Hard validation of soft OR methodologies

In order to subsist and be successful in this environment with greater complexity and competition, any organization is urged to start and keep an inquiry–learning–improvement cycle; Establish and increase this cycle is the objective of the soft systems approach, also known as ‘soft operations research’, ‘Soft OR’ or ‘soft system methodology’ ‘SSM’. The big benefits of ‘Soft OR’ and SSM is recognized by many authors, unfortunately any soft approach has an inherent difficulty to be validated in an objective way; thus, in many cases, its application does not produce the expected cycle of inquiry–learning– improvement or worse only in isolated interventions that not always achieve success. In this way, this work gives a proposal methodology to evaluate in an objective manner the ‘Soft OR’ approach through the measurement of the organizational improvement; also to identify and evaluate elements (from organization, team members, or methodologist) than may limit the obtained success. An application case was provided and strong and weak elements from its applications were discussed.