Collaborative Design - Collaborative Technologies and Applications for Interactive Information Design - page 216

(Huysman & de Wit, 2003, 29)—i.e., organiza-
tional learning.
The figure recognizes that active learning
environments allow practice in systems thinking,
activity 2. The leader advances systems thinking
within the organizational context to further the
understanding of its parts and their interrelations.
Linked to systems thinking and also team suc-
cess is a shared vision (Senge, 1990). Activity 3
represents modeling the organizational mission
within the wider system. This visualization is
to be co-developed and further evolved through
conversations among staff. The final activity on
this level, activity 4, illustrates that physical and
virtual meetings are vital for facilitating active and
dynamical engagement in information exchange
as depicted in the interactions of SSM. To create
adequate infrastructure, SSM is utilized to both
define the purpose of the organization and also
design the intentional learning environment,
including its processes, in which organizational
purposes are reconsidered (Checkland & Winter,
2006).
For the sake of model completeness, activity 5
recognizes the importance of leading operational
level work. Its counterpart, activity 6, refers to
engagement in internal and external relationship
building. Historical context, activity 7, represents
understanding how and why the present situation
has come into being. This perspective offers rela-
tional context for envisioning the future, activity
8, including anticipated services and systems.
Finally, processes and outcomes need to be
appreciated in the light of organizational purpose
and vision, activity 9. In the Cal Poly example,
the leader focused on systems thinking, problem
solving, team building, and information sharing.
Evaluation involved assessing how well these
factors were represented in the active learning
environment and how well the activities supported
the development and sustainability of learning.
SSM-guided systems thinking, in this instance,
served both as the process tool for inquiry learn-
ing, i.e., “SSMp” and, ultimately, organizational

transformation based on “SSMc” (Checkland &
Winter, 2006, 1435).

reFleCtions And ConClusion

This action research project involved an organiza-
tional leader coached by an external SSM consul-
tant. Nineteen library professionals and thirteen
library staff were trained to use Soft Systems
Methodology (SSM) philosophy, methodology,
and tools during a three-year participatory action
research project. As described in the preceding
sections, library employees used systems think-
ing to invent workplace purposes, processes, and
practices 'with and for' an ever expanding set of
organizational beneficiaries. In so doing, they
experienced the social nature of learning—i.e.,
that “all learning derives from experience, own
and others” (Ackoff, 1998, 35) and that learning
is about change of conceptions.
From the earliest finding out activities, em-
ployees found that cherished assumptions were
challenged by user-generated research results
which urged them to assume new roles and re-
sponsibilities. Systems thinking tools prompted
their recognition that the organization's role had
shifted from archiving print collections for po-
tential usage to ensuring information access and
enabling information usage for knowledge cre-
ation. When employees acquired new knowledge,
skills, and abilities through co-design with faculty
and students, they extended their boundaries of
concern and influence to participate more fully
in the teaching and learning activities of the uni-
versity. As Midgley (2000) explains it, systems
thinking philosophy highlights the bounded nature
of all understandings and refocuses attention on
comprehensiveness as an ideal.
In addition, because authority for problem
identification was delegated to student beneficia-
ries and supervising professors, the content of the
problematical situation (SSMc) as well as the intel-
lectual process of the intervention itself (SSMp)