1803ICT/7601ICT Information Systems Foundations
Table of contents:
Table of Contents
Module 2 Modeling, Stakeholders, Human Activity Systems (HAS), and Rich Pictures1
Objectives:1
2.1 Soft systems methodology1
2.2The Rich Picture4
How should a rich picture be drawn?6
2.2Enhancing the rich picture with CATWOE11
Selected references:15
Module 2 Modeling, Stakeholders, Human Activity Systems (HAS), and Rich Pictures
Objectives:
By the end of thismodule you will be able to:
•Describe soft systems methodology (SSM) and explain its suitability to information systems
•Explain the purpose and characteristics of a rich picture
•Draw a rich picture for a case
•Evaluate the effectiveness of a given rich picture
•Describe the CATWOE components and explain its usefulness
•Conduct a brief CATWOE analysis for a simple scenario.
“We all live in the midst of a complex interacting flux of changing events and ideas which unrolls through time. We call it “everyday life,” both personal and professional . The complexity of problematical situations in real life stems from the fact that not only are they never static, they also contain multiple interacting perceptions of “reality.”” (Checkland and Poulter 2006, p. XV).
2.1 Soft systems methodology
(see also module 2_Soft-Systems-Methodology.pdf)
‘soft’ involving people not just IT
•Two key players in the development of the SSM are Peter Checkland [1999] and Brian Wilson [2001] who through “action research” were able to put together a practical and pragmatic approach to the identification and solution of “soft” ill-defined problems.
•Ill-defined problems are those problems that are complex meaning that there are many interacting factors creating the problem. There is no single, obvious or definitive solution.For example, a well-defined problem might be the car has run out of fuel – solution put fuel in the car. An ill-defined problem: customers are unhappy.
SSM helps us to work through an unstructured problem, progressively gaining better understanding and some more ‘concrete’ definition of the problem, in order to enable eventual translation into more concrete action (e.g. a software development architecture).The steps of SSM are as follows:
(Islam, 2018)
Thefirst four steps are of most interest to us at this stage of the course and are detailed below:
Step 1: the problem – because the problem is unstructured or ill-defined, it is difficult to understand the causes (likely to be more than one ‘cause’ or factor that contributes to the problem). Tools are needed to try and understand the situation and in doing so begin to identify the contributing ‘factors’. Because the problem is occurring in a human activity system, it is even more complicated – there are many intangible factors such as people’s values, perspectives, feelings etc that come into play. Exploring theproblem space within which the ‘problem’ is occurring is an important first step, it requires interviewing, observations and other methods for learning about the problem space. The ‘information’ that is collected through interviews etc. is unstructured and hence it is useful to capture the learnings and understandings by drawing.
Business analysts will typically use the following approach to explore the problem space:
(Islam, 2018)
Step 2: Once the information has been gathered, it needs to be expressed in a way that facilitates understanding – enter the rich picture
Analysts will often produce more than one rich picture around the problem situation.
“A Rich Picture is a way to explore, acknowledge and define a situation and express it through diagrams to create a preliminary mental model. A rich picture helps to open discussion and come to a broad, shared understanding of a situation” (Islam, 2018).
We will look more closely at how to draw a rich picture shortly.
Step 3: Formulate CATWOE definitions
A Root Definition is a structured description of a system. It is a clear statement of activities which take place (or might take place) in the organisation being studied. (Islam, 2018)
CATWOE helps to formulate a root definition. Again, we’ll look in more detail at CATWOE in the next sections.
(Hoang, 2017)
Step 4: Build a conceptual model of the Human Activity systems
•As we saw in module 1.
2.2The Rich Picture
Recall from section 2.1 above that the rich picture is the second step of an SSM.
“A Rich Picture is a way to explore, acknowledge and define a situation and express it through diagrams to create a preliminary mental model. A rich picture helps to open discussion and come to a broad, shared understanding of a situation” (Islam, 2018).
What should a good rich picture contain?Knowing the reason why a rich picture is drawn, have a go at drawing a rich picture for the problem of better promoting employment opportunities to students at Griffith University.
Remember there are formal symbols needed for a rich picture. It is entirely up to you how you communicate the problem situation and the information related to it.
As you draw your aim is to express what you may know about the problem in a way that helps us to see the reasons why the problem exists and for whom the problem exists.If you are doing this activity with a classmate, swap your rich pictures and have the other person explain what they understand about the problem from your rich picture.
