactive approach aimed at the different actors and activities which affect natural resources or pollute the environment
the will to change current trends and practices which harm the environment for current and future generations
encouraging changes in social behaviour by engaging all the actors concerned (public authorities, citizens, consumers, enterprises, etc.)
establishing the concept of shared responsibility
using new environmental instruments.

In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the Community is limiting its action to the following priority areas:

long-term management of natural resources: soil, water, countryside and coasts
an integrated approach to combating pollution, and acting to prevent waste
reducing the consumption of energy from non-renewable sources
improving the management of mobility by developing efficient and clean modes of transport
drawing up a coherent package of measures to improve the quality of the urban environment
improving health and safety, in particular in relation to the management of industrial hazards, nuclear safety and radiation protection.

(http://europa.eu/ legislation_summaries/ other/ 128062_en.htm)

Within the UK LA21 has now largely merged into local community planning. For example in Scotland an Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 2003 (see http://www.communityplanning.org.uk/) is being implemented by a Community Planning Task Force whose role is to:

champion the community planning process, spread ownership, develop guidance, share good practice, encourage and develop citizenship, and act as a forum for advising on issues which arise as communities take forward their community plans.

SAQ 6 European policy – sustainable development

List the five principles on which the European Community environment policy is based.

Discussion

The European Community environmental policy is based on the following principles:

the adoption of a global, proactive approach aimed at the different actors and activities which affect natural resources or pollute the environment
the will to change current trends and practices which harm the environment for current and future generations
encouraging changes in social behaviour by engaging all the actors concerned (public authorities, citizens, consumers, enterprises, etc.)
establishing the concept of shared responsibility
using new environmental instruments.

Earlier I referred to the new community participation techniques that are being tried out by some local authorities under the aegis of LA21. These skills are also in demand for community planning approaches.

Community planning in my view, is an area where creative systems practice has much to offer. For example, based on my experience of using SS-method, and particularly the underlying thinking, I believe it has the potential to be used in a wider range of settings than has been the case historically. To date it has been used mainly in organisational settings and in dealing with messes in information system development. The application of SS-method, as a particular approach within systems practice is growing all the time, but in terms of all the management and consultancy activity that is undertaken, its use (in my experience) is still quite limited. You could choose to see this as an opportunity or a problem. From my perspective I see it as an opportunity. So, I want to invite you to build on your experience of using SS-method thus far in the course and to explore how SS-method in its latest guise might be used to design a process for enabling multiple stakeholders to participate in formulating and implementing a sustainable development strategy. My aim here is to provide experiences for you to further develop your skills of managing your systems practice in the ‘deciding with’ and ‘enabling deciding by’ modes. Moving from ‘deciding for’ to one of the other power relationships means that there is a need to focus on the C-ball. When engaging with stakeholders who have multiple experiences and skills the aware practitioner is faced with the need to be clear about their role, and the process issues for involving stakeholders. So managing the C-ball is more sophisticated that just choosing one or more methods. In my experience the very skilled practitioner relies on the thinking that underpins the various methods that are available. This is why I used the word ‘designing’ in the title of this part. For me ‘designing’ is a special form of ‘contextualising’ – of managing the C-ball.

Design is a particular form of purposeful human activity. Coyne and Snodgrass (1991) have characterised it as an involvement in a project that is pursued individually or collectively and that translates human culture, technology and aspiration into form. Design in this sense is something we all do – when we design a trip or holiday, call a meeting or carry out an investigation. Churchman (1971) observes that ‘a successful design is one that enables someone to transfer thought into action or into another design’ (p. 6). Notice that I am not referring to examples of design that might normally be associated with an architect, engineer or planner who develops a set of plans or specifications or a blueprint. This type of design I will call systematic design, because there is a clear objective to be optimised. In contrast I am interested in systemic design; design which creates the possibility of emergence and which is carried out with awareness of the thinking used to guide the design.

The emergent property I am most concerned with in this part is ‘learning which triggers purposeful action’. The next section examines this in more detail.

2.2 Engaging with process design for emergent outcomes

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

This section raises a number of questions – mostly ‘How’ questions such as ‘How do I design a process that enables stakeholders?’ or ‘How do I design a process which allows for emergent outcomes?’ The remaining sections in this part attempt to answer some of these questions by starting with your own experiences thus far of using SS-method.

The material here is not the main focus of this unit. However, I invite you to engage with it so as to demonstrate how I have incorporated some of the ideas of this course in my own systems practice. This example has its origins in the period 1990–94 when I was involved in a project working with a range of different stakeholders in the semi-arid pastoral zone of New South Wales, Australia. We used our understanding of systems thinking to design an ‘inquiring system’ relevant to the context of the lives of pastoralists in semi-arid Australia. As part of that project I was, with my colleagues, involved in the design of a process to enable pastoralists to pursue their own research and development (R&D) activities – as opposed to having someone else’s R&D outcomes imposed on them! Our design was built around the notion that given the right experiences peoples’ enthusiasms for action could be triggered in such a way that those with similar enthusiasms might work together. We understood enthusiasm as:

a biological driving force (enthusiasm comes from the Greek meaning ‘the god within’; see study note below)
an emotion, which when present led to purposeful action
a theoretical notion
a methodology – a way to orchestrate purposeful action.

My use of ‘god’ in this context has no connection with organised religion – our position is to question the commonly held notion that ‘information’ comes from outside ourselves rather than from within in response to non-specific triggers from the environment.

We spent a lot of time designing a process that we thought had a chance to trigger peoples’ enthusiasms. Our process did in fact enable peoples’ enthusiasms to be surfaced and led to several years of R&D activity (purposeful activity) on the part of some pastoralists supported by ourselves (but never determined by us). The process we designed did not lead to the R&D actions (purposeful activity) in any cause and effect way. The purposeful activity taken was an emergent property of peoples’ participation in the systemic, experiential learning process that we had designed.

The way we went about designing the process is described in detail in Ison and Russell (2000). The four stages involved are described in the unit Managing complexity: a systems approach.

2.2.1 Some definitions

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

To follow this four stage model I need to say what we meant by first and second order processes.

First-order processes assume data describes a ‘system’ as if it was an objective set of operations functioning independently of its historical and social creation and, change takes place in terms of identifiable objects with well-defined properties. A first-order understanding is gained by accepting that there are general rules that apply to situations in terms of those objects and properties. By applying the rules logically to the situation of concern one can draw conclusions about how something has come about and/or what should be done. Here learning and action are based on the belief in a single reality – a ‘real world’ – which can be approached and known objectively. First-order understandings have been characterised by a reliance on a high level of disciplinary knowledge (more recently, multi disciplinary knowledge) and a ‘fix’ mentality – expose the breakdown and attempt to fix it. In first-order R&D, the problem is clearly defined, the solution is a technological one, and the barriers to adopting the solution are placed fairly and squarely with the end-user community. A practitioner practising in first-order ‘mode’ is minimally aware of how the context actively shapes any experience and especially how the act of observation and participation determines the actual experience. The attitude to knowledge is predominately one of believing in the possibility of an ‘objective’ knowing of the world. This tradition is characterised by concerned intervention, the definition of clear goals, the naming of the problem, and the proposal of a rational solution.

Second-order processes utilise data that takes as its starting point first-order data such as descriptions of physical, biological, and psychological events with specific reference to a person’s experience (past, present and imagined) of gathering, and working with, the said data. Thus in order to achieve second-order change it is necessary to step outside the usual frame of reference and take a meta-perspective. This perspective seeks to avoid being either subjective (particular to the individual) or objective (independent of the individual) and recognising that the objects of our actions and perceptions are not independent of the very actions/perceptions that we make. Problems and improvements are both generated in the conversations that take place between the key stakeholders and do not arise, or exist, outside of such engagements. Second-order R&D is built on the understanding that human beings determine the world that they experience. Second-order systems practice is characterised by the experience of ‘awareness’ of being the agent in generating key distinctions (e.g., what is the situation under study (the system of interest); what is focused on and what is marginalised; what is the ‘problem’ or ‘opportunity’ and what might be an ‘improvement’) and especially, that the objects and events that we perceive are only knowable through the action of the person perceiving – the ‘observer’.

SAQ 7 The four stages in the design of an ‘inquiring system’

List the four stages employed by Russell and Ison in their design of an ‘inquiring system’.

Discussion

Bringing the system of interest into existence (i.e., naming the system of interest)
Evaluating the effectiveness of the system of interest as a vehicle to elicit useful understanding (and acceptance) of the social and cultural context
Generation of a joint decision-making process (a ‘problem-determined system of interest’) involving all key stakeholders
Evaluating the effectiveness of the decisions made (i.e., how has the action taken been judged by stakeholders?)

Stage 1: Bringing the system of interest into existence (i.e., naming the system of interest)

Tasks	First-order processes	Skills	Potential pitfalls
Agreeing on the essential participants (the key stakeholders)	Invite relevant parties to state their interest in a particular event/experience	Ability to identify parties with a particular stake in an outcome (e.g., resource providers; users of outcome; producers of outcome)	To equally involve stakeholder groups that historically have exercised little influence on how particular decisions are made
A ‘system of interest’ is generated which has been determined by the main issues of concern to the key stakeholders	The ‘system of interest’ is determined by the perceptions stakeholders have of the ‘problem’ not the problem being determined by the ‘system’ i.e. narrowly focused experts or bureaucracies	Group process skills coupled with outcome-oriented skills	That preconceived ideas of what constitutes the ‘problem’ will hinder a reframing of what constitutes an actionable problem
Collection of sufficient empirical data so as to establish the existence of specified events/experiences	Generation of patterns of data over time	Ability to recognise the key categories of data required and requisite skills to collect and quantify data	That easily quantifiable data will be judged as being superior to less easily quantifiable data (e.g., value statements; emotional responses)
Determining the boundaries of the ‘system of interest’ (conceptual; geographical etc)	To incorporate data from the bio-physical domain and the psycho-social domain in determining system boundaries	Ability to successfully invite participants to offer narrative data via social technologies (e.g., semi-structured interviews; focus groups)	To favour the generation of a dominant bio-physical system over a ‘human activity system’

Stage 2: Evaluating the effectiveness of the system of interest as a vehicle to elicit useful understanding (and acceptance) of the social and cultural context

Tasks	Second-order processes	Skills	Potential pitfalls
Judgements on adequacy of data to contextual demands	Awareness of how data were generated and psychological and sociological driving forces at work (e.g., operation of dominant mythologies; historical underpinnings)	Ability to see different world-views as expressions of prior and differing life experience	‘Experts’ and others with social status tending to impose their conceptual models and boundaries on other parties
Seek additional contextual data if necessary	Articulate the meaning-making linkage between first-order and second-order data: the latter giving meaning to the former	Ability to elicit contextual information and to appreciate the shaping function of dominant mythologies: how meaning is made by reference, often outside of awareness, to organising constructs such as institutional or cultural ‘stories’	Desire to establish a hierarchy of knowledge ‘types’: one kind of knowledge being judged as superior (more useful) than any other type
Seek legitimation of match between an existing worldview and the history of how such a view was formed	Each individual is responsible for the world that she/he ‘constructs’ and each set of knowledge is valid for that person precisely because he/she has constructed it	Ability to work with a multiverse of world-views rather than aspiring for a common or universal view	That the researcher(s) will subtly try to influence the proceedings by asserting a dominant position representing their own point of view
Achieve ‘two-way’ conversation, or ‘dialogue’ in which individuals speak from their respective positions	Each expression to be accepted as a contribution of value to the eventual outcome (an outcome which is yet to be named)	To actively listen and respect (but not necessarily agree) with others. Skills to confidently present one’s position.	Some people are unable to accept that there may be different ‘truths’ representing different worldviews

Stage 3: Generation of a joint decision-making process (a ‘problem-determined system of interest’) involving all key stakeholders.

Tasks	Processes	Skills	Potential pitfalls
All participants (stakeholders) are encouraged to fully address their concerns and aspirations	Ambiguity and uncertainty reflect the non absolutist understandings associated with every position	To reflect back to the participants how each position has an ‘appropriateness’ for a specified intellectual domain. Outside that domain appropriateness diminishes rapidly	Matters which can be held as ‘certain’ in one domain can be generalised across other domains
Respective concerns and aspirations are mirrored back to participants showing understanding of respective position	A publicly sanctioned reflexive process allows for both confirmation and public acknowledgment	Facilitation skills sufficient to reflect what has been contributed, and how it has been said, without introducing any new material or altering the emotional milieu	People not recognising and/or accepting their own blind spots
The ‘problem’, and thus a desirable outcome, is named	The problem is within the action domain of this group. This group has ‘ownership’ of the problem and of the eventual outcome	Skills of analysis and synthesis such that the nominated problem expresses some of the key needs of the stakeholders	That the responsibility for actioning the problem will be projected to parties outside of the task group
The decision (not necessarily agreed with by all) is made	The agreement is that all parties have been able to present their positions in a fair and full manner. Acceptance to proceed is not contingent on full agreement on the final position	That an intellectual and emotional climate is achieved in which all participants can see the merits of differing points of view and are able to ‘let go’ of preferred positions	That a stakeholder abandons the decision-making process rather than be seen to be compromising

Stage 4: Evaluating the effectiveness of the decisions made (i.e., how has the action taken been judged by stakeholders?)

