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Soft Systems Methodology: Conceptual Model Building and Its Contribution

ISBN: 978-0-470-84806-7

January 2003

250 pages

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Description
Conceptual model building is accepted as a key phase in Soft Systems Methodology. Despite the recognition of the importance of the SSM, students are still experiencing difficulty with the basic process of conceptual model building. This book addresses that issue.
About the Author
BRIAN WILSON has a background in nuclear power engineering and control system design. In 1966 he became a founding member of the Department of Systems Engineering at the University of Lancaster, where he pursued the application of control principles to management problem solving.

There he was involved in the development and use of Human Activity Systems and 'verbs in the imperative' in place of mathematics as the modelling language for the intellectual processes involved and maintained particular interest in the application of SSM to information and organisation-based analysis. This research was published in Systems: Concepts, methodologies and Applications by John Wiley Sons.

In 1992 he founded his own consulting company, Brian Wilson Associates, where he continues to develop and apply his unique brand of Soft Systems Methodology.
Features
  • provides a practical approach to an established and important topic
  • builds on the success of his own and Peter Checkland's work in the area
  • case studies include the Army, the Navy, the Prison Service, Trustee Savings Bank, Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, the Met. Office and a theatre
  • Features over 100 diagrams and a six-page pull-out section.