Other methods

As we delve into our complex situations, it is essential to have a rational basis for selecting appropriate approaches that will aid in understanding and taking action. Historically, practitioners have often relied on a single familiar approach based on their training, education, or personal biases. However, systems thinking practitioners possess a variety of systems approaches, leading to the question: which approach should be used for what purpose and why?

Multi-methodology approaches have evolved over time from the development of the multi-paradigm approach by Mike Jackson and colleagues at (the University of) Hull, from the System of Systems Methodology (SOSM) to Critical Systems Thinking (CST). There is also Ray Ison’s bricolage and design-turn based approach from the Open University. These alternative approaches offer foundational theories that practitioners can use to select and justify their own systems methods and approaches.

Using Confrontation Analysis effectively provides another perspective on complex situations, defining the dilemmas involved and helping set out potential options for eliminating them. It is has been used for international issues, banking crisis and for political issues.

Confrontation Analysis as a technique was developed by Howard, Bennet, and Bryant (1971), as a response to the difficulties of game theory in modelling some international conflicts. The problem for Howard, Bennet and Bryant was that in many crises, rather than working from pre-designed initial strategies, the contending sides often dynamically introduced new strategic options as the situation developed. As a result, analysts could no longer map out and evaluate all the available paths in advance at the start of a crisis, as ‘players’ introduced new options and so created many more paths. Faced with the pressure of an apparently insurmountable dilemma, human ingenuity seems to inspire those involved to ‘change the game’ in their favour.

This framework, encapsulated by the acronym INFORMED, which stands for Investigating Narratives, Framing Orientations, Reflective Mapping, and Exploring Distinctions, will help you navigate the intricate landscape of organisational change initiatives.

The INFORMED CHOICES framework provides you with a better understanding of the complex human factors that shape organisational change. The framework amplifies your capacity to devise creative solutions and encourages the exploration of multiple and conflicting perspectives.  In doing so, you uncover and highlight the obstacles of taking action and the enablers of organisational change. As a result, the solutions you develop are more likely to work effectively in your organisation.

Ackoff's Interactive Planning (IP) puts forward the idea that in order to arrive at a desirable future, one has to create a desirable present and create ways and means to resemble it. One of its unique features is that development should be ideal-oriented. It 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 expresses the intention of IP in the following terms: "The objective of interactive planning is an effective pursuit of an idealized state. The state is formulated as a design of that system with which the current system's stakeholders would replace it if they were free to do so. Such a system should be technologically feasible and operationally viable, and it should provide the system with an ability to learn and adapt quickly and effectively." 

This method makes the plan itself an indispensable resource of the organization because of its groundedness and correspondence with the organization's building blocks, namely its policies, human capital, technologies and financial resources, among others. (Wikipedia)