Tasks	Processes	Skills	Potential pitfalls
Collective judgements of how well the generated problem represented key needs of all stakeholders	This is a measure of internal effectiveness of the process and of subsequent commitment to the implementation of the decision	Ability to openly listen to participants’ ‘second thoughts’ without showing excessive defensiveness	Risk of jeopardising the whole process because the outcomes were judged as being less than perfect
Assessment of increased readiness to address, in a similar manner, other needs and concerns	A second-order system coupled with a first-order system facilitates learning-to-learn by the participants and, increasingly, is embedded in the culture of the organisations	Ability to demonstrate the second-order outcomes and to present them as reusable building blocks	A tendency to disparage second-order outcomes visa-vis first-order ones
Estimate how transparent (open to public scrutiny) the decision-making process has been	A transparent process allows participants to accept a decision (because the process has been experienced as being fair and equitable) even when they do not fully agree with it	Ability to balance those who bring with them institutional and/or social ‘power’ with those traditionally less endowed	That a climate of mutual acceptance cannot be achieved: where differential ‘power’ has not been accepted
Evaluate the ease of implementation of the decisions made	Organisations tend to conserve their status quo, especially the desire to maintain the patterning of key relationships	Skills to articulate the structural variables, both constraints and enabling factors, which influence implementation	An institution might find it preferable to shift the entire debate to a totally different arena rather than implement an ‘upsetting’ decision

In the material that follows I want to extend your appreciation of how SS-method might be used in your own practice, that is how you might use it in a ‘process design’ sense. I will use Vignette 5 as an example of systems practice based on SS-method in a degraded river catchment in rural Thailand to make some teaching points. At the end of the vignette I will ask you to use it as a basis to complete a ‘simulated design’ using SS-method. This will involve developing a brief to advise how a local government authority charged with introducing a strategy for managing sustainable development might proceed. Both of these situations involve many individuals, organisations and interest groups and may also be characterised by conflict.

At the end of this unit I will ask you to:

consider how this unit changed how you engage with or think about sustainable development
draw some connections between systems practice in this domain with other domains
briefly explore how different modes of systems practice might be developed in your project
reflect on what further work you might need to do to become confident in designing an ‘inquiring system’ as part of your systems practice.

Before doing this however, complete the following activity which asks you to identify some of the range of potential stakeholders in the local government area in which you currently reside.

Activity 5 Identifying stakeholders in sustainable development

Suggest some possible stakeholders in a sustainable development strategy and implementation in the local government area where you reside. You might like to think of your answer in terms of both roles and occupations.

Discussion

For the purpose of this section I am assuming that there are many roles an individual might occupy in a local government area, e.g. as a citizen, consumer, employer or employee, parent, supplier, ratepayer. There is also likely to be a diverse array of occupations, ethnic groups and people of different income and education represented. Such a diversity of backgrounds and experience suggests that it might be difficult for people to reach agreement on what sustainable development is, yet alone how to manage it and whether any action taken resulted in any improvement. When aggregated this suggests a great diversity of interests and potential stakeholders in ‘sustainable development’ in any local government area. So how might a systems practitioner design a process, or processes, to engage with sustainable development that has the potential to be experienced as ‘enabling’ by members of a diverse local government community? This is a question I will work with you in answering below. But first I want to describe how Peter Checkland’s (early 1980s) seven stage SS-method has been further developed through a process of reflection on experience involving action research.

2.3 Developments in practice with SS-method

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

The historical thread described earlier focussed on the use of systems thinking, implicitly and explicitly, in the area of sustainable development. Systems thinking was used by the authors to make sense of the Brent Spar example. Systems thinking for making sense is a legitimate form of systems practice (and one that you have also experienced previously). Several examples in this unit have been drawn from poorer countries. It may not be any surprise to you that practitioners in poorer countries are leading initiatives in participation in the design and conduct of development projects. However, a similar evolution is taking place with the application of systems methods, which are (in general) becoming more participative (e.g. Ison, Maiteny and Carr, 1997).

Historically most systems practitioners engaged by businesses to tackle issues have adopted the classic consultant role and operated between the ‘decide for’ and ‘decide with’ positions. Many systems methods have been used in this way. However, the developers of SSM, in pursuing their use of it as an action-research project, have increasingly paid attention to the characteristics of the situation in which the methodology is being used. They have used SSM itself to help them with this process. The details of how they have gone about this are, I believe, relevant to systems practice in the domain of sustainable development (see Checkland, 1999). What is more, the creative use of SSM offers strategies to break out of traps associated with uncritical use of systematic thinking and action which has characterised some attempts to manage sustainable development. For example, use of ‘formalised’ approaches to environmental management, such as ISO14001; EMAS; EIA; SIA (see Box 5) have not always contributed to managing sustainable development in the ways that some may have hoped, although admittedly they were not specifically designed for this purpose.

Box 6 Formalised approaches to environmental management: some background notes

ISO 14001 ‘Environmental management systems – specifications with guidance for use’ is the international standard for Environmental Management Systems published by the International Standards Organization (ISO). General guidelines on the principles, systems and supporting techniques have also been provided in a separate standard, ISO 14004.

EMAS is the European Commission’s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme originally for industry and is a voluntary regulation that came into operation in April 1995 in all member states of the EU. It has also been adapted for use in local government in the UK.

EIA is Environmental Impact Assessment, which is a compulsory requirement of many development activities. In some situations this may be accompanied by a Social Impact Assessment (SIA).

I have drawn heavily on the book Soft Systems Methodology in Action (1999) by Peter Checkland and Jim Scholes for the following material. I wish to embellish the ‘iconic’ pictorial model that is sometimes used to describe the process of SSM by using an edited extract from Checkland and Scholes. This extract contains an activity sequence model of the methodology as presented in the early 1980s (Figure 10) as well as the 1990’s version (Figure 11).

Figure 10 The seven-step activity model of SSM as articulated in the 1980s (Checkland and Scholes, 1999, p. 27)

View larger image

Figure 11 An ‘iconic’ pictorial model of the process of SSM as articulated in the 1990s (Checkland and Scholes, 1999, p. 29)

Please read the following edited extract of ‘The Inquiring Process which is SSM’ (Checkland and Scholes, 1999). Then complete the following SAQs as a check on your understanding of the extract. It is also important that you take time to read my answers to these SAQs as they expand on some of the issues raised and contain important teaching material.

View document

SAQ 8 Comparing models of SSM

Look carefully at Figures 10 and 11. Compare and contrast the two models of SSM they represent by drawing on your own learning about SS-method or -methodology. Outline what the main changes appear to be between the 1980s and the 1990s versions. Suggest any implications of the changes for the systems practitioner?

Discussion

I will restrict my answer to a comparison of the two models as represented by the figures (10 and 11) because I cannot comment on your learning.

For me some of the main differences between the two depictions of SSM are:

In the early depiction (Figure 10) there is a distinction between the real world and the conceptual world which is not made in the later version (Figure 11). The original purpose of the line was as an aid to distinguishing between the everyday world of the problem situation and the systems thinking about it. For me, the absence of this division in the later version means that one is always iterating between the so-called real world situation and the conceptual world of systems thinking about the situation. There is no clear division occurring in a sequence of steps (as conveyed, perhaps unwittingly by the original model). Of course the onus is on the systems practitioner to be aware of these distinctions as they practice.

The early model has seven stages. Checkland (1999) describes this as happy chance, coinciding as it does with the research done by Miller (reported in the text) which suggests we can only cope with 7± 2 concepts at a time. This means that it is easy enough to remember all the steps and not need to look them up in a book all of the time.

The development of a rich picture is explicit in the early model but implicit in the later model. For some this may be a disadvantage – but it can also be an advantage as it allows the systems practitioner to think of other methods, techniques or tools which may play a similar role to rich picturing. For example, I have used semi-structured interviewing, role playing, poster preparation, SWOT analyses, metaphor analysis and other diagramming techniques as an alternative to rich-picturing so as to gain a rich appreciation of a situation. Checkland now places rich-picturing in the cultural stream of analysis.
The later model has two streams of analysis running concurrently – the cultural analysis which includes analysis of the intervention, the ‘social system’ and the ‘political system’ and the logic-based stream of analysis. The logic-based stream of analysis is much the same as depicted in the earlier version except presented in a linear format. In later use (Checkland, 1999) the two streams of analysis have been fused to define four specific activities:
1. finding out about a problem situation, including culturally/politically
2. formulating some relevant purposeful activity models
3. debating the situation, using the models, seeking from the debate both (i) changes which would improve the situation and are regarded as both desirable and (culturally) feasible, and (ii) the accommodations between conflicting interests which will enable action-to-improve the situation to be taken
4. taking action in the situation to bring about improvement.
Doing SSM is always cyclical and iterative but this is implicit rather than explicit in all depictions.
The two-headed arrows between the cultural and logic streams of analysis show that there is constant iteration between these two streams and that both continue throughout the life of a project. The early model tended to suggest that a rich picture was done at the start and that was it whereas the later version suggests that use of rich pictures or metaphors etc is an on-going activity as long as it aids learning in the situation.
The addition of the people icons to the later version make this depiction richer for me because it reminds me that there are systems practitioners and other stakeholders who engage with the problem or opportunity situation – these are Checkland’s ‘would be improvers of the problem situation’. Note that I have modified Figure 10 from that appearing in Checkland and Scholes (1990) to include reference to opportunities as well as problems.
The later version draws attention to the fact that the problem/opportunity ‘real world’ situation has a history. This history is amenable to analysis: the systems practitioner also has a history which I call a tradition of understanding.
What has not changed between the two versions is the central place of constructing relevant systems (based on CATWOE, transformation), and activity modelling, the process being used to gain insights, to learn, about the real situation, not to model it as it ‘is’.

The different models of SSM have implications for systems practice as well as for learning about SSM. I will leave you to decide what you think these are for yourself. My own responses will become apparent as the teaching text develops.

SAQ 9 SSM as methodology

The quote from Bulow early in the extract refers to SSM as a methodology. To what degree does the soft systems approach described in the extract conform to the definition of methodology used in these units?

Discussion

The positions on methodology taken by Checkland in Appendix A and that by the course team are different but not that different. The T306 position on methodology is that methodology can only be said to exist in the doing by a person or persons in a specific context. Methodology thus arises in reflection on practice. In Bulow’s quote she says ‘SSM is a methodology’ – this form of description objectifies SSM and gives it a status independent of a particular user although the LUMAS model (Figure 14) is an attempt to avoid this. Saying SSM is a thing creates. This is a trap of language. It means there is a need to be as careful as possible when writing about practice and for that reason we have resorted in this course to describing any written description of ‘methodology’ as method, because we are not able to say what might happen in practice.

Commenting on this answer, Peter Checkland says:

For us methodology is, as the word says, the logos of method, principles of method, principles which a method can embody. I’m happy to ‘objectify’ a methodology as a set of principles written out on paper. Of course words on paper can’t force a user to do any particular thing. But what happens whenever a user consciously ‘uses SSM’ is that they construct what to do in this particular situation with these people with this particular history, culture, politics etc. That produces their method. If they wish to claim to be ‘using SSM’ they have to be able to mount an argument that what we did embodies the principles of the methodology which is SSM in the following way ...

I include Peter’s comments here to provide another perspective. He concludes by saying ‘I don’t find the T306 position on methodology to be as convincing. It ignores the structure of the word.’

SAQ 10 Features of the 1990s version of SSM

The 1990 version of SSM is described in terms of a logic-based stream and a cultural stream. Are both of these present in the 1980s version? What is the implication of the change?

Discussion

The logic-based stream and a cultural stream are not present in the depiction of the 1980s version, though the inclusion of rich-picturing in the original, and retained in the latter, is an important component of the stream of cultural inquiry. The change means that more attention is now placed on the cultural and political aspects of the engagement of the practitioner with experienced complexity. Both the cultural and logic-based streams of inquiry are on-going through the cycle of inquiry and inform each other. The later version is much closer to the metaphor of the systems practitioner as juggler – but as the reading outlines, there is a lot of experience and robust concepts which underpin the changes and which, if understood, can be used to help the ‘juggler’.

SAQ 11 Primary task and issue-based systems

Look back at the relevant systems employed in the use of SS-method. Were these of the ‘primary task’ or ‘issue based’ type? To what degree did these satisfy the ‘transformation process’?

Discussion

Elsewhere John Robson carried out a SS-method analysis of the Taurus Project. His relevant system was ‘a system for electronic transfer and settlement of shares of companies listed on the Stock Exchange’. Such a system is clearly of the ‘primary task’ type in that its boundaries could be said to be onto institutionalised arrangements (or boundaries) that exist in the real world. John went on to do a CATWOE and develop a root definition of

A stock Exchange system for electronic transfer and settlement of listed equity securities traded by stockbrokers (on behalf of their clients), which complies with requirements of UK government agencies.