How well does your rich picture communicate the necessary information to truly understand the problem?After talking with your peer, is there anything that you would change about it? What elements of what you drew were most effective?
How should a rich picture be drawn?
Here are some examples of good rich pictures. How do they compare to your picture from the activity above?What do you think are the essential elements of an effective rich picture?
(From page 61 of the textbook)
http://slideplayer.com/slide/9515248/
First, it is important to point out that a rich picture is representing unstructured information and hence there is no formal method of drawing it. However, to be useful a rich picture must contain certain elements.
•Rich pictures are normally hand drawn, and may include:
•elements of structure (the schools of a university, for instance),
•process(studying,examining)
•Issues
•Concerns
•developments.
•They set down what is considered important in the situation.
•There is no formal notation
•The people involved are referred to as the actors
•Some graphical talent obviously helps but is not a pre- requisite since the purpose is investigative, not artistic.
The purpose of rich pictures:
•◦ Show (not explain) most important elements of the problem situation or issue
•◦ Act as communication tools between analyst and organizational actors, through visualization
•◦ Act as memory aids
A Rich Picture should be easily comprehensible by people outside the situation, outside of ICT, especially the business client.
A rich picture captures each individual’s motivation for using the system, so this gives insight into what perspectives each person has of the system!!
Using Rich Picture to Express Problem Situation To Real World.
(extracted from https://medium.com/@tariqul.islam.rony/using-soft-system-methodology-for-transforming-the-business-analysis-to-software-development-52482608bda4 (Islam, 2018))
•Identify the issue you wish to address, and
•Develop an unstructured description of the situation where the issues lie — how it is
The key parts of the rich picture are:
•Structures
“Structure” includes anything that is slow to change, such as geographical situation or hierarchical structure of an association. Example : Such as how a student get admission into university and what is the structure of admission into university.
•Cartoon Symbol
Need for representing the system or any actors or institute related to the system (these are not standardized, but below are some examples)
•Processes
Process represents any transformations that occur within the system. Such as student give the educational information to University to get admission in the relevant field, then admission office process the student information.
•Actor thinking or Think bubble (Issues expressed by people)
Such as Admission officer think that only previous educational transcript is needed for admission. He also think that, is he student or not.
•Conflict
Different opinion between different actors for same process or information flow is a conflict. For admission process, admission officer think that they “need only transcript for admission” but for “registrar” he think that “University needs all of the papers needed for admission.”
An example rich picture
The rich picture should show information flows:
The Process and information flow list is shown below:
Process and Information Flow
•Go to University for Admission
•Student ask for Admission Form
•Provide the Admission Form
•Student Fill Up the Student Form
•Admission Officer Ask for Other Document Related to Admission
•Student Provide Other Documents
•In Admission Officer Group there is Registrar
•Registrar Check the Document for Student Eligibility
•Registrar Confirm the Candidate for Acceptance and Rejections
•Save the Data to Database
•Admission Officer Check the Stored Student Data from Database for Student Eligibility or existence of Student
(Islam, 2018)
2.2Enhancing the rich picture with CATWOE
We can extend and support rich pictures with CATWOE analysis to provide a root definition.
Root definition = A way of representing the perspectives of key stakeholders as to the core purpose of some activity system (Benyon-Davies, p. 60)
It’s called a root definition because it helps us to explore processes, identify and understand stakeholders in order to provide a structured definition of the process. We can better see the origins of how things work and any issues.
A properly articulated root definition will address:
what, how, why
and is of the form:
A System to do X, by (means of) Y, in order to achieve Z. X – What the System does Y – How it does it Z – Why it is being done The ‘what’ is the immediate aim of the system, The ‘how’ is the means of achieving that aim, The ‘why’ is the longer term aim of the purposeful activity.
CATWOE is a mnemonic which helps identify and categorize all stakeholders [people, processes, environment, entities] of the System being analysed for formulating the Root Definition.
Root definitions consist of six elements, each of which helps to focus on the perspective of the stakeholders and the requirements of the process.
•Customers: victims or beneficiaries of the transformation. Who are they and how do the issues affect them?
•Actors: those who do the transformation (employees) Who’s involved in the situation? What will they be doing? How will they react? How will the issue impact on them?
•Transformations: the conversion of input to output. What is the process? What are the inputs and outputs? Where do inputs and outputs come from? What happens during the process to convert input to output?
•Worldview: the beliefs that make the transformation meaningful. What’s the bigger picture?
