Soft Systems Methodology and Activity Theory (System Thinking) Essay

Soft Systems Methodology and Activity Theory (System Thinking) - Essay Example Whereas AT inspires theoretical thought in many disciplines – psychology, culture, information systems, education, and management, disciplines that generally apply strategies involving human activity. Many researchers have cited AT as being holistically rich when it comes to understanding how humans conduct activities together with the aid of advanced tools in very dynamic and intricate settings (Adebowale, 2010). The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate how soft systems methodology and activity theory can be used to understand organisational problems. As part of this objective, the essay will also compare and contrast the two approaches and discuss relative strengths and weaknesses. SSM has undergone various modifications and revisions to become more practical, flexible, and relevant to different disciplines and organisational problems. However, SSM’s suitability to various fields has remained the most important asset, one which has not required numerous modifications to remain relevant (Bell, 2013). In addition, SSM is currently used by people who lack a technical background but want to solve complex organisational problems. At the moment, SSM is applied in several main organisational settings or disciplines. For example, in performance evaluation, it is used to develop performance measures, quality assurance processes, and to monitor the organisation. In education, it is used in defining course designs, training requirements, causes of absenteeism and to analyse language teaching. It is also used in project management, personal life decisions, risk management processes, organisational strategy, and industrial tribunal cases (Bozalek and Ambi, 2014). The first stage often involves recognising, exploring and defining the problem in some way. Firstly, the organisation must decide what it is actually investigating. At this stage,