Such a root definition does not seem to satisfy the transformation process described by Checkland to any great extent. It is simply ‘a system to do P’. The elements of ‘by Q in order to achieve R’ are lacking. This seems to be a reflection of the quite systematic (Mode 1) use of the SS-method in this case (which in turn reflects the brief he was given). The T and W elements of the CATWOE don’t seem to have been paired in a way that leads to further insight.

Earlier Jake Chapman uses the SS-method in an informal way to take another look at the Taurus project. He focuses on an issue-based type of system – a system relevant to mental processes that are not embodied in the real world. His system is developed over three iterations into a root definition of:

A system to resolve conflicts between all prospective users of the system so as to ensure that there would be no further changes to the IS once it was agreed and commissioned from a supplier.

This system, despite the fact that Jake is not ‘formally’ following the SS-method seems to embody the ‘transformation process’ described by Checkland. The system describes the core transformation needed, and despite no CATWOE being given seems to pair the T and W components in a far more meaningful and richer way than John Robson was asked to do. It lifts the analysis to a higher level than the detail of the IS.

Checkland says that using both issue and task-based types of systems can be most mind opening. In order to more fully satisfy the exploration and learning process both issue and task based systems might be considered for the same situation.

SAQ 12 What are the three Es?

What are the three Es? What claims are made about their inclusion in SSM? What are the other two Es that can be added and how might they add to the use of SSM?

Discussion

The three Es are efficacy (for ‘does the means work’, efficiency (for ‘amount of output divided by amount of resources used’) and effectiveness (for ‘is T meeting the longer term aim?’). The three Es are criteria to judge whether a particular transformation can be judged as successful or unsuccessful. They can also be applied to any activity model that is built because the transformation is at the core of any model. You can look back at the examples given to check if you follow how these ideas can be used in practice.

The other two Es that are referred to in the reading are ethicality and elegance. Exploration of the ethicality of particular activity models would seem to be highly relevant in any attempts to mange sustainable development purposefully. An ethical grid is suggested in the reading as one way to do this but the idea is not explained or developed.

The original use of SSM was mainly in terms described by Peter Checkland as a ‘highlighted study’ which had an unconsidered and limiting model of intervention (in terms of this course a limiting model of engaging with complexity). This limiting model of intervention involved outsiders:

entering problem situations
doing work in it, or on it
writing a report
departing.

It is this series of activities which the seven-step (or stage) model has perpetuated and which resulted in many people using it systematically rather than more creatively. The formal use of the seven-stage version of SSM has been termed Mode 1 use by Checkland and Scholes.

When Jim Scholes, then a business planning and control manager, began using Checkland’s Mode 1 version of SSM in his day to day work he realised that his mode of use was very different to the intervention model described above. Subsequently the original, or Mode 1 use of SSM has been described as ‘using SSM to do a study’ (the four step intervention using the seven-stage model) compared to ‘doing work using SSM in everyday situations’. The differences have practical implications. The former involves mentally starting with SSM and using it to structure what is done. In contrast, the latter involves mentally starting from what is to be done (the situation) and making sense of it by mapping it on to SSM, or making use of it through SSM (see Table 1). Choosing between these two ways of using SSM is, for me, a very good example of how the systems practitioner juggles both the E and C balls. But the act of choosing implies that we can always sit back and think rationally about our choices – my experience suggests that in the day to day flux of managing this is a rare luxury so I would propose that the issues that Scholes and Checkland have grappled with relate to how a practitioner juggles the B-ball – their being as a systems practitioner. It is the internal mental use of SSM as a thinking mode in everyday situations that is described as Mode 2 use of SSM (see Table 1).

Table 1 Some distinctions an observer might make between Mode 1 and Mode 2 use of SSM by a practitioner

Mode 1	Mode 2
Method-driven	Situation-driven
Intervention	Interaction
Sometimes used only as a linear sequence	Always iterative
SSM as an external recipe	SSM as an internalised model

(Adapted from Checkland and Scholes, 1999, p. A36)

Checkland and Scholes (1990) characterise Mode 2 as occurring when the systems practitioner interacts in the events (practices) and ideas (theories) which unfold over time. Another way of saying this is that the practitioner is a participant in the situation rather than being external to it (and it is for this reason that the history of the practitioner – called a tradition – was drawn to your attention). I depicted how a systems practitioner can become part of the situation in the following way (see Figure 12). It is important to note that Mode 1 and Mode 2 are not equivalent to SS-method and SS-methodology (as introduced earlier in the course). However, as Table 2 indicates there was often a predisposition to use Mode 1 SSM as if it were SS-method (i.e as a linear sequence, or as an external recipe).

I can relate to the distinctions between Mode 1 and Mode 2 use of SSM based on my own experience. My initial use of it was very much of the Mode 1 type, but with time and practice I began to internalise much of the thinking and began using it more in Mode 2. I often find myself in situations, particularly meetings, where I ask myself the question: How could I think about what is being proposed in terms of a system of interest? Following this question I might do a quick CATWOE, which primarily helps me to consider what is being discussed in terms of what the main transformation process(es) might be. More often than not I will not formalise my learning in these contexts, though I do keep quite detailed notes of most of my meetings which I can return to if and when necessary.

In comments on this part of the unit, Peter Checkland says that

It ought to be made clear that Mode 1/Mode 2 are not two categories; they define a spectrum; they are ideal types; any actual study will be somewhere on the spectrum. The ‘Mode 2’ concept arose naturally as, with experience, two things came together:
- the ‘technology’ of SSM became internalised; it became tacit knowledge which we did not have to stop and think about; and
- the experience of the use of SSM convinced us that there was a need to pay attention to the process being enacted as much as the content which the process was addressing.

Mode 2 was thus an emergent development arising experientially not a designed development.

Figure 12 The choices available to the aware (with light-bulb) and non-aware (without light-bulb) systems practitioner with the four balls that need to be juggled for effective practice. The non-aware practitioner always acts in the belief that they are outside the so-called ‘real world’ situation. In contrast the aware practitioner acts from an understanding that there is no position external to the ‘real world’ – i.e. they are always in the situation, usually with others. In addition they can also act ‘as if’ it were possible to stand outside the situation in an awareness of the ethics of doing so

SAQ 13 Modes of practice with SSM

In the examples from my practice of Mode 1 and Mode 2 use am I using SSM as a methodology or merely drawing on some techniques that are part of what is involved in using it?

Discussion

For me to judge my use as methodology, rather than use of technique I would want to see evidence of a formal or semi-formal evaluation of what I had learnt about:

the situation
SSM
the thinking underpinning my use of SSM, and my own adeptness, at ‘juggling’ in the situation.

It is not often that I string all of them together, but much of the time I am doing more than using techniques.

Before going on to address how SSM might be used in the context of sustainable development I would like to draw out some of the implications for systems practice of Mode 1 and Mode 2 ways of contextualising SSM. I think this is best done by hearing from an experienced practitioner, one who makes his living from his systems practice.

Read the paper by Mike Haynes and then answer the following SAQs based on your reading of this paper and the earlier reading by Checkland and Scholes.

View document

SAQ 14 Features of SSM

What feature does Haynes claim distinguishes SSM from other systems approaches?

Discussion

Haynes claims that SSM is itself a learning system. It is not clear from the way he expresses himself whether he sees SSM as a learning system because it involves an organised process of inquiry based on systems ideas or whether it is a learning system because of some other, unspecified criteria. For example it might be seen as a process to orchestrate a particular form of the experiential learning cycle that has been described earlier in the course. The distinction that Haynes wants to emphasise is that systemicity (the property of being a system) is focused on the process of inquiry rather than being in the world. In his conclusion he makes the point that the role of the SSM-practising consultant is to design and manage a learning system appropriate to the needs of the client and the problem situation. He suggests this is achieved by gaining a clear understanding of the needs of the client and the organisational context in which learning about improvements will occur.

SAQ 15 Weaknesses of the seven-step model of SSM

What weaknesses does Haynes identify as being associated with the seven-step, Mode 1 use of SSM?

Discussion

He identifies two main weaknesses. Firstly the slavish adherence to the seven step model by practitioner’s lacking confidence to contextualise (adapt) it to a particular situation. The second problem was that cultural aspects of the problem/opportunity situation tended to be overlooked. He links these two weaknesses with shallow use of SSM which sometimes fail to get to ‘the root of a problem and occasionally lead to disillusionment with the methodology’.

SAQ 16 Difficulties in Mode 1 use of SSM

Haynes describes the seven-step Mode 1 form of SSM as clear, easily understood and able to be assimilated by most in a limited time period. Outline the two main difficulties he recognises in the practical Mode 1 application of SSM.

Discussion

The two difficulties Haynes recognises are:

persuading people that developing some form of picture [a rich picture] capturing the main elements of the problem/opportunity situation is a useful thing to do and that considerable artistic talent is not a prerequisite; and
ensuring that the purposeful activity models constructed are not models of the real world – developing root definitions and activity models that include issue based models in addition to primary task models.

Haynes also notes that primary task models are often restricted to activities that already actually exist – and that such a restriction should not apply.

SAQ 17 Consulting with SSM

What process does Haynes stress as an important consulting objective to adopt in using systems concepts and SS-method in particular? What aim links the different ways of enacting this process?

Discussion

Haynes stresses giving specific attention to organising the process of inquiry in order for useful learning for the client to occur. He identifies a number of ways in which learning occurs but argues that the common aim is to learn how to move forward and make some improvement.

SAQ 18 Entering the ‘problem situation’

What are some of the ways identified by Haynes for ‘entry to the problem situation’ in the developed form (Mode 2 use) of SS-method?

Discussion

He suggests any number of ways but specifically names group-meetings, one-to one interviewing or mixtures of both. He suggests one-to-one interviews are useful for teasing out issues as part of a cultural analysis.

2.3.1 SS-method as a learning system

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

As indicated in Mike Haynes’ piece, SSM is now regarded by those who developed it as an organised learning system. It is concerned with taking purposeful action in human activity situations that are experienced as ‘very complex, problematical, mysterious’ (Checkland, 1999, p. A10). What is constantly emphasised is that the word ‘system’ is no longer applied to the world, but instead to the process of inquiry for dealing with the world which, it is assumed, can be organised as a learning system. The activity sequence model which is used to describe this late 1990’s version of SSM, and which is a further elaboration of Figure 11, is shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13 An activity sequence model of the inquiring/learning cycle of SSM in the late 1990s (Checkland, 1999, p. A9)

For Checkland, Figure 13 is a model of a learning system. Anyone participating in the activities described by the model in Figure 12 would be participating in an inquiring or learning process. If they participated for one or more iterations they would be described as completing an inquiring or learning cycle. It is only possible for a claim to be made that an SS-methodology ‘learning system’ has been experienced through participation in the cycle of activities in which the thinking and techniques of SS-methodology are enacted. An implication of this logic is that a ‘learning system’ can only ever be said to exist after its enactment, that is on reflection. It is of course possible to refer to a model of a ‘learning system’ at any time recognising that it is just that – a model. For Checkland the type of learning that would result from participation in the process of inquiry orchestrated by SSM is changes in participants’ appreciative settings. This idea of appreciative settings is based on the work of British industrialist and systems thinker, Sir Geoffrey Vickers (e.g. see Dando and Blunden, 1994). At this point it is only important to know that changes in appreciation include changes in judgements about value and fact. It is the enactment of these changes that is accepted by Checkland as evidence of learning (i.e. new or emergent purposeful activity).

Systems thinking is for me a way of orchestrating particular conversations concerned with the properties of a whole (distinguished by one or more observers) and particularly the nature and qualities of relationships between system components and a system’s environment as part of a process of inquiry. The word orchestra comes from the Greek – to dance. Orchestrating means to combine harmoniously, carefully direct or coordinate. Conversation comes from the Latin, con versare – meaning ‘to turn together’. Thus for me, systems practice is practice in which the result from communication (as conversation) is the emergence of new qualities in the communicating or participating partners.

SAQ 19 Exploring the meaning of inquiry

In what senses is the term ‘inquiry’ used in Figure 13?

Discussion

It seems to me that ‘inquire’ is used in at least two ways but with the same meaning. The higher-order way is to describe the overall cycle depicted by the figure as an inquiring cycle. It is thus synonymous with the action learning or research cycle that has been introduced already in the course. What is particular about the SSM process of inquiry however is that a specific mode of inquiring is orchestrated within the overall process by using the models of purposeful activity systems as a means to question or challenge the perceived ‘real-world’ situation. It is this process that is one of the main triggers of new appreciations of the situation (you may remember Checkland’s reference to changes in appreciation as being the form of learning that arises from participating in the SSM process). In a sense SS-methodology is doubly systemic – in use it has the possibility of being a learning system that makes use of systems models.

