The concept of idealized design was a bit confusing but I (with the help of my professor) was able to gain more knowledge and suddenly everything makes more sense. Ackoff stated that before idealized design, there were three approaches to organizational planning: reactivism, inactivism and preactivism but the issue with preactivism is that predictions of the future usually ensures a poor outcome. These three approaches were essentially incapable of helping organizations majority of the time irrespective of the domain. Hence, Ackoff proposed a fourth approach he named Interactivism which is where the idealized design stems from.
Interactivism requires the planners to plan backward from where they desire to be to where they are now, so they essentially don’t plan for the future, instead they plan for what they currently want their organizations to be. Idealized design is a product of interactive planning and interactive planning is based on the belief that an organization’s future depends at least as much on what it does between now and then, as on what is done to it (Ackoff, 2001). Ackoff then went ahead to give the six processes of idealized design that he designed into two parts: Idealization (Formulating the mess and Ends planning) and Realization (Means planning, Resource planning, Design of implementation and design of controls).
Idealization talks about a lot of things but the first process in the part (Formulating the mess) contained things that really stuck out to me. In that part, Ackoff talked about how the “mess” is a set of interacting threats and opportunities organizations face. He then went ahead to state that the aim of this process is “to determine how the organization would eventually destroy itself it it were to continue the way it currently is” (Ackoff, Magidson & Addison, 2012). This really stuck out to me because it made me begin to question the existing systems and wonder if the existing systems were designed to be self-destructive.
A major pro of idealized design is that it begins by asking the question of if the current is self-destructive and if it is, the attention will be placed on the system and the function(parts) of the system that might contribute to this self-destructive behaviour, and planning will be done around that. This takes me back to something I learnt in the first class, “a whole is usually known to have more capacity and essentially are more efficient in pursuing ends”. This is very important to me because as a business analyst and ux designer, I am given systems/interfaces and told there’s a problem with it and some vague problems are given but I am tasked with finding the underlying issue and a solution to that issue. Using idealized design will make things better because it focuses on the goals of the organization and it will help me in finding the underlying issue and the required solution, ensuring the system is modified such that it will no longer be self-destructive.
Essentially, I believe that identifying, revealing and tackling the self-destructing system is central to Ackoff’s concept of Idealized Design. The concept and even the six processes are built around identifying the self-destructing problem, redesigning against it, and planning, budgeting and implementing for the redesign. That makes this concept more credible and more useful in so many ways than I earlier thought. Additionally, Ackoff was of the belief that “doing things right (reformation) is different from doing the right thing (transformation). He argued that while we usually focus on doing things right, it is not sufficient in making the right decisions. He then argued that the focus should be on doing the right things instead. To me, a major flaw of the system is that it might be time consuming and building an adaptive/learning system is more difficult and costly than it sounds.
Soft System Methodology (SSM) on the other hand is amazing. Its not a system design method, its more of system requirements. Its somewhat unstructured and I love that because I feel like structures limit creativity at times, it doesn’t let the mind wander as it sometimes should. Sometimes, the structure is a good thing but most often than not its not, at least that’s what I think. SSM was born of the recognition that the real world is complex and messy primarily because we, human beings, inhabit it. Each of us will have a different perception of the same situation. That perception will be based upon concepts and beliefs we hold in our head — a mental model(s) that we use to make judgments about reality (Burge, 2015).
One thing that struck me in my readings is that this method is actually really subjective, it focuses on how an individual interprets the world and how they see things. Honestly, its just so beautiful knowing that two people experiencing the same thing living together still interpret life differently, thats just how the human mind is, one of the wonders of life. The method talks about mental models, something that I am very familiar with as a User Experience Designer. Mental Models talk about how people interpret things differently and the world around them differently, and try to make connections with them. I am actually of the belief that there are some constants in this interpretation, like if I ask you what a church looks like, even though you’ve never been to one, there are still some things everyone thinks will be in that church like a cross, an altar, bibles, a pastor or leader, etc. I am honestly so enthusiastic about this post and I am understood.
In simple terms SSM takes the messy arguments of the real world caused by people having different perceptions and creates defendable and rational models for comparison with what is happening in the real world to help made judgments or recommendations as to the response to the issue or problem (Burge, 2015). These models are called conceptual models and they are not exactly a model of the real world but essentially models of what it could be like. This model observes the conceptual model and compares it with the real world and its a really big deal because that helps in finding the root cause of problems. In the research methodology class I took in undergrad, my prof was always emphasizing how finding a gap in expectations and reality was important to finding the underlying questions and answering them. I can’t really talk about the 7-Steps process approach but if you want to learn about it, just click here. Its not a long file and its very clear and straightforward. A major flaw of the SSM is that it is not a common/familiar language so it will require the user to adapt to the approach which is usually really hard.
It looks like idealized design and SSM are somewhat similar. Though this might not be a major similarity, I did notice that the conceptual model is observed in SSM and it is compared with the real world. For idealized design, what the organization would like to be is compared with what the organization currently is. I consider this a similarity because the point of this comparison is to find gaps and as I earlier said identifying gaps is primary to finding the root cause of problems, and in proposing the best solutions to them. Compared to the systems I have learnt so far, I believe SSM And Dialogue mapping share some similarities, and maybe even Idealized design. All three methods focus on finding the root cause of a matter, though they employ different techniques, they all seek to achieve the same goal of finding the underlying cause of an issue.
The thing though is that hard systems cannot be used alone, they can’t be trusted enough to be used alone because sometimes they are just too technical and it gets tiring following some set rules and having to constrain your ideas to fit those rules. I am of the belief that these hard systems should be combined with soft systems if we really want to find solutions to most problems we face. Honestly, in this diary I feel like I wandered a lot and I was all over the place but I hope you get the meat of it. All in all, I discovered that I already use Rich Pictures (a SSM method) as a Business Analyst but now I have a more in-depth knowledge of the concept and I will definitely be using it more. I already use the concept of mental models as a User Experience Designer too, and that’s definitely not going to change. Idealized design has taught me to look at and study systems deeply so as to find the underlying issues (which is essentially the self-destroying behaviour of the system) with the system and directly tackle the issues so as to proffer the right solution. This is essentially a change of mindset for me and a change in how I approach problems.
References.
Ackoff, R. (2001). A BRIEF GUIDE TO INTERACTIVE PLANNING AND IDEALIZED DESIGN. Ida.liu.se. Retrieved 28 January 2018, from http://www.ida.liu.se/~steho87/und/htdd01/AckoffGuidetoIdealizedRedesign.pdf
Ackoff, R., Magidson, J., & Addison, H. (2012). Idealized design. Johanneshov: TPB.
Burge, S. (2015). An Overview of the Soft Systems Methodology. Burgehugheswalsh.co.uk. Retrieved 27 January 2018, from https://www.burgehugheswalsh.co.uk/Uploaded/1/Documents/Soft-Systems-Methodology.pdf
