“Making drawings to indicate the many elements in any human situation is something which has characterized SSM from the start. Its rationale lies in the fact that the complexity of human affairs is always a complexity of multiple interacting relationships; and pictures are a better medium than linear prose for expressing relationships. Pictures can be taken in as a whole and help to encourage holistic rather than reductionist thinking about a situation.”

— Peter Checkland

Source: Systems thinking, systems practice: includes a 30-year retrospective, 1999, p. 16

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Peter Checkland 10

British management scientist 1930

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Peter Checkland 10

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