What do the concepts ‘learning system’ and ‘process of inquiry’ mean in practical terms and in relation to multiple stake-holder contexts – one of my main concerns in this unit? To answer this question I would like you to reflect on how the course so far has been designed to develop your systems practice and how, if at all, your values, beliefs and circumstances have aided or constrained your engagement with the course. The way the course team has set out to make systems practice practical for you is to enable you to ‘select’ and characterise a system of interest. Churchman (1971) observes that ‘selection’ of a ‘system’ is a ‘design choice’. Whether or not something is a system is a choice of the designer or designers. The act of finding a system or systems of interest in a situation of perceived complexity can in itself be a very powerful learning experience for those involved. It is also at the heart of SSM – that is, developing models of relevant, purposeful-activity systems each based on a declared world view (see Figure 13). However SSM when enacted as methodology, is a more sophisticated form of practice because the whole process is designed to be a learning or action-research system.

Developing your abilities in systems thinking and practice will enable you to respond to particular needs and opportunities in the sustainable development domain – and to focus on the situation rather than on the method because at the end of the day it is usually the problem or opportunity situation that calls out for ‘improvement’ and the unreflective use of method may do more harm than good. The skills you develop are likely to be equally relevant to other domains – such as IT projects and inter-organisational change or implementing the modernisation agenda in the UK public sector. You will have the opportunity in your project to move towards more sophisticated forms of practice but it is important that you understand the thinking that underpins any method so that you can ultimately gain more dexterity in your own practice.

2.4 Design of a learning system based on SSM

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

I now want to provide you with a further opportunity to develop your systems practice using SSM to design an inquiry process. The specific context will be a local government area familiar to you (a UK County or Council, a French Commune, a Swiss Canton an Australian Shire or Council etc.). This exercise will be a simulation designed to develop your experience in the use of SSM in the context of sustainable development. If you engage with this simulation then what you learn about SSM will also be applicable to other domains you experience as complex.

At the end of this section I am going to ask you to complete an activity based on this simulation. The situation is one in which the administrators of a local government area wish to introduce a strategy for managing sustainable development. For the purpose of this simulation I am going to cast you in the role of someone who has expertise in systems practice who has been engaged to provide advice on how the council should proceed. However, your role is not as a paid consultant or advisor in the typical management consultant sense, because you work for a charitable non-government organisation (NGO). The NGO that pays your salary specialises in helping organisations to develop participatory approaches for managing sustainable development. Your organisation’s primary ethos is to foster local democracy, of the type attempted in some LA21 projects.

Rather than specifying your role as I have, I had initially considered giving you a choice of roles from which to engage with this simulation. (In the end I did not do this because I felt it made the simulation too difficult). However, consider for a moment what the effect might have been if I had given you a choice. The roles I had in mind were:

consultant or adviser to the local authority (local government)
an activist in the local community concerned about issues to do with sustainable development
the sustainable development officer employed by the local authority.

In the following activity imagine I had given you freedom to choose from these roles. I am asking this question because the role you have, or adopt, in any engagement with a complex situation will have implications for your systems practice. The idea I am trying to get across is that what evolves in any engagement with complexity is sensitive to ‘initial starting conditions’, thus circumscribing what is possible. Personal circumstances also contribute to perspective. The role you have and how you are perceived by others constitute part of the ‘initial starting conditions’. For me the start of any inquiry is a small ‘p’ political process. This is what the stream of cultural analysis (Figure 11) comprising Analyses 1, 2 and 3 in SSM practice is designed to illuminate. Analysis 1 is particularly relevant to the simulation I am asking you to undertake and the points I have raised about roles.

Activity 6 Appreciating the effect of roles on systems practice

Consider the possible implications for your systems practice of the choice of roles that I considered offering you for the simulation you will attempt. Do this in terms of the stream of cultural inquiry described in the Checkland and Scholes reading. Pay particular attention to the material on the ‘analysis of the intervention’ (Analysis 1) described on pages 183–184.

I suggest you make some brief notes, or construct a spray or other suitable diagram in your learning journal. If you have limited experience of your local authority’s involvement in sustainable development use this activity as an opportunity to ring them up and find out if they have a strategy. You might like to ask if anyone in your local authority would be capable of describing how people in the three roles had been involved in the past.

Discussion

I considered allowing you to choose one of the following roles:

consultant or adviser to the local authority;
an activist in the local community concerned about issues to do with sustainable development; or
the sustainable development officer employed by the local authority.

The following table shows some of the important issues raised by these differing roles in terms of the stream of cultural inquiry.

Table 3

Questions associated with the cultural stream of analysis?	Consultant	Community Activist	Sustainable Development Officer (SDO)
Who is given the role ‘client’?	May be easy – person who hires or commissions	May be more difficult to define – perhaps activist themselves	May be more difficult to answer –perhaps SDO themselves or their boss
Who can the possible ‘problem owners’ be taken to be	May be consultant amongst others.	May be activist among others	May be SDO among others
What might ‘a system to do the study look like? (Analysis One)	Probably straight forward	May be difficult because of access and other issues	May raise issues of power, resources, time, staff availability, conflict with other groups in ways that challenge the SDO’s capacity to manage the process as well as have a major stake in it.
What might a ‘social system’ analysis reveal? (Analysis Two)	Coming from the outside the consultant may be able to ask ‘dumb’ questions and gain fresh insights or give voice to concerns that have been suppressed	Activist may not have access to the local authority in ways that enable the analysis to be as rich as might be conducted from another role; on the other hand they may be able to facilitate formation of a locally powerful coalition of interests.	SDO may have a patch to protect, or be too immersed in the context to imagine the possibilities. Or they may be able to facilitate a coalition of interested parties in and outside the local authority.
What might a ‘political system’ analysis reveal? (Analysis Three)	Depending on terms of reference this should be possible to conduct;	May not be meaningful in terms of scope and depth if Local Authority is in the system of interest – again because of access issues	Should be possible. Care would be needed in doing it.

Imagining myself in any one of these roles my main concern would be with the politics of the intervention. Based on my own experience I would differentiate between studies based on ‘invitation’ and studies based on ‘intervention without an invitation’. For me the power relations and the difficulty of process design change dramatically depending on whether my engagement arises from an invitation or an intervention. This also applies to SSM practice. It is for this reason that I settled on the role of consultant/advisor for the simulation. As a consultant or advisor someone, usually with some authority, invites you to undertake a job to some specification which is to some extent negotiable. The person who issues the invitation or commissions the work is the ‘client’ in that they caused the study to take place. (When you find yourself engaged in the study you may learn that the original person who hired you had to have approval from someone else with more power or authority. So the person who is the client won’t necessarily be static throughout a study).

Checkland and Scholes (1990) point out that there is always an answer to the question: Who is in the role of client?

In my experience, because of issues of power, access, etc. the role of consultant or advisor is a simpler form of practice, at least initially, than that of a local activist or perhaps even an employee such as a Sustainable Development Officer.

Before introducing the simulation let me introduce one other model as a potential sense-making device. This unit has set out to enable you to move more towards using methods as methodology in your systems practice. What happens when a method is used as methodology is described in the following activity sequence called the LUMAS model developed by Checkland (1999) following work with Tsouvalis (1995). LUMAS stands for ‘Learning for a User by a Methodology-informed Approach to a problem Situation’.

In the context of this unit we refer to the on-paper description of a methodology as a method because of the important point that methodology only arises in the use (or doing) of a method in a particular context. This in no way affects the legitimacy of the LUMAS model as a powerful description of the process of enacting aware systems practice.

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Figure 14 The LUMAS model: ‘Learning for a User by a Methodology-informed Approach to a problem Situation (Checkland, 1999)

Activity 7 The LUMAS model

How might you modify the LUMAS model in the light of the distinctions made about power – i.e. deciding for, deciding with and enabling deciding by?

Discussion

The one change in depiction that I would make is to include more images of people in the U ‘sub-system’. This would then depict for me the notion of a community of users of methodology although the process by which they became a community of users is likely to differ with context. This small change has major implications for practice and connects with the emerging literature and interest in ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger 1998). It is central to the question who learns what in the process of conducting a systemic inquiry?

I now want to describe the simulation I am going to ask you to do. I will do it now because I want you to read the material that follows with some awareness of what you will be asked to do. At this stage just read it through and perhaps note the main points you will be asked about. I will repeat the activity in full later in the text so you will not have to refer back to this page. The simulation activity at the end of this section will ask you to do the following:

Prepare a set of notes written for your own use as a basis for a future presentation to the management team in your local authority; describe how, from your perspective the council might go about implementing a participative, sustainable development strategy based on SSM (i.e. a process design);
In your notes outline your preliminary thinking on the matter using systems ideas and concepts from this unit.

Because this document is written for you, not your future audience, then you are free to use the language of systems thinking introduced to you in this course. I make this point because some systems practitioners find it best not to talk explicitly in systems terms when engaging with their clients – but this is always a judgement the practitioner has to make.

At this stage do not worry if the prospect of this activity leaves you feeling somewhat bewildered. I am not going to ask you to do this activity from scratch. I will provide a number of resources to help you in addition to the two readings you have just completed. I am also going to introduce Vignette 5 describing how a systems practitioner used SSM, as he interpreted it, to design an inquiry process in a multiple-stakeholder situation concerned with sustainable development. I will also provide my own answer to the activity. You may however find it useful to read through the readings and the remaining text in this section twice to fully appreciate what is required. Because I am going to guide you through the design process it is important to follow the sequence as I have set it out. If you do this you will hopefully have a good feel for how SSM could be used in a design sense.

In the following vignette I have used italics to indicate when the systems practitioner, Roger Attwater, who conducted the study is speaking (adapted from Attwater, 1996).

2.4.1 Using SSM for participatory catchment management in Thailand

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Vignette 5

Context

This example is of a systems practitioner employing SSM to devise a process for working with multiple stakeholders in a small river catchment, called Khlong Nam Thin, in Thailand. A catchment is the geographical area of a river and its tributaries which collects all the water that ultimately flows into the river (as with systems it is possible to use the concept of hierarchy to talk about sub-catchments and sub-sub-catchments). The practitioner was from an external agency concerned with preventing further land degradation and rural development, including poverty alleviation.

Two villages were located in the area. Until a logging concession established a road in the 1960s there had only been isolated households in the forest. Dryland farming (based on rain, not irrigation) subsequently developed based on crops such as maize, but over time the fields were abandoned because of loss of fertility. After its abandonment the land reverted to bamboo and perennial grasses. A range of institutions have a stake in the area such as the Forestry Department, an Agricultural Reform Department and many more. Local households tend to be extended family groups. Most families have members who work away from the area and send wages home. Thus household incomes are based on a diverse array of agricultural and non-agricultural sources.

From his description the systems practitioner certainly experienced it as a complex situation.

Initiating a process of inquiry

Who caused this ‘study’ to happen? It was initiated by the external agency concerned about land degradation and the systems practitioner jointly. This could be described as an externally motivated intervention into the affairs and issues of a particular community (defined geographically by the boundaries of a catchment). I would contrast this style of intervention with a process that was initiated internally by a member, or members, of the community and resulted in an invitation being issued to the practitioner.

The systems practitioner’s reflections

Initiating a process of inquiry is problematic in itself. SSM was used as a guiding process for an analysis of stakeholders’ perceptions of problems and to explore how collaborative management of a project might be developed. Time was needed for establishing the project via a chain of introductions between myself and various stakeholders. This period of introduction was crucial for developing relationships with patronage networks. At each step of my introduction, an institutional transaction took place, reinforcing the relationship between the introducer and introducee and my incorporation within a hierarchy of patronage.

The process of logic-driven inquiry of SSM was applied as follows:

Determine key stakeholders and their responsibilities.
Determine stakeholders’ perceptions of problems and opportunities.
Derive key transformations from opportunities identified.
Develop models of human activity systems for a range of worldviews.
Use these models to support planning discussions between stakeholders.
Monitor ongoing planning and implementation.

My colleague, Sue Holwell based on her own systems practice offers the following reflections:

I do not see that the six steps have the status of the logic driven inquiry as depicted in Figures 11 and 12. Are they intended as a particular ‘version’ of the 7 stages of the logic stream or are they activities of a ‘system to do the study? I see it as the latter. The difficulty for practice comes from the list of ‘activities’. They are not explicit enough about their focus e.g. is it a ‘process to do the R&D (for sustainable development)’ or ‘a process to identify R&D opportunities for sustainable development’ or ‘ a process to do sustainable development’ or ‘a process to manage ongoing development’? Steps 3 and 4 above also need to be linked surely?

I provide Sue’s comments to aid your thinking about your own simulation. There are no absolute rights and wrongs only better ways of doing things. For the time being I will stay with Attwater’s six points as if they constituted the logic driven inquiry.

Making sense of what was done using SSM

At this stage I am going to interrupt my presentation of Vignette 5 to ask you to complete two activities and an SAQ which will use SS-methodology to make sense of what was done. These should take up to 40 minutes. I have organised the activities in this way because I want to refer to the six activities in the logic driven inquiry listed above by Attwater.

Checkland (1999) has developed two models to act as guides in the development of activity models in SSM (Figures 15 and 16). Look at these figures and answer the activity and SAQ associated with them.

