Soft Systems Theory

Abstract

This chapter considers Soft Systems Theory as it is expressed in the works of Churchman, Checkland, and Fuenmayor. Soft systems developed from roots in engineering approaches to systems problems. It deals with the “messes” of vague uneasiness in a social organization that escape the net of “hard systems” approaches. It considers ethical, heuristic, and epistemological aspects of consensual decision-making.

Churchman argues for a science of values; explicates the nature of design; and defends the systems approach against the approaches of politicians, moralists, religionists, and aesthetes. Checkland develops the Soft Systems Methodology for dealing expeditiously with complicated human organizational situations that do not yield to the hard systems approaches of organizational design. Fuenmayor spells out the epistemological and ontological rigor that underlies soft systems theory,