Core methods | about 60 minutes | free
Move from a messy situation through purposeful perspectives to a logically defensible activity model and comparison.
A compact SSM rehearsal. The stages organise learning here; they are not a claim that SSM is a mandatory linear project sequence. An activity model is an inquiry device, not a description of what the organisation really is.
This is original learning material, not a reproduced official course. Mechanical checks have determinate answers within the stated case. Worked comparisons for open judgements show defensible reasoning, not the only possible model. Specialist pedagogical review is not recorded.
Fictional case: a repair cooperative allocates home-repair visits. Its scheduler wants every technician hour booked. Residents want a usable home and predictable appointments. Technicians want the information and parts needed to finish safely. The funder pays for completed visits, even when another visit is needed. Residents with uncertain work shifts often miss appointments. The cooperative's board can change booking rules but cannot compel a resident to be at home. There is no evidence yet about which change would improve completed repairs.
Use paper, your own drawing tool or the notes below. Attempt each step before opening its comparison. Describe a diagram in words when that is more accessible.
Produce: One picture or accessible narrative showing the competing concerns.
Include residents, technicians, scheduler, funder and board; show funding for visits, information and parts, uncertain shifts, missed appointments and conflicting meanings of success. Show tensions and absences, not only a flowchart. A resident's absence is an event to understand, not proof of irresponsibility.
Produce: Two distinct purposeful perspectives, each one sentence.
Resident perspective: 'Enable agreed safe repairs to be completed, by coordinating access, diagnosis, parts and work with residents, in order to restore a usable home with manageable disruption.' Scheduling perspective: 'Allocate available technician time, by matching eligible jobs to slots and skills, in order to use the cooperative's funded capacity.' Neither is declared the true purpose. The difference is useful for inquiry.
Produce: Six explicit entries, including the transformation.
Customers: residents benefiting or suffering, including those excluded by booking rules. Actors: residents, booking staff, technicians and suppliers carrying out the activities. Transformation: an agreed repair need becomes a completed, checked repair, not simply a person becoming 'a customer'. Weltanschauung: restoring a usable home justifies organising around completion and disruption. Owner: the board can stop or change the cooperative's arrangement; residents also control access. Environment: safety obligations, available skills, supply times and constraints outside this model's control. Do not put the proposed new booking rule in Environment merely because it exists today.
Produce: Five to nine verb-led activities with dependencies and monitoring.
A defensible model is: agree the repair need; establish access constraints; diagnose work and materials; arrange a feasible visit; perform the repair; check completion with the resident; monitor performance and revise arrangements. 'Arrange a feasible visit' depends on access and diagnosis; performance review receives evidence from completion checking. Assess efficacy (did the repair occur?), efficiency (what resources and effort did it use?) and effectiveness (does it contribute to the longer-term purpose?). These are logical requirements of this definition, not a copy of departments.
Produce: A three-row comparison and a feasible next inquiry.
For 'check completion', the case reports paid visits but not resident-verified completion: investigate the gap. For 'establish access', uncertain shifts are known but the booking response is not: ask residents. For 'monitor', the funder's measure may conflict with completion: discuss a paired completion measure. A possible accommodation is to retain visit reporting while jointly trialling resident-confirmed completion and flexible scheduling. It needs consent and negotiation; a neat model does not establish agreement.
These checks test the supplied case, not your overall competence. Open answers and model variants still need your judgement.
Root definition: restore usable homes. Model: maximise visits, close tickets, penalise missed appointments. No completion check.
The model has silently substituted the funder's or scheduler's purpose. Either label it as another purposeful model or rebuild it around agreed needs, completion and resident experience. Add monitoring that can challenge the arrangement, not merely count its transactions.
The board now insists on minimising disruption rather than maximising technician utilisation. Add one necessary activity and one comparison question.
An explicit activity could be 'agree acceptable timing and disruption with the resident'. Ask whether current booking captures and honours those constraints. Other activities are acceptable when logically derived and not simply desirable extras. Record the unresolved trade-off with capacity rather than assuming it disappears.
A different model can be defensible when its purpose, assumptions and reasoning are explicit. A contradiction, incorrect unit, invented fact or unacknowledged change of purpose needs repair. Keep both your first attempt and revision.
No sign-in or submission is required. Notes are not sent by this practice tool. Use fictional information, not identifiable client or learner data. Saving stores this page's attempt only in this browser; clearing browser data can remove it. Export a copy to keep it elsewhere.
The complete original case above is free. Links below distinguish exercises from explanations, recordings, software and paid study. Reading a page or drawing in a tool is not itself a model check.
Read stages 3-5 beside your own root definition, activity model and comparison table. Use this pack's case and checks to test your construction.
The stage pages were inspected, including root definitions and activity models. This is an adapted teaching account, not a complete self-marking SSM course.
Attempt SAQ 3 before opening its answer. Draw your own map for Activities 19-22, then compare the author's choices. Different justified boundaries need not match the example.
Tasks, defective maps, answer text and worked revisions inspected. Historic Child Support Agency case, not current policy guidance.
Choose the named introduction or core module matching your method. Check current price, access arrangements and feedback provision before paying.
Public listings inspected for VSM, SSM, CSH, SD, Patterns of Strategy, Mosaic and systems laws. Paid exercises and marking were not accessed.
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