S/M/137. Critical evaluation of ‘Soft Systems Methodology to guide intervention in a change situation

This paper examines how Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), as developed by Peter Checkland, can be used to successfully manage change. The elaboration of this assignment is done based on the case study “The New Branch Columbus project at Royal Bank of Scotland: The implementation of large-scale business process re-engineering”, written by Wendy L. Currie and Leslie Willcocks and published by Elsevier Science BV in 1996. The company was facing a radical restructuring of their traditional branch banking system, which represented a major organizational, managerial and technical challenge. In order to guide intervention, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) of Peter Checkland is used in this assignment as a learning system directed by the objective to take specific purposeful action.