Some recurring themes in using Soft Systems Methodology

The object of inquiry in this paper is all organisation-based M.Sc. student projects of two consecutive years, using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), undertaken as part of the course requirements at Lancaster University. This paper reports on a survey of 25 projects conducted by the group who originally developed SSM. No questionnaire that would trigger replies was used; rather, attending the students’ project presentations at Lancaster after about four months in their client organisations brought to the fore those themes that the 45 users themselves deemed relevant during their use of SSM on the projects. This paper describes, discusses and analyses those themes, and relates them to each other. Reference to previous surveys is made and the consequences of the results presented are discussed.