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Figure 15 A logical procedure to follow when building activity models in SSM (Checkland, 1999, p. A26)

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Figure 16 A partial activity model embodying the process of activity modelling in SSM that was described in Figure 15

In Figures 13 and 14:

T is transformation
I is input
0 is output
E₁₂₃ are the three Es, E₁ efficacy, E₂ efficiency, and E₃ effectiveness;
PQR expresses ‘do P by Q in order to contribute to achieving R’; this is an alternative to CATWOE as a way of expressing a root definition which answers the question: What to do? (P), How to do it? (Q) and Why to do it? (R).

Activity 8 Modelling protocols in SSM

What do cloud shapes in activity models in Figure 15 suggest to you that squares and rectangles would not? Describe the sequence for reading activity models based on your understanding of the dependency sequence recommended in Figure 15.

Discussion

Checkland answers these questions in the following way.

He prefers hand drawn models using clouds to start with for psychological reasons. He feels that by doing this it is acknowledging the model’s role as a pragmatic device to aid learning about the real situation, rather than one that produces definitive, once and for all statements;
For Checkland, the golden rule for ‘reading’ a model is always to start from the activities which are not dependent upon other activities but have others dependent upon them, i.e. those that have arrows from them but none to them. He suggests this is something which many people unconsciously straitjacketed in linear thinking find difficult.

SAQ 20 The partial activity model

Work through Figure 16 establishing that you understand its logic. When you have done this add an arrow to the model which would indicate to you a possible route to follow if the use of a model to question the perceived problem situation was proving unproductive.

Discussion

Redraw the figure with an arrow going from 7 to 1.

The new arrow you have drawn is to make the point that if the model is not proving particularly helpful – i.e. not much new learning is occurring – than iterate back through the process which, in this activity sequence commences at 1.

Activity 9 Developing an activity model

Complete tasks 1 to 3.

Imagine Attwater’s six points above are the main components of a soft systems-type activity model. Look at Figure 16 and follow its logic. Use the six points Attwater makes above as the raw material ‘X’ and follow the sequence to develop an activity model that incorporates 7±2 activities. You can also use the material in Appendix A to help you complete this and the next task. Note down any questions or insights that you have as you undertake this task.
Suggest a root definition and CATWOE which could give rise to the activity model which you have just drawn.
Select either activity 1 or 2 in the list you developed in task 1 and using the 7±2 rule again, develop a possible set of sub-systems for the activity you have chosen. Use the local authority context and stakeholders that you identified in Activity 39 to develop your answer. The sub-systems you identify will very much depend on your own perspective and the declared world-view that I hope you have built into your particular root definition.

Discussion

Task 1

After completing the activity and the associated SAQ, the first thing I did was to identify the verbs in the six activities listed by Attwater. I have italicised these in the following list.

Determine key stakeholders and their responsibilities.
Determine stakeholders’ perceptions of problems and opportunities.
Derive key transformations from opportunities identified.
Develop models of human activity systems for a range of world views.
Use these models to support planning discussions between stakeholders.
Monitor ongoing planning and implementation.

This was not hard to do but as I did it I became aware of other verbs that were sometimes implied in each point. For example in the first activity, was it actually two activities (‘determine key stakeholders’ and then ‘determine key stakeholders’ responsibilities’) or just one? I wondered about how world views might be elicited, thus suggesting another activity which was ‘elicit a range of world views’. You may have found others as you worked through this process. I felt it was worth noting these insights and questions as I worked through it because I felt they might be helpful later.

I then asked myself what activities of the six could be done first – and then what logical dependencies followed? I did not find this process overly illuminating because these activities seemed to almost constitute a linear sequence (see Figure 15).

One of my colleagues reviewing my answer said:

I agree. I think it’s to do with the nature of the raw material (i.e. it’s not that raw so Attwater has partly done what you’re doing here already. I liked the process shown in Figure 13 because I thought it might be very helpful in working out where and how to start ... but this example is a bit disappointing for this.

Engaging with the material through the logic of Figure 15 did however make me aware that activity 2 was dependent on 1 but that 3 and 4 were iterative. Therefore it might be possible to start with either after activities 1 and 2 (for the moment I decided to leave activity 1 as a single activity). I also became aware of a jump or gap that I felt uncomfortable about in moving from activity 5 to activity 6. My concern seemed to be something about the lack of a comparison stage, typical of Mode 1 SSM, and also the question about ‘taking action’ based on the learning from the planning discussions using the activity models from 4. I also wondered about what accommodations between interest groups might have to be made before action could be taken and where this fitted in the activity sequence. What I learned from asking these questions was that I had perhaps lost sight of who the developer of this activity sequence was and thus his context and purpose (the world view of an outsider doing research).

Task 2

The questions and issues raised by engaging with the material according to the logic of Figure 16 led me to think of the activity sequence in terms of the activity model depicted in Figure 27.

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Figure 17 An activity model derived from Attwater’s six original activities

I have listed two possible root definitions and CATWOE’s for the activity model I developed as Figure 17. The rationale for the two root definitions comes from the material I have available to me and my experience that activity of the type undertaken by Attwater is sensitive to initial starting conditions e.g. building trust through relationships.. In this case these were two root definitions that occurred to me at the same time and that I thought might be worth exploring.

My colleague comments:

I find the root definitions and the CATWOE’s pretty illuminating. It tells me a lot about how you are seeing the situation as well as raising some questions that might be taken further by defining the ‘E’s’ in the activity model ... though I don’t think there’d be enough data here to do that.

Tentative root definitions:

A system designed by an outside researcher to initiate collaborative research and development (R&D) amongst multiple stakeholders managing sustainable development.
- C stakeholders in the catchment (potential collaborative researches).
- A Attwater, government officials, headmen, local residents, local residents living away from the catchment but remitting money.
- T no collaborative R&D for managing sustainable development to collaborative R&D for managing sustainable development initiated.
- W collaborative R&D amongst multiple stakeholders is needed for managing sustainable development.
- O Attwater, possibly government officials and possibly Headmen.
- E A history of poor collaboration amongst stakeholders in many sustainable development situations.
A system designed by an outside researcher to initiate collaborative research and development amongst multiple stakeholders managing sustainable development and in which learning by the designer about the usefulness of the design is made explicit.
- C Attwater, his University.
- A Attwater, other researchers and systems thinkers, stakeholders in the catchment.
- T A process design informed by SSM for managing sustainable development amongst multiple stakeholders in a particular context in which there has been no learning about usefulness to one where there has been learning about usefulness.
- W It is feasible and ethically defensible to develop and learn from process designs in which the stakeholders have not been involved as major designers.
- O Attwater.
- E That process designs are under-researched and often not consider as a legitimate area for academic activity.

In my own working I have not, at this stage, iterated back from my root definitions and CATWOE’s to my activity model to examine the extent of their consistency or inconsistency. I am aware however that my inclusion of a monitoring and control system outside the boundary highlighted for me the question of where monitoring and control resided and who was involved in taking these actions? Having become aware of this issue I would see my activity model as being closer to root definition 1. This is because it sees the overall system as a system to do research in a particular way, and the monitoring and control is about the research, not about managing sustainable development which is inside the system boundary.

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Figure 18 My second iteration attempt at an activity model based on Attwater’s six original activities

I expect that you will have answers and questions and insights that are very different than mine. What I have appreciated from the process of developing these answers is that by pursuing the logic of Mode 2 SSM practice I have asked a lot of relevant questions. These have clarified my thinking and have enabled me to learn a lot about the process that Attwater was engaged in despite the fact that I know very little about the specific area of Thailand and the content of the issues he was trying to deal with. I also discovered that it is possible to discover new insights by starting SSM in different places and either working forward or backwards.

My colleague comments:

Root definition 1 is sparse and I do not see activities connected to the verb ‘initiate’. Your list of Actors is not apparent from the root definition and who does the T (transformation)? Your conclusions about E are not apparent from the information available and further, what is the system you are building doing about the E? Here is how I would do it based on Attwater’s six points plus the background:

An outside researcher owned system to undertake collaborative R&D with multiple stakeholders that has been identified using activity models.

I have suggested this because it is not apparent to me that the activities ‘initiate collaborative research’ and ‘managing sustainable development are necessary from the original list and they suggest some additional activities.

The other root definition I would explore is:

A system to agree on collaborative R&D opportunities for sustainable development identified by the multiple stakeholders through a participative process informed by SSM activity models.

In your second root definition I experience some confusion between the verbs ‘initiating’ and ‘managing’. I suggest the T you identify is not the same thing as implied by the root definition.

You might like to take some of my colleagues root definitions and play with these and see if they help you make better sense of the material you have to hand. I think that my colleague’s comments indicate that it is important to pay particular attention to the relationship between the root definition and the CATWOE and to feel satisfied with the rigour of your use of language. Semantic precision is important in doing SSM.

As task 3 in this activity relates to the local government authority context and stakeholders that you chose in Activity 7 I have not attempted an answer here.

Vignette 5: The systems practitioner continues his reflection

Key stakeholders in the catchment were identified through discussions with village leaders and local government officials. An iterative interview strategy was used with village leaders building upon general information on local economic history, and economic organisation and activity. Semi-structured (open-ended) interviews were used by me to explore perceptions of problems and opportunities in relation to local livelihood, agriculture, water resources and the environment. The village leaders’ perceptions were supplemented by villager’s perceptions by using a household survey. With agency and commercial stakeholders, questions to them were framed in terms of problems of achieving their responsibilities in the catchment.

The systems practitioner does not say whether he used rich picturing as part of the interviewing process. I imagine that the interviews and surveys themselves constituted the ‘rich picturing’ phase of his SSM practice. A wide range of problem and opportunity themes emerged from the interviews and survey.

Problem/opportunity themes which emerged

Village leaders’ problems included sources of income and food to sustain families’ livelihoods. The low and variable returns from dryland farming and the lack of economic alternatives were major concerns. The lack of water was a major limiting factor and this was exacerbated by land degradation, including erosion which meant that the rainfall that they had was not used effectively because it ran-off rather than being retained in the soil. Other stakeholders identified a different range of problems. Opportunities identified by village leaders included the possibility of managing funds at a local level through, for example, co-operatives, small-scale projects to manage water better, including increasing the range of tree crops.

I have deliberately not listed all the themes here, because I do not consider it necessary for you to know about these. I am more interested in conveying to you the process that was followed.

Building activity (conceptual) models

The systems practitioner then used summary statements of opportunities to build activity models of the type referred to in Figure 14. These were not developed in isolation by him but in collaboration with stakeholders in four different forums, a village council, a combined council from the two villages, a public meeting, and a group of agency officials. The models incorporated key management systems, nested control and communication, contingent needs and outputs to fulfil the key transformations identified. Questions used to facilitate the development of these models included:

What management is needed, and who would be responsible?
What inputs, such as labour, information, funds are needed, and from whom?
What outputs would these systems generate and for whom?

SAQ 21 Transformation – possible traps

Based on your reading and understanding about the transformation process used in SSM, suggest a possible trap that the systems practitioner may have fallen into by using the question above about inputs to help facilitate the development of activity models.

Discussion

It is possible that the systems practitioner has conflated resources needed for the transformation to occur (e.g. labour) with the activity that is an expression of the transformation (an example of an appropriate transformation would be sources of labour unidentified transformed to sources of laboured identified).

Further reflections by Sue Holwell:

Did Attwater use PQR and CATWOE to create root definitions from which to build a model or were the summary statements unconnected to this important aspect of SSM? Did the three questions that were posed inform the iteration between Root definition and CATWOE that is an important source of learning in enacting SSM? This is important because use of CATWOE is more than ticking a box to say that all elements are present in a Root definition.

Comparison of models with ‘real-world’ situation

After discussion with village leaders it was decided that an appropriate way to proceed was to convene a catchment forum (something which had not existed before) in the most upland village (i.e. the upstream village). The village leaders invited agency representatives to attend. Two activities were undertaken prior to the forum to facilitate this phase of the process. Firstly, all the data that had been collected was analysed and distributed to all interviewees. Then, opportunities were created for agency personnel to visit the villages, tour the catchment, and to talk with villagers in an informal manner prior to the forum.

Actions taken

Village level implementation of collaborative activities has proceeded with all three of the agency and commercial stakeholders for whom models of human activity systems were developed. The school teachers at a village school have been involved in the establishment of a small integrated water supply scheme and associated water-users’ association and management committee. Demonstration plantings of a special grass to combat soil erosion and improve water management have occurred in collaborative schemes as has planting of short term coppice rotations of trees for timber (plywood). The management committee of the water-users’ association is seen as a key outcome in that it emerged from the process. It has established its own rules and defined responsibilities for monitoring water use by members. It has also instituted a simple user-pays system and local financial management of a revolving fund for maintenance and further developments in the interest of members.

Activity 10 Structuring thinking about desirable and feasible change

Checkland (1999) suggests that in general, thinking about desirable and feasible change can be structured according to the logic in the following diagram (Figure 19).

When you have considered Figure 19 see if it provides an adequate description of what happened in terms of the process of taking action in Section 11.1. Outline what elements seem present and what seem to be missing, or are not commented upon, in what was done or my description of it. You might like to consider what questions are raised by these missing elements or comments.

