Supporting crime detection and operational planning with soft systems methodology and viable systems model.(Research Paper)(Report)

INTRODUCTION

Wide ranges of disciplines, or fields of social science, contribute to our knowledge of organizations and their behaviour. Each discipline has its own approach, or approaches, to description and explanation of organizations. These are set in the paradigms used by communities of researchers. Debate has developed, at an accelerating rate, about the appropriate nature and strength of the paradigms that underlie the research into business and organizations (McKenna and Campbell Williams, 1997).

Skyrme (Skyrme, 1997), argues that to try and apply a single methodology however appropriate it may seem to its proponents, does not reflect the richness, diversity and interdependence of most real-life situations. Therefore a multi-methodology approach, which uses techniques from many other methodologies, would seem to have many attractions.

Real-world problem situations are inevitably highly complex and multidimensional. Different paradigms each focus attention on different aspects of the situation and so combining methodologies is necessary to deal effectively with the full richness of the real world. Methodologies tend to be more useful in relation to some phases than others, so the prospect of combining them has immediate appeal. Even where methodologies do perform similar functions, combining a range of approaches may well yield a better result (Mingers and Gill, 1997).

In order to develop a framework it is first important to understand the process that is required to undertake such a task. There are two main functions of a self-adaptive system, which must be taken into consideration when developing the framework, which are; the capability to determine 'what' changes are taking place and "how' to take the necessary corrective action. An in-depth literature review has been conducted so as to ensure that knowledge of the field is extensive and comprehensive. It is vital to the development of a generic framework that self-adaptive systems concepts are reviewed so as to take into account current and emerging control structures.

Having gained an understanding of the processes involved it is logical that the next steps to take are the design, implementation and experimentation of the generic framework. To begin with, it must be understood and appreciated that there are numerous theoretical approaches for self-adaptive information systems (Andriole and Adelman, 1995; Murray-Smith and Johansen, 1997).

Peter Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) (Checkland, 1981; Checkland and Holwell, 1998; Checkland and Scholes, 1999) will be utilized to underpin the concepts incorporated into the generic framework. Whilst the soft approach adopted by SSM will allow the framework to determine 'what' changes are happening to the new information system it will not be able to decide 'how' to take corrective action if necessary. Because of this, a hard methodology will be employed to control the decision making process that is fundamental to any information system.