•Owners: those that could stop or help the transformation. Who are they? What obstacles might they put in the way? How can they help?
•Environmental constraints: elements outside the system which are taken as given. What are the ethical, financial, social and other constraints? How can they be overcome?
Example CATWOE related to advertising in cars:
•Situation: Thinking about way of putting advertisements inside cars.
•CATWOE:
•Customers: Advertisers, drivers, passengers. May see things differently!
•Actors: Garage attendants, mechanics, car washes: Extra revenue for them.
•Transformation process: Putting sticker on car now in return for discounts next time.
•World View: Drivers seeking every economy, or fashion victims, maybe?
•Owner: Car owner – must be persuaded of value.
•Environmental constraints: Limits on marketing budget, which will be needed.
Once the stakeholders and process elements are identified there is a starting point for further exploration and discussion.
Extracted from https://www.toolshero.com/problem-solving/catwoe-analysis/
The next example is about a change that an airport wants to make to the landing procedures. Aircraft are obligated to initiate their landing in a different way to reduce noise significantly. Using the CATWOE analysis, we deal with the following
A – Actors
The actors in this case are the air traffic controllers who work at the airport; they have to give different instructions for for instance a longer approach, which means that the planes won’t have to brake as hard on the runway. The pilots of the different airlines also have to start their landing procedures in a different way and monitor their braking. They’re actors as well.
T – Transformation Process
The entire process (transformation process) of landing will be changed significantly. When an aircraft approaches the runway from the sky, its speed will already have been greatly reduced. After touchdown on the runway, brakes are applied to the aircraft’s wheels to bring it to a halt. By using a longer approach route, they can already reduce a lot of speed in the air, which meant they won’t have to brake as long on the runway (which leads to a lot of noise). The entire procedure requires that different signals and instructions are given by air traffic control to the aircraft in the air.
W – World view
From the airport’s surroundings (world view), home-owners will want procedures to reduce noise from aircraft landings. Other stakeholders, including the airlines, have conflicting interests. They will probably argue that longer approach routes can lead to dangerous situations in the air. For passengers, it might be inconvenient to have longer travel times. And based on commercial considerations, the management of the airport can argue that they can now not have as many aircraft landings per hour.
O – Owners
The owners of the airlines are the ones who will eventually give or deny permission for changing the approach route and braking procedure. In this case, the airport board is an important owner as well, with a lot of influence that allows them to force the change in the procedure.
E – Environmental Constraints
The environmental constraints will significantly influence the new approach. Think for instance about laws made by the government, weather conditions, geographical features of the runway and the increased emissions that can lead to environmental issues. The competition from other airports can also be studied as an environmental constraint.
+ additional reading
An excellent summary of CATWOE is also found in
module 2_5An excellent summary of Rich Pictures._CATWOEpdf.pdf
+ additional reading
module 2_6 Soft-Systems-Methodology.pdf
Selected references:
Altamony, H., Ra, M., & Obeidat, B. (2012). Information Systems for Competitive Advantage: Implementation of an Organisational Strategic Management Proces.
APIAN. (n.d.). The Business Process Management Guide: Accelerate Your Organization with BPMN. Retrieved from https://www.appian.com/bpm/definition-of-a-business-process/
Baghizadeh, Z., Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., & Schlagwein, D. (2019). Review and critique of the information systems development project failure literature: An argument for exploring information systems development project distress. Journal of Information Technology, online https://doi.org/10.1177/0268396219832010.
Checkland, P., J. Poulter. 2006. Learning for Action: A Short Definitive Account of Soft Systems Methodology and Its Use for Practitioners,Teachers and Students. Wiley, West Sussex, UK.
Hajric, E. (2019, May 30). HR Management & Compliance. Retrieved from What Is Organizational Knowledge, and Where Can I Find It?: https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2019/05/30/what-is-organizational-knowledge-and-where-can-i-find-it/
Hoang, A. D. (2017, September 24). Albus D. Hoang’s blog. Retrieved from http://leanow.org/catwoe-developing-a-robust-problem-definition/
Islam, T. (2018, October 29). Medium. Retrieved from Soft System methodology for transforming the business analysis to Software Development Architecture: https://medium.com/@tariqul.islam.rony/using-soft-system-methodology-for-transforming-the-business-analysis-to-software-development-52482608bda4
OMG. (n.d.). Object Management Group Business Process Model and Notation. Retrieved from http://www.bpmn.org/
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