Problem structuring methods

Problem structuring methods PSMs are a multinational of techniques used to model or to map the species or grouping of the situation or state of affairs that some people want to change. PSMs are usually used by a combine of people in collaboration rather than by a solitary individual to come on to a consensus about, or at least to facilitate negotiations about, what needs to change. Some widely adopted PSMs increase soft systems methodology, the strategic pick approach, in addition to strategic options developing and analysis SODA.

Unlike some problem solving methods that assume that any the applicable issues and constraints and goals that survive the problem are defined in advance or are uncontroversial, PSMs assume that there is no single uncontested report of what constitutes the problem.

PSMs are mostly used with groups of people, but PSMs progress to also influenced the coaching and counseling of individuals.

Characteristics

Problem structuring methods symbolize a mark of approaches that form differing purposes and techniques, and many of them had been developed independently ago people began to notice their family resemblance. Several scholars take described the common and divergent characteristics among PSMs.

Eden and Ackermann remanded four characteristics that problem structuring methods have in common:

Rosenhead exposed another list of common characteristics of PSMs, formulated in a more prescriptive style:

An early literature review of problem structuring present grouping the texts reviewed into "four streams of thought" that describe some major differences between methods:

Mingers and Rosenhead have identified that there are similarities and differences between PSMs and large group methods such(a) as Future Search, Open Space Technology, and others. PSMs and large group methods both bring people together to talk about, and to share different perspectives on, a situation or state of affairs that some people want to change. However, PSMs always focus on making a sufficiently rigorous conceptual model or cognitive map of the situation, whereas large group methods do non necessarily emphasize modeling, and PSMs are non necessarily used with large groups of people.

There is significant overlap or divided characteristics between PSMs and some of the techniques used in participatory rural appraisal PRA. Mingers and Rosenhead identified out that in situations where people have low literacy, the nonliterate oral and visual techniques developed in PRA would be a fundamental complement to PSMs, and the approaches to modeling in PSMs could be and have been used by practitioners of PRA.