The relevance of soft systems thinking

Peter Checkland gained a Žrst in chemistry at Oxford in the 1950s. He joined ICI when it was developing a new industry: making synthetic Žbres from nylon and polyester polymers. Working Žrst as a technologist then as a manager, Peter remained with ICI for fifteen years. When he left to start a second career in university teaching and research, he was manager of a 100-strong research and development group. Joining the postgraduate Department of Systems Engineering at Lancaster University, Peter Checkland led what became a thirty-year programme of action research in organizations outside the university. Initially the research theme was to examine the possibility of using the well-developed methods of systems engineering in management problem situations rather than in the technically deŽned problem situations in which the methods had been reŽned. This attempt at transfer failed, and the action research moved in a different direction. The work Žnally established Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) as an approach to tackling the multi-faceted problems which managers face; in doing this, it also established the now well-recognized distinction between ‘ hard’ and ‘ soft’ systems thinking. SSM is now taught and used around the world. Its development through action research is described in many papers and in four books: Systems Thinking, Systems Practice (1981); Soft Systems Methodology in Action (with J. Scholes, 1990); Systems Information and Information Systems (with Sue Holwell, 1998) and SSM: A 30-Year Retrospective (1999). Peter Checkland’s work has been recognized in a number of awards: he holds honorary doctorates from City University, the Open University and Erasmus University (The Netherlands), a Most Distinguished and Outstanding Award from the British Computer Society, and the Gold Medal of the UK Systems Society.