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Figure 19 A conceptual diagram to show the process involved in thinking about desirable and feasible change (Checkland, 1999, p. A30)

Discussion

I think it is fair to say that there are many gaps between Checkland’s model of what is involved in thinking about desirable and feasible change and my description of the Thai vignette. Since framing this activity I have had occasion to read the relevant section of the thesis by Attwater (1996) which was developed out of his work. What I gained from reading this was an appreciation that he was aware of many of the issues that Checkland raises but not in any systematic sense as depicted in Figure 23. My answer will therefore be more detailed than it is possible for yours to be. However, the extra background may be helpful in thinking about your own systems practice.

Attwater learnt Thai and lived for six months with one of the village headmen, so he devoted a lot of effort to immersing himself in the context and appreciating different local perspectives. In this process he developed trust and personal relationships. To do this he had to develop an appropriate language, such as using the metaphor of ‘catchment health’ to talk with the local Thai people about the issues professionals would normally label as ‘catchment management’. He recognised from the start that his role could only be catalytic, with the potential for implementation of collaborative management dependent on the local stakeholders – the people in the situation.

Attwater became aware of many of the structural, process and attitudinal changes that were required if a move towards sustainable catchment management (which was his proxy for ‘sustainable development’), the transformation in CATWOE, was to be achieved. [Please note that this is not the transformation depicted in my root definitions and models. As with many natural resource issues the time frame to judge whether such a transformation is possible is very long, and thus my focus was on the process of doing the research, not the potential outcomes of the research.]

By designing a process based on SSM he opened up a dialogue between local people and agency personnel that addressed structural issues (i.e. the lack of historical involvement of professionals with local people). Perhaps in this process attitudes changed simply because the issues were raised though he does not refer to this explicitly. An important cultural aspect that was embodied in his design was to move away from ‘debate’ (as described in Mode 1 SSM) to facilitating dialogue (in Thailand patron-client relationships are a fundamental and enduring social institution which strongly influences the form of communicative interaction between stakeholders. In this situation, debate, which means literally ‘to put down’ was not appropriate). Table 2 lists some of the features of dialogue-based communication compared to debate-based communication which has been generated from research experience in meetings between pastoralists and researchers in Australia (Kersten, 2000). In SSM the important aspect of this stage is to arrive at accommodations between different interests. This is an agreement to move forward and is not the same as consensus. Some of the considerations shown in Table 2 may assist in gaining some accommodations to issues that are of concern to different issues.

Table 4 Key distinctions between meetings based on debate and dialogue (Kersten, 2000)

DEBATE (factors restricting dialogue)	DIALOGUE (factors enhancing dialogue)
Participants come to the meeting as leaders/representatives or members of a group	Participants come to the meeting as individuals concerned with their own unique experience, uncertainty, and deeply held beliefs
Participants act as members of a group and articulate the group position	Participants articulate their personal understanding at the meeting
Little time has been spent in building relationships	Time has been spent on building relationships before and during the meeting
Participants have fixed general or stereotyped ideas about other participants	Participants have no preconceived ideas about other participants at the meeting or they are prepared to set them aside
The atmosphere is threatening: participants know each other before hand and are not prepared to set aside preconceived ideas about each other participants defend or attack statements made by others participants listen to re-establish preconceived ideas participants listen in order to refute other ideas participants do not respect meanings and understandings other than their own; they believe in one reality	The atmosphere is one of safety: participants do not know each other beforehand and do not have preconceived ideas about each other, or are prepared to set them aside participants are open to ideas and to asking for suggestions of other participants participants listen actively to other participants with an open mind that is not blocked by preconceived ideas participants listen to understand, and gain insight (learning) into the beliefs and concerns of others participants respect other meanings and understandings. Multiple realities are acknowledged
Differences within the group are set aside or denied	Differences between individual participants are revealed
Statements are predictable without new information	New information surfaces
Success requires simple impassioned statements	Success requires exploration of the complexities of the issue being discussed
Operates within the constraints of the dominant public discourse	Participants are encouraged to question the dominant public discourse

The catchment forum was the main enabling activity for planning desirable and feasible change (and also allowed the systems practitioner to withdraw from the facilitating role that he had been playing). Designing the catchment forum required a lot of work. It included:

arranging informal visits to the catchment by external stakeholders (and building relationships in the process);
sending official invitations to the Forum to external stakeholders accompanied by a document in Thai which presented the collected stakeholder perceptions of problems and opportunities, potential systems of interest and some models of human activity systems.

(It is worth noting that all of these interpretations in the final document were generated in an iterative process that involved checking out with stakeholders what had been written about their views. The process valued diversity and difference.)

The Forum was successful in that other stakeholders took responsibility and locally meaningful actions were taken. There was little attempt however to formalise the process by which judgements (and criteria) about success or otherwise would be determined. In this case, the addition of a monitoring and evaluation process was not well developed in the Thai context, although the systems practitioner has devoted considerable effort to monitoring and evaluating his own learning. In reflecting on his role and circumstances the systems practitioner made the following points:

SSM was a useful guide to undertaking the inquiry into stakeholder’s perceptions of problems and potential activity to improve the situation;
the application of SSM was not straightforward and required adaptation along the way (due to the relationships between him as a foreign researcher and the stakeholders as well as the relationships and protocols among the stakeholders). This is the usual situation with SSM practice;
the time available for involvement by the systems practitioner was fixed whilst all SSM-based inquiry is potentially on-going although it can be tailored to the circumstances – do it in 10 minutes or 10 years! I think it is fair to say that the nature of the engagement of the researcher and the cross-cultural issues limited the extent to which SSM as a process of inquiry could be ‘given away’ to the stakeholders in the situation.

Some reflections by the systems practitioner on his use of SSM

SSM can guide processes that build a dialogue. This is based on different stakeholders’ perceptions of problems and opportunities and identifies actions that promote sustainable development. In this case the engagement of a range of agency and commercial stakeholders in dialogue with villagers was crucial. The most successful activities that were undertaken as a result of using SSM were those for which mutual benefits could be derived. It is this process of a search for mutually beneficial improvements (accommodations) that is at the core of SSM.

The following activity is designed to draw together some of the questions that you may still have after engaging with the material on SSM and the application of SSM in the Thai example. I would suggest that you do not devote more than about 20 minutes to it.

Activity 11 Reflecting on use of SSM in Vignette 5

Jot down a list of questions that you would like to ask the systems practitioner in the Thai catchment example about his use of SSM. Use Figures 11 to 13 and the two readings as background.

When you have finished jotting down your questions organise them into categories or common themes. Then return to the figures and readings and see if they are able to provide answers to some of your questions.

I have not provided any answer to this activity but in the text that follows I have listed some of my own questions as well as some of those raised by my colleagues including the systems practitioner in the Thai situation. There is (and can be) no definitive answer and the diversity of questions raised reflect his and my own experience of the complexity of the situation. Remember that collectively all of us have different experiences and perspectives and for this reason the questions raised are likely to be different to your own.

In preparing material for this unit I invited Roger Attwater to comment on what I had written about his use of SSM in Thailand. His responses answered some of the questions I had as a result of reading his reports on what he had done. For example he said:

Rather than a pictorial ‘rich picture’ a rich description was developed over a number of months through living in the villages and talking to village leaders and villagers. All discussions were undertaken in Thai which strongly influenced my interpretation of a number of stages of SSM. The rich description was meant as one way to build [and improve] upon [methodologically] the systematic [research] approaches developed, such as for farming systems and traditional social sciences, and as a basis for developing systemic perspectives of opportunities held by stakeholders. The rich description included developing an understanding of biophysical resources, village organisation and local economic history, resource control and land tenure, economic organisation (e.g. enterprise and labour budgets), and household livelihood strategies.

Roger Attwater’s comments reflect a useful distinction between a rich picture as a diagram and as one (of many) means to gain a rich appreciation of a situation (from my perspective the word description has some limitations suggesting, perhaps that a situation is describable in objective terms – something I consider impossible). His comments also answered some of my questions about taking action (this relates to Figure 19 in Activity 10):

A summary of all perceptions and diagrams, in Thai, was put together as a background document for a catchment forum. Prior to the forum invitations for village visits by agency officials were facilitated. My role was more of initiating contact. As the inquiry progressed, and... relationships between village leaders and officials [developed], further contact was undertaken through local and more formal protocols. [Thus the] ownership of the process was transferred from myself to the village leaders and involved parties. At the catchment forum I was only part of the audience, who had assisted with drawing together background information and documenting different perspectives.

As SSM is a user-dependent methodology I continually had to flex and adapt given the social situation and [because I was] working in Thai rather than English.... I generally focused on responsibility, what was needed to manage [the transformations], and what would result.

(Attwater, 1999, pers. comm.)

Sue Holwell reflects:

So there is some tension between ‘the system to do the job’ and his ‘system to manage it’ – this clarifies some of the ambiguity in the original six point list.

Attwater also comments on the politics of intervention that Mode 2 use of SSM draws attention to:

The social arrangements for ‘intervening’ in situations continued after the initial introductions. I was not representing one agency, but came with patrons from the Department of Land Development, a regional NGO, and two Bangkok Universities.

Reflecting on this overall activity, Mike Haynes, a systems practitioner and critical reader of the unit (as well as the author of the second reading in this unit) expressed his concerns about:

... the cultural stream of analysis – intervention, political and social aspects of the problem situation – or Analysis 1, 2 and 3 in basic SSM. In order to progress to Mode 2 use it is absolutely essential that students not only understand the importance of these parts of the methodology but know how to go about doing it. This is one of the weakest parts of SSM and is not addressed in any depth in the course as far as I can recall (at least explicitly). A Mode 2 user must be highly attuned to the cultural elements if he/she is to successfully interact – and I regard it as one of the keys to making the ‘natural’ transition [to] Mode 2 use of SSM.

Mike Haynes, as an experienced user of SSM goes on to make the following point:

I am not... convinced that Mode 2 use can be taught (based on Figure 12). It is something that is acquired over time and as a result of much experience. My conclusion is that it would be better to present Mode 2 use as a goal that demonstrates the achievement of mature SSM practice and to concentrate teaching effort on getting students to apply and use basic Mode 1 rigorously, i.e.:

focusing on semantic precision;
construction of defendable models;
iterative development of the [CATWOE–root definition–model] loop [and] ensuring consistency between the three elements;
proper understanding and use of transformation;
use of SSM as an organised learning system; and
not modelling the real world (probably the most common mistake made by naive users).

In other words to develop a high level of skill and expertise in the use of the basic elements of the methodology – building analytical confidence and methodological excellence will provide the necessary building blocks for students to make [a] ‘natural’ transition to Mode 2 use.

It is worth keeping Haynes’ views in mind as you embark on the next activity. Mode 2 use of SSM is not better than using Mode 1 – they are different but interrelated. They are distinguished by awareness of the practitioner, and as Haynes points out, much of this awareness arises through experience. Both Mode 1 and Mode 2 use are dependent on an appreciation of the conceptual thinking that underpins SSM and adhering to the logic and rigour of this thinking. See how you get on with the following activity.

2.4.2 Developing briefing notes for your local authority ‘simulation’

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

I now want to return to the simulation I described earlier. In completing the following activity please keep these points in mind:

All the material you need to answer the activity exists in the unit and its accompanying readings (however your answer is likely to be more convincing and meaningful to you if you know something about your own local authority situation).
I am more interested in your ‘design’ of a process using SSM, than in the specific detail of your local government situation (though clearly in a ‘real-world’ situation the two are inseparable).
It should be possible for you to pass this course without developing your systems practice to the level of sophistication required by this activity. However, if you are unable to engage with the thinking involved in this activity then it might be difficult for you to do extremely well in the course.

I would expect this activity to take no more than an hour.

Activity 12 Using SSM to structure a presentation to your local authority

You have been asked to make a presentation to your local authority elected representatives (the council) and the senior non-elected management team of the local government authority by the Sustainable Development Officer (SDO) which is a relatively new role. You have been asked to describe how, from your perspective, the local council might go about designing and implementing a participative, sustainable development strategy using Mode 1 and Mode 2 SSM (i.e. the presentation is about a process design for moving towards sustainable development, not about what sustainable development is).

Your role is not paid consultant or advisor in the typical management consultant sense, because you work for a charitable non-government organisation (NGO). The NGO that pays your salary specialises in helping organisations to develop participatory approaches for managing sustainable development. Your organisation’s primary ethos is to foster local democracy.

Please note that I am not asking you to develop a presentation, but to outline your preliminary thinking on the matter based on what you have learned in this course so far about SSM. Specifically I am asking you to prepare a set of notes, including relevant diagrams and models, written for you (the systems practitioner), as a basis for your presentation. These notes should be seen as the product of structuring your thinking about the task at hand. Your answer should be written in your learning journal. I do not expect your answer to amount to more than four handwritten pages but equally do not feel restricted by this limit. Your notes may comprise a series of models that are commonly used in SSM.

Because this document is written solely for you, not your future audience, then you are free to use the language of systems thinking that has been introduced to you in this course. I make this point because some systems practitioners find it best not to talk explicitly in systems terms when engaging with their clients – but this is always a judgement the practitioner has to make.

