Author(s)

D.W. Bustard, D. Greer & G. Tate

Abstract

Enhancing the soft systems methodology with risk management techniques D.W. Bustard," D. Greer" & G. Tate& "Department of Computing Science, University of Ulster, Cromore Road, Coleraine, BT52 ISA, UK ^Department of Information Systems, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong ABSTRACT The Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is a general problem solving technique that is being used to an increasing extent in the determination of requirements for computing systems. SSM takes a goal driven approach to systems analysis that initially ignores the structure and constraints of the current situation. In practice, this means that system changes identified through SSM tend to be 'revolutionary' rather than 'evolutionary' and so carry a relatively high risk. At present, SSM makes no explicit provision for investigating such risk. The purpose of this paper is to consider how this deficiency might be addressed. A brief overview of SSM is given, togethe

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