Rich pictures

Purpose

Rich pictures were particularly developed as part of Peter  Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology for gathering information about a complex situation (Checkland, 1981; Checkland and Scholes, 1990). The idea of using drawings or pictures to think about issues is common to several problem solving or creative thinking methods (including therapy) because our intuitive consciousness communicates more easily in impressions and symbols than in words. Drawings can both evoke and record insight into a situation, and different visualization techniques such as visual brainstorming, imagery manipulation and creative dreaming have been developed emphasizing one of these two purposes over the other (Garfield, 1976; McKim, 1980; Shone, 1984; Parker, 1990).

Rich pictures are drawn at the pre-analysis stage, before you know clearly which parts of the situation should best be regarded as process and which as structure.

Part of a rich picture of a telephone helpline situation

Rich pictures (situation summaries) are used to depict complicated situations. They are an attempt to encapsulate the real situation through a no- holds-barred, cartoon representation of all the ideas covered already layout, connections, relationships, influences, cause-and-effect, and so on. As well as these objective notions, rich pictures should depict subjective elements such as character and characteristics, points of view and prejudices, spirit and human nature. If you are working with a client you should try to draw these from the actors themselves, at least initially, rather than focusing on your own interpretation of the situation.

Elements:

• pictorial symbols;
• keywords;
• cartoons;
• sketches;
• symbols;
• title.

Conventions

1. To help interpret a situation, choose symbols, scenes or images that represent the situation. Use as many colours as necessary and draw the symbols on a large piece of paper. Try not to get too carried away with the fun and challenge to your ingenuity in finding pictorial symbols.
2. Put in whatever connections you see between your pictorial symbols: avoid producing merely an unconnected set. Places where connections are lacking may later prove significant.
3. Avoid too much writing, either as commentary or as ‘word bubbles’ coming from people’s mouths (but a brief summary can help explain the diagram to other people).
4. Don’t include systems boundaries or specific references to systems in any way (see below).

Guidelines

1. A rich picture is an attempt to assemble everything that might be relevant to a complex situation. You should somehow represent every observation that occurs to you or that you gleaned from your initial survey.
2. Fall back on words only where ideas fail you for a sketch that encapsulates your meaning.
3. You should not seek to impose any style or structure on your picture. Place the elements on your sheet wherever your instinct prompts. At a later stage you may find that the placement itself has a message for you.
4. If you ‘don’t know where to begin’, then the following sequence may help to get you started:
   
   
   1. first look for the elements of structure in the situation (these are the parts of the situation that change relatively slowly over time and are relatively stable, the people, the set-ups, the command hierarchy, perhaps);
   2. next look for elements of process within the situation (these are the things that are in a state of change: the activities that are going on);
   3. then look for the ways in which the structure and the processes interact. Doing this will give you an idea of the climate of the situation. That is, the ways in which the structure and the processes relate to each other.
5. Avoid thinking in systems terms. That is, using ideas like: ‘Well, the situation is made up of a marketing system and a production system and a quality control system’. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the word ‘system’ implies organized interconnections and it may be precisely the absence of such organized interconnectedness that lies at the heart of the matter: therefore, by assuming its existence (by the use of the word system) you may be missing the point. Note, however, that this does not mean that there won’t be some sort of link or connection between your graphics, as mentioned above. The second reason is that doing so will channel you down a particular line of thought, namely the search for ways of making these systems more efficient.
6. Make sure that your picture includes not only the factual data about the situation, but also the subjective information.
7. Look at the social roles that are regarded within the situation as meaningful by those involved, and look at the kinds of behaviour expected from people in those roles. If you see any conflicts, indicate them.
8. Finally, include yourself in the picture. Make sure that your roles and relationships in the situation are clear. Remember that you are not an objective observer, but someone with a set of values, beliefs and norms that colour your perceptions.

The main principle of a rich picture is to assist us the analyst to gain an admiration of the problem situation. As it is understood in Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), rich pictures are used as a means to signify the situation of anxiety and include elements which influence the problem for organisation, but which would not perhaps be picked up using more formal methods.

Soft systems methodology emphasizes the value of rich pictures. Rich Pictures is an innovative way of turning complex systems, thoughts and everyday business issues into a neat format that everyone can understand easily. These seek to explore and summarise issues much more pictorially and graphically than the methods like documenting, reporting. They can be extremely intuitive and can also compress a lot of information into a single picture.

Rich pictures can be very useful in forming a backdrop to subsequent analysis, acting as an aide memoire to allow the group continually to refer back and check they are addressing all the relevant issues. The rich picture of our Problem Scenario shows the many interacting systems and issues that relate to the organisation which has developed over particular location. Within a solitary image all the mean points and concerns have been detained and may be corresponded to those apprehensive in choosing what action to take.

The above rich picture includes the struc­ture of  Environment. This Struc­ture refers to those parts of the sit­u­a­tion which are slow to change and rel­a­tively sta­ble. They may include things like organ­i­sa­tional struc­ture, phys­i­cal lay­out and all the peo­ple who are affected by the sit­u­a­tion. And also it includes only enough struc­ture to allow you to record the process and concerns. At the same time it embraces the concerns or issues which capture a particular actor’s motivations for participating in the situation. The different motivations give rise to the various perspectives each actor has.

It also includes the process of Organisation which refers to the transformation that go on within the structure. These transformations might be part of a flow of goods which are being utilised in that firm, existing documents which are already there in that problem organisation or data of that particular organisation. But the rich picture will not capture all aspects of process. The above Rich picture represents structure, processes and issues of the environment, which could be relevant to the problem definition, and try giving an impression of the charity organisational climate. Although they can often contain imprecise or confusing illustration between their processes and correspond the problem situation clearly or not very clearly.

Many analysts are scared of using rich pictures, because they feel their artistic skills are not adequate. However, with modern drawing tools in Office tools and inventive use of clip art, this is now much less of a problem. The act of drawing a rich picture is functional in itself because:  lack of space on the paper forces decisions on what is really important (and what are side issues or points of detail for further layers of rich pictures); It helps people to visualize and discuss their own role in the organisation; It can be used to define the aspects of the organisation which are intended to be covered, by the information system; It can be used to show up the worries of individuals, potential conflicts, and political issues.

Once the rich picture has been drawn, it is useful in identifying two main aspects of the human activity system. The first is to identify the primary tasks. Searching for primary tasks is a way of posing and answering the question: 'What is really central to the problem situation?' For example, it could be argued that the organisation aims to give an excellent service to its customers (the public) (which might be implied by the diagram) or increase standards in its profession (which is not implied by the diagram). Everything else is carried out to achieve that end. Primary tasks are central to the creation of this information system, because the information system is normally set up to achieve or support that primary task of the organisation environment. 

The second way that the rich picture is of particular value is in identifying issues of that problem area. These are topics or matters which are of concern. They may be the subject of dispute. They represent the (often unstated) question marks hanging over the 4/5 situation. This process of identifying the issues will lead to some debate on potential changes. It might be possible for these issues to be resolved at this stage, but it is essential that they are understood. Issues are important features, as the behaviour resulting from them could cause the formal information system to fail. Unless at least some of them have been resolved, the information system will have little chance of success. In some situations, the issues can be more important than the tasks.

The rich picture can help the owners of the problem sort out the fundamentals of situation, both to clarify their own thinking and decision making and also to explain these fundamentals to all the concerned parties. The rich picture becomes an abstract of all that significant in the circumstance. An analysis of the rich picture will help in the process of from 'thinking about the problem situation' to 'thinking about what can be done about"' problem situation'.

The above description of Richpicture is taken from my own Assignment task on my Bsc Final Year ISE Coursework.