Discussion

Starting off

I am going to treat the process of developing my answer to this activity in the same way as I would go about the ‘real thing’. I often start by writing or modelling in some way that is divergent. My first thought was to use spray diagramming as a means of auditing those experiences of my own which seem relevant to the task of developing and presenting a briefing as well as the substantive content of the briefing. I rejected using a rich picture because at this stage I have not engaged with my own local authority situation and am not aware of some of the potentially messy issues that might exist and which might be captured by a rich picture. (On the other hand I do not need to engage with my local authority to imagine that most people will not be familiar with systems thinking, SSM and its language and possibly will not be tuned into process thinking, so these issues could have been depicted in a rich picture). My spray diagram is shown in Figure 20.

My colleague comments:

Lack of knowledge about a situation when doing SSM may be an advantage, particularly in the early stages, rather than a constraint and this can be built into a rich picture. A rich picture should not be static and merely done at the beginning but should be adapted and built up as the inquiry proceeds. The sequence of updated rich pictures can be a useful reminder of your learning about the situation.

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Figure 20 A spray diagram used to audit my own perceptions of my experiences that seem relevant to the task at hand

Do not worry if all of the points in the diagram do not make sense to you (remember it was developed for me). What is important in process terms is that by doing this it has reminded me about what my own strengths are and where I am not so confident with respect to the task (doing a partial SWOT analysis may have revealed similar things). With respect to the latter, the process of developing the spray diagram made me realise that initially I had been thinking of my potential role as leading or developing the whole process design. I have concluded that this is a potential trap and that I should explore

whether one or more other systems practitioners might be involved in making the presentation with me;
whether the approach I was going to advocate was ‘design for’, ‘design with’, or ‘enabling design by’ and
whether it has to be a traditional presentation, or whether space and time would allow something more creative and experiential?

This reminded me of the experiences of Patricia Shaw. She and her colleague won a contract because they admitted they did not know what the answers were but convinced the clients that they had the skills to work with the stakeholders to develop action which was relevant. (Answers to these questions will depend on judgements about context but also on ethical considerations.) It also reminded me (for the purposes of the simulation) that I was not out to get a consultancy per se (and to earn money) but that my NGO employer had a particular value position with respect to people’s participation in managing sustainable development. Just how it has come about that I am in the position to advise the Local Authority is unclear (but in a real situation this would be open to investigation). I do know that the new Sustainable Development Officer has been involved which has implications for whom I consider the client to be. So, in summary, I have this important opportunity and I want to make the most of it and be as professional as I can.

Formulating my system of interest

At this stage, given that the terms of reference specifically call for a design based on Mode 1 or Mode 2 SSM I thought I had better focus on how I thought SSM might be relevant in this context. I envisage that this will be a necessary first step before I consider how best to present these ideas or who to involve in this process. (I am being pragmatic here and recognising that whether I involve other systems practitioners or not, it would be helpful to get my own ideas sorted out – as long as I do not fall into the trap of defending my own position at all costs). Before doing this I decided I would use a systems map to look at my potential system of interest (Figure 21; ‘ss’ is sub-system).

This is my second iteration systems map. Although I wasn’t initially sure what system of interest I wanted to map, I found myself exploring ‘a system for presenting a process design for managing sustainable development in my local authority’ and that is what I have depicted in Figure 21. It is a snapshot of what I imagine the ‘real’ elements to be. In developing this model my main concern became where other key stakeholders should be placed – were they inside or outside? (note that key stakeholders are those who I considered would have to be involved in any workable strategy for managing SD in my local authority. I have also identified another group which I have called ‘other stakeholders’ – those that may be seen to have a legitimate stake but may not be involved for various reasons). At this stage I have left this as an open question but have made a note to explore whether it might be possible to have representatives of other stakeholders present for my presentation.

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Figure 21 A systems map of my potential ‘presentation to the Local Authority system of interest’;

My systems map was initially helpful but only went so far. It has not helped me think about what activities might need to occur for the would-be problem owners (the CEO, the elected counsellors and possibly the SD Officer, me and my employer) to be able to judge that my presentation was successful? In my thinking I have arrived at the point which Checkland and Scholes (1990, p. 48) describe as

... making the ‘problem-solver’ one possible ‘problem owner’ often means that the first relevant system looked at is ‘a system to do the study’.

However, in my case I am thinking of it as ‘a system to do a successful presentation’.

My colleague comments:

You could see ‘a system for presenting a process design for managing sustainable development in my local authority’ and ‘a system to do a successful presentation’ as two relevant systems or conflate them into one system. This is part of the learning when doing SSM.

Analysis One, Two and Three

Engaging with the thinking associated with Analysis One has reminded me of some of my own research that places importance on relationship building as a precursor to collaborative or participative inquiry. This was also something Attwater did in the early phases of his inquiry in the Thai vignette. So I have decided that it would be a trap to go into my presentation cold – that I need to speak with as many of the Local Authority key stakeholders (see Figure 22) as soon as possible and explore with them:

their own traditions of understanding in relation to sustainable development, including illuminating where possible my appreciation of their values, beliefs and circumstances;
the history of engaging with sustainable development by the Local Authority and individuals within it either as employees or consultants;
the expectations they might have for my presentation (if any) and the criteria by which they might judge it to be successful.

I would use the thinking and ideas in Analysis Two (the Social System Analysis) and Analysis Three (the Political System Analysis) to help me (see Appendix A). I would plan to carry this out by conducting semi-structured interviews with a range of people in the Local Authority and I would probably supplement this with ‘random’ conversations (e.g. in the tea room, at the photocopier etc). I recognise that doing this will give me a lot of data. I will have to decide how to best use that data and my learning from the experience of collecting and interpreting it. I have to also judge whether there is time to do all of this, and if there is not, whether I am prepared to proceed.

Having decided to interview personnel before my presentation has made me aware that I will have the opportunity to construct many rich pictures. I have made a note to myself that I could use these as part of my presentation. Or I could invite those present to develop their own rich pictures of the situation as they see it – or about the ‘messiness’ that exists that prevents them moving from where they are now to where they would like to be. I am conscious of my growing conviction that a traditional presentation is my least favoured option, so I will need to explore the feasibility of doing more of a workshop than presentation.

Root definition and CATWOE

I have developed an expanded root definition, CATWOE and activity model below of my ‘system to do a successful presentation’. My learning as I went through the process of developing this revealed a number of things:

I initially thought that it might be profitable to explore ‘a system facilitated by me that enables the key decision makers in the local authority to move towards implementing a participative and inclusive approach to managing sustainable development’. In doing this I was stepping back from the assumption in the terms of reference (ToR) that a presentation is the best and only way to proceed. I was also assuming that there would be room to negotiate around the ToRs but even if there was not, that my presentation would be potentially more convincing and relevant if I understood more about the context in which decisions will be made about a sustainable development strategy.

I then remembered from my conversations with more experienced SSM practitioners that their experience was that transformations built around the verb ‘enable’ [also ensure, empower] were often not very productive lines of inquiry. So I decided to ditch the verb ‘enable’ from my root definition.

Root definition: a system facilitated by me [and others] that results in the key decision makers in the local authority agreeing to move towards implementing a participative and inclusive approach to managing sustainable development.

C key decision makers in the local authority;
A me, possibly other systems practitioners, local authority personnel; possibly other key stakeholders;
T not agreeing to move towards implementing a participative and inclusive approach to managing SD to agreeing to move towards implementation of a participative and inclusive approach to managing SD;
W that a participative approach is desirable and potentially effective;
O someone – yet to be decided – in the Local Authority, or possibly me;
E limited capacity for systems and process based activity which can sometimes demand more time (than people are prepared to devote).

My colleague comments:

Your inclusion of ‘agreeing to move towards implementing’ in your root definition is a bit the same as staying with ‘enabling’ – it is not ‘deciding to implement’; it is not ‘agreeing to implement’ but it is agreeing to do something that might one day enable or ease implementation. Why not go for: ‘a system facilitated by me (and others) to persuade key decision makers in the local authority to implement a participative and inclusive approach to managing sustainable development’. The CATWOE for this root definition is:

C decision makers A me (and others)
T ‘undecided decision maker’ to ‘decided decision maker’
W participative/inclusive is desirable so key decision makers have to be persuaded
O me
E none specified In the root definition but could be included

Logical analysis of the Transformation

Analysis of the transformation required shows that:

Do P by Q in order to contribute to achieving R (what to do, P; how to do it, Q; and why do it, R)

gives:

a system that results in the key decision makers in the local authority agreeing to decide to move towards implementing a participative and inclusive approach to managing sustainable development by participating in a process (or presentation) facilitated by me.

Where:

P = key decision makers agree to decide;
Q = participating in a process facilitated by me;
R = an approach to managing sustainable development.

My colleague comments:

Your root definition has changed from ‘agreeing to move’ to ‘agreeing to decide to move’. At this stage it should not change. For me P = persuade key decision makers to implement ...; Q stays the same and R = managing sustainable development in order to support Sustainable Development Officer, though your R is a new idea or variation and is illustrative of the learning that occurs in the SSM process.

Activity model

The three E’s (any model builder ought to decide what the criteria would be for these):

E₁ efficacy (does the means work?):
E₂ efficiency (amount of output divided by amount of resources used):
E₃ effectiveness (is the Transformation meeting the longer term aim?)

The following figure (11.9) was my first attempt at building an activity model for my system of interest. I found it helpful to use the house painting example in Appendix A as a check on my own logic.

I was not satisfied with my first iteration (Figure 22) so quickly moved on to do another one based on what I had learnt from doing the first. My second attempt is given as Figure 23. My main concern became where the activity ‘criteria to be met so that stakeholders can decide’ was located. As you will see I have it feeding into the monitoring and evaluation activities in Figure 23. I then wondered if an output of the ‘engaging with key stakeholders sub-system’ might not be an input into Activity 8 (‘appreciate criteria to be met so that stakeholders can decide’ subsystem). I decided that it would be, so I added an arrow to indicate this.

I then contemplated what constituted the three ‘Es’ for my activity model as well as ‘ethicality’ which I consider to be very important in this domain. I decided on the following:

Effectiveness: does the process lead to agreement on implementation of a participative and inclusive approach to managing sustainable development?
Efficiency: can this be done without loss of commitment by key stakeholders?
Efficacy: are the criteria to be met recognisable as appropriate for a strategy to manage sustainable development?
Ethicality: is the process likely to be inclusive of sufficient stakeholders’ perspectives and will these stakeholders feel their contributions have been considered?

By this stage I began to realise that I probably would not learn a lot more by staying at this level, and that to move on in the planning of my own actions it might be helpful to move down a level in some of the subsystems (to explore some ‘hows’ of my original ‘whats’). I envisage that this will produce new insights about specific actions that it might be worth considering taking. However, I have not done this here, nor would I expect you to as part of your answer unless you particularly wanted to. Also, because I am using SSM in ‘design mode’ I have not had occasion to use the techniques available for making comparisons between the elements of my activity and the ‘real world situation’, e.g. the procedure described in Figure A6 in Appendix A. In the past I have found this an important part of taking improvement action when using SSM.

My colleague comments:

E₃ effectiveness is also expressed in R if you use PQR. I also want to comment on your use of the Es in relation to the root definition that you have been working on. When talking about Effectiveness you have moved from ‘agreement to decide’ to ‘agreement on implementation’. You have to stay rigorously consistent with language and any variations need to be noted and explicitly considered as it is part of the learning. I would also suggest that Efficiency is the cost of achieving agreement. Your statement about Efficacy would be OK if the R covered something like this.

I would also take issue with you about the models you have developed (Figures 22 and 23) in relation to your root definitions. Figure 22 is actually a model of another root definition, not the one you described in the section headed ‘Logical analysis of the transformation’. If the modelling has suggested another variation on the theme then the root definition needs to be changed – this is the process of iteration. For example Activity 6 (Explore how flexible my TOR are) in Figure 22 is not in your root definition. For me the model in Figure 22 is of a concept concerned with identifying a process within TOR constraints that meets stakeholder needs. That in Figure 23 is about providing a ‘setting’ of a particular kind especially relating to a range of stakeholders and TOR.

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Figure 22 My first activity model for my system of interest

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Figure 23 My second activity model for my system of interest

You need to model one of the different concepts with consistent root definition/CATWOE but don’t hide all of these variations – being conscious of them and thinking of the implications of the differences is at the core of SSM’s learning process.

My colleague Sue Holwell is a more experienced practitioner of SSM than I am. I have included her comments throughout the text to demonstrate how she would do things differently and also to encourage you to experiment in your use of SSM. It really is a case of where practice opens up more choices. Sue’s comments in no way negate my own learning from using SSM but they do point to ways that I could sharpen my practice.

SSM and its associated techniques can be very powerful in all sorts of settings, so you might like to use them to help you make sense of other situations you experience as complex.

Figure 24 Open to opportunities but feeling somewhat dwarfed by the situation!

2.5 Developing your systems practice in the sustainable development and other domains

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

I said earlier that at the end of this part I would ask you to:

consider how this unit changed how you engage with or think about sustainable development;
draw some connections between systems practice in this domain with other domains;
briefly explore how different modes of systems practice might be developed in your project; and
reflect on what further work you might need to do to become confident in designing an ‘inquiring system’ as part of your systems practice.

Asking the question: ‘who learns?’ can be a powerful mechanism to guide and reflect on practice. But of course everyone learns all of the time – otherwise we would have lost one of the main characteristics of being human. So when I speak of a ‘learning system’ then I mean conceptualising a system in which a particular type of learning takes place, and which may not have happened if participants had not been engaged in the process. This is not the main way we think about learning in our society.

For example, many might conceptualise the curriculum that you studied at school as a learning system. With research, it may be possible to identify people who were responsible for its design. However, in my experience very few curricula have the systemic properties that I have been concerned with in this final part of the unit. Too often curricula are systematic designs. One of the features of a curriculum is that educators often specify learning outcomes in advance, just as we have. With good practice, which I hope we have achieved as educators, such learning outcomes become guidelines to design and process, not mere objectives to be met. They leave room for the experience of the learner, for contextualisation and for emergent, sometimes surprising, outcomes.

My concern in this unit has been with using systems thinking to design a process in which the learning outcomes cannot be totally specified in advance, but are an emergent property of the interactions of those who are involved. The enactment of the SS-methodology inquiry cycle has the potential to do just that. The aware systems practitioner using SSM as their systems approach does not specify the objectives in advance nor specify what the learning outcomes will be. They do however, if they are using SSM as methodology, carry a commitment to articulating in advance of their involvement, the intellectual framework they are using, and to reflect on their own learning about the situation and the process of inquiry.

Many of the examples cited in this unit point to a need for new ways of social learning to address some of the sustainable development issues that many experience as complex. Systems thinking in the hands of an aware systems practitioner has, in my view, a greater contribution to make than has hitherto been the case. It is for this reason, for instance, that the US President’s Council on Sustainable Development (1996) education panel concluded that:

... education for sustainability is the continual refinement of the knowledge and skills that lead to informed citizenry that is committed to responsible individuals and collaborative actions that will result in an ecologically sound, economically prosperous, and equitable society for present and future generations’. The principles underlying education for sustainable development include, but are not limited to, strong core academics, understanding the relationships between disciplines, systems thinking, lifelong learning, hands-on experiential learning, community-based learning, technology, partnerships, family involvement, and personal responsibility.

At the beginning of this unit you were asked to outline your initial understandings of sustainable development. Take a few moments now to look back at your answer to that activity. Then attempt the final two activities.

Activity 13 What does sustainable development mean to you now compared to when you started this unit?

Take just a few minutes to note what the term sustainable development means to you now that you have engaged with the material in this unit. Draw a spray diagram to explore the meanings you now attribute to the words sustainable and development. Write down any new comments or questions about the meaning of the whole term to you, either as part of the spray diagram or alongside. Then make some links with your own experience of completing this unit.

If you have not already done so, note where you now stand personally in regard to sustainable development. Has your stakeholding in any issue changed? Has your engagement with this unit triggered any purposeful activity on your part? Is it likely to, in your project for example? Try to answer these questions in terms of some of the concepts like circumstances, values and beliefs.

Using the metaphor of the systems practitioner as juggler note what seem to be the areas of your own systems practice that you have strengthened during this unit. Also note those areas where you would like to develop your practice further. For example, you might reflect on how you would now go about managing sustainable development through systems practice.

Because your answer to this activity must arise from your own experience of the unit I have not attempted to provide an answer.

Activity 14 Formulating a system to manage sustainable development

Take a look at Figure 10 in the unit Managing complexity: a systems approach (the diagram that suggested sustainable development as the area of overlap between purposeful action that was ecologically sustainable, socially desirable and economically viable.) In the text referring to the figure three other terms were mentioned: ‘technical feasibility’, ‘political legitimacy’ and ‘institutional capacity’. I have interpreted these three factors as being relevant in the environment (in the systems sense) of the three primary activities, associated with the circles, and sustainable development.

Now, based on this figure draw a systems map which contains all the elements listed in the paragraph above. Develop this map in the light of what you have learned about sustainable development in this unit. List any new insights you gain from completing the systems map.

When you have completed the systems map, develop an activity model of a root definition of ‘a system to manage sustainable development’ that incorporates all six terms (or elements).

Expand the root definition via PQR then further elaborate using CATWOE. Using this revised root definition build an activity model of it. Activities relevant to the six elements will be important.

Now check that all six are covered by the root definition, CATWOE and activity model set. Then consider if any other ideas could or should be incorporated.

Explain why you have positioned the six activities where you have. Remember that your answer will involve you determining six verbs, in the imperative form, to go with each of the terms.

Having developed an activity model based on just the six terms, consider whether from your perspective you would want to add or subtract any activities from ‘a system to manage sustainable development’.

Outline what insights, if any, you gained from completing this activity.

I have included my answers to this activity for comparison. My answer is likely to be different from yours.

Discussion

I went through the following process in developing my answer to this question:

Initially I developed a systems map of a ‘system to manage sustainable development’ based on all the elements referred to in connection with the figure below. In doing this I found that all elements fitted within the boundary of my system of interest except ‘ecological sustainability’ which I have put partially in and partially outside my boundary. My reason for doing this is because from my perspective some aspects of, or processes which contribute to, ecological sustainability are outside the scope of purposeful human activity. This seems to me to be an important and often neglected insight. I did however think that I wanted to move beyond the static representation that a systems map affords and to explore the purposeful managing of sustainable development some more. I decided to do this by developing an activity model.

Figure 25 A systems map of a system to manage sustainable development

To develop my activity model I first I thought about the verbs I wanted to associate with each of the three ‘circles’ in the original diagram. I decided on:
1. explore ecological sustainability
2. decide social desirability
3. determine economic viability.
I then decided what verbs were associated with the other terms:
- determine technical feasibility
- assess political legitimacy
- judge institutional capacity.
Having allocated verbs that I was relatively happy with, I thought about which activities could be done at once (see sequence outlined in Figure 26). I discovered that this was not a straightforward decision in this issue-based activity model that I was trying to build (Figure 27). I realised that my answer to this question would depend on the specific context in which I was attempting to operationalise my ‘system to manage sustainable development’. I also became aware that an important sub-system in each of my activities would be, for example, ‘decide criteria for ecological sustainability’ (I also became aware of lots of other activities that would be needed in this process as I did this).

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Figure 26 The dependency sequence for my initial attempt to develop an activity model of a system to manage sustainable development

I decided, given my background in technology development for grassland management, that I would start with ‘determine technical feasibility’ – this is something I know how to do in my context and there are many others experienced with technology development (Figure 26). (An example might be to introduce new exotic species into a country for soil erosion control, or it might be to introduce a carbon tax into a country’s financial system.) Having decided this, I remembered that in my experience, many researchers only determine technical feasibility and do not go beyond this activity, so I felt I was heading in the direction I thought was necessary. As I worked through the original six activities to build my first model I learnt that I needed an activity which decided whether any innovation, project, etc. constituted sustainable development. (I imagined that as I expanded this activity into its sub-systems that it would involve making trade-offs and judgements against some criteria through some process etc.) I also found myself asking whether inclusion of this activity was valid (to me) or whether sustainable development was an output of the system, an emergent process of enacting such a system? This raises some interesting questions which I will explore for myself, but not here. I also found myself asking whether, because of my particular experience, I was being naïve about the activity of ‘assess political legitimacy’, and that on reflection I might place it nearer to activities 3 and 4 (in my Figure 27u model) because what is socially desirable or economically feasible is contingent on what is politically legitimate in a given context.

Figure 27 A first iteration activity model of a ‘system to manage SD’

Having developed my initial activity model (Figure 27) based on the six elements in the original diagram, I became aware of the need for some further activities. I have added some to the revised activity model (Figure 28).

The other insight I gained is that even though I did not set out to do so, the process of doing the activity resulted in me asserting the precedence of ‘explore ecological sustainability’ in the activity sequence. This reflects my concerns with the nature of the relationships between people and their bio-physical environments, some of which appear to be relatively non-negotiable. (Originally I used the verb ‘determine ecological sustainability’ but decided that a deterministic answer to this question was beyond any fully objective reach, and thus any final answer to what was regarded as ecological sustainability would have to be judged by concerned stakeholders. (This of course partially contradicts the position I had arrived at with my systems map regarding purposefulness.)

Another insight I had was that despite the level of abstraction in this activity, I found it clarified my thinking and that as a result I felt I would, if I continued the process, be able to ground it in specific examples in a given context.

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Figure 28 A second iteration activity model of a ‘system to manage SD’

I have introduced you to contemporary uses of SSM in particular, as an action learning/research process that might be designed?

SAQ 22 Using the LUMAS model

Use the LUMAS model (Figure 14) and your learning in this unit to briefly describe two situations with which you are familiar in domains other than sustainable development where the design of learning systems might be employed to good effect.

Discussion

From my perspective the approach depicted by the LUMAS model is applicable in any situation I perceive as complex and where I wish to take purposeful action. It is, after all, another manifestation of the action learning and research model that has been introduced many times through the course already.

One of my current concerns is how to develop a major marketing strategy for the activities of the systems group at the OU. We have had some preliminary discussions about this and will set aside some time in the very near future to do a study based on SSM. In other words we will use the approach to learn our way to some appreciation of what is needed in our current context.

Next steps

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions:

If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area:

Or find out about studying and developing your skills with The Open University:

Or you might like to:

Post a message to the unit forum, to share your thoughts about the unit or talk to other OpenLearners
Review or add to your Learning Journal
Rate this unit

References

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

Attwater, R. (1996) ‘Participatory catchment management Asia-Pacific Viewpoint and economic method: an application in Thailand’, pp. 37, 219–34.

Checkland, P. (2002) ‘The role of the practioner in a soft systems study’, notes of a talk given to OuSyS and UKSS, Saturday 8th December 2001, in Quarterly Newletter of the Open University Systems Society (OUSyS), Open University, Milton Keynes, No. 27, March 2002, pp. S5-S11.

Checkland, P. (1999) ‘Soft Systems Methodology: a 30-year retrospective’, in Checkland, P. and Scholes, J. (1999) Soft Systems Methodology in Action, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons.

Coyne, R. and Snodgrass, A. (1991) ‘Is designing mysterious? Challenging the dual knowledge thesis’, Design studies 12, pp. 124–131.

Dando, M. and Blunden, M. (1994) ‘Rethinking Public Policy-Making: Questioning Assumptions, Challenging Beliefs’, in Dando, M. and Blunden, M. (eds.) (1994) Special Edition of the American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 38, No. 1. September, Sage Publications, Inc.

Farvar, M.T and Milton, J.P. (eds.) (1973) The Careless Technology – ecology and international development, The record of the conference on the ecological aspects of international development convened by The Conservation Foundation and the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Washington University, December 8–11, 1968, Airlie House, Warrenton, Virginia, London, Tom Stacey.

Hardin, G. (1968) ‘The tragedy of the commons’, Science, vol. 162, pp. 1243–1248.

Harding, R. (1998) (ed.) Environmental Decision-Making – the roles of scientists, engineers and the public, The Federation Press, Sydney.

Haynes, M. (1995) ‘Soft systems methodology. Modes of practice’, in K. Ellis et al, (eds.) Critical Issues in Systems Theory and Practice, New York, Plenum Press.

Ison, R.L., Maiteny, P.T. and Carr, S. (1997) ‘Systems methodologies for sustainable natural resources research and development’, Agricultural Systems, vol.55, pp. 257–272.

LGMB (1997) Local Agenda 21 UK Review: 1992-97, London, Local Government Management Board, 11pp.

Malthus, T.R., (1798) An essay on the principle of population as it affects the future improvement of society, re-printed with notes, 1965, Bonnar, J. New York.

Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens, W.W. (1972) The Limits to Growth, London, Earth Island Ltd.

Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L. and Randers, J. (1992) Beyond the Limits, London, Earthscan Publications Ltd.

Midgely, G., Munlo, I. and Brown, M. (1996) ‘The improvement of housing for older people. Developing services through an integrated system of multi-agency working and user agreement’, Research Report, The Centre for Systems Studies, The University of Hull.

Powell, N. (1998) ‘Co-management in Non-equilibrum Systems. Cases from Namibian Rangelands’, Doctoral Thesis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala.

Rice, T. and Owen, P. (1999) Decommissioning the Brent Spar, London and New York, E & FN Spon [An imprint of Routledge].

Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Acknowledgements

The Open University — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:01 GMT

This unit was written by Chris Blackmore, Jake Chapman and Ray Ison.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). See Terms and Conditions.

Figures

Figures 14 and 16: Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J and Behrens III, W. (1972) by Dennis L Meadows, Institute of Technology.

Figure 21, 22: Checkland P and Scholes, J (1990) Soft Systems Methodology in Action, JohnWiley & Sons Ltd, Copyright © 1990 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Reproduced by permission of John Wiley & Sons Limited.