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Werner Ulrich's Home Page:
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Fo r me r l y " Pi c t u re o f t h e M o n t h "
May-June 2016
Critical Pragmatism for Professionals: Some Comments
(Reflections on Critical Pragmatism, Part 8)
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On operationalizing critical pragmatism for professional practice:
WER NER ULRICH'S BIO
An open letter to Werner Ulrich by Richard J. Ormerod, Guest Author
PUBLICATIONS
Dear Werner,
READINGS ON CSH
I have read your recent Bimonthly on pragmatism and professionalism, titled
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CRITICAL SYSTEMS
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A TRIBUTE TO
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"Philosophy for professionals: towards critical pragmatism" (Ulrich, 2016).
PDF file
This was the seventh in your series of "Reflections on Critical Pragmatism."
It took me back to the dialogue we had on the topic of critical pragmatism in
2006 and 2007, after the publication of my paper "The history and ideas of
pragmatism" (Ormerod, 2006). In my paper I was trying to understand
pragmatism and draw conclusions for my particular profession, operational
LUGANO SUMMER SCHOOL
research (OR). When I look back on our collaboration since, including our
ULRICH'S BIMONTHLY
(formerly Picture of the Month)
joint paper on "Operational research and ethics" (Ormerod and Ulrich, 2013),
COP YR IGHT NOTE
it has been highly productive from my point of view, particularly as I was
A NOTE ON PLAGIARISM
able to witness your intellectual struggles and gain a little insight into the
CONTACT
difficulty of advancing philosophical ideas with a view to supporting practice.
SITE MAP
Despite the inevitable difficulties involved when a philosopher's and a
Note: This "open letter" is
a response by R. Ormerod,
Plymouth, UK, to my article
in the previous Bimonthly
of March-April, 2016,
titled "Philosophy for
professionals: towards
critical pragmatism," which in
turn was based on an earlier
review of a paper of his.
My thanks to Richard for
this contribution.
practitioner's views and interests meet, I found this exchange relevant as it
was based on a shared belief that pragmatic philosophy and professional
practice can learn from one another.
Working together and trying to build a stronger bridge between philosophy
and practice is thus a meaningful, if difficult, endeavor. With this open letter,
I would like to take up the challenge and contribute some ideas on it that are
based in my professional experience as an operational researcher. My focus
will be on your observation, in your recent essay, that a lack of operational
concepts and tools has hindered the practical reception of pragmatic
philosophy in the past, and that one of the methodological challenges in
advancing critical pragmatism must therefore be to pragmatize philosophical
pragmatism by developing operational tools for critically pragmatic practice.
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Suggested citation: Ormerod, R.J. (2016). On operationalizing critical pragmatism for
professional practice: an open letter to Werner Ulrich. In Ulrich's Bimonthly, May-June 2016
(Reflections on Critical Pragmatism, Part 8.).
[HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_may2016.html
[PDF] http://wulrich.com/downloads/bimonthly_may2016.pdf
Building a bridge between pragmatic philosophy and professional
practice One phrase in your last Bimonthly struck me particularly.
Following the discussion of two examples of concise application of pragmatic
thought by two of its pioneers, Oliver Wendell Holmes (1881) and John
Dewey (1938), you say this on the uncompleted task of operationalizing
pragmatism:
... the difficulty remains Still, I would maintain that the tradition of
pragmatism as a whole, despite such occasional highlights of concise
application, has hardly managed to work out and operationalize its essential
methodological ideas so that they would be sufficiently accessible to
practitioners and to students. Counter to what pragmatist thought is often
accused of, its allegedly being too simple and superficial, the core difficulty in
its reception history until today in fact appears to be that the way its originators
described it is rather too sophisticated and perhaps too philosophical or too
differentiated, but hardly too plain or even commonsensical. Whatever the
diagnosis – in the end, pragmatically speaking, the issue remains the same:
there is a lack of operational concepts and guidelines, checklists, and similar
tools that could systematically orient and monitor reflective practice and also
would help to teach it to students and practitioners. (Ulrich, 2016, p. 7)
A striking statement indeed! Can it be that pragmatism is not sufficiently
pragmatic for practice? In order to follow your train of thought and try to
understand why the difficulty remains, I decided to read the previous six
Bimonthlies dedicated to reflections on critical pragmatism.1)
I had
previously read them one at a time, but in order to make it easier to follow
the plot, I took the opportunity to read them all in sequence over a few days
(like binging on a boxed set of DVDs). The seven Bimonthlies make a fine
collection, easy to read and reasonably easy to follow given our previous
interactions. My mind naturally turned to addressing the "remaining
difficulty" which relates to providing methods and tools for practitioners,
particularly because you invited contributions from others including
practitioners. Despite spending the last ten years of my career as an
academic, I still consider myself to be at heart a practitioner and I offer the
following contribution as an OR practitioner. First, let me remind you about
the nature of OR.
As you know OR is a profession that evolved out of the assistance given
during WW2 by scientists (of various hues) to the military on how to make
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the best use of the means at their disposal (for, instance how to deploy radar,
how to search for submarines and so on). The scientists would use a mixture
of scientific inquiry, mathematical analysis and common sense. From these
beginnings OR has developed into a professional practice (usually in the form
of internal and external consultancy) and is now deployed in a range of
commercial industrial, governmental and not-for-profit as well as military
contexts. OR consulting activities range from developing mathematical
algorithms (for instance, for assessing the risks of lending to a particular
consumer) to designing and facilitating participative processes to evaluate
proposed infrastructure projects with social, economic and environmental
impacts. Algorithmic work is similar to engineering; evaluative work is akin
to policy analysis. In between these two extremes, OR practitioners might be
engaged to investigate issues perceived to be problems by managers and
explore the options using quantitative and qualitative analysis as appropriate.
Overall, OR practitioners are generally in the business of helping managerial
decision-makers and their advisors take decisions or, less usually, helping
non-managers take or influence managerial decisions. OR offers practical
advice to people taking decisions in practice.
From life to logic to practitioner methods and tools In developing
pragmatism, Charles Peirce (1878) and later John Dewey (1938), two of the
originators of pragmatism, started from a naturalist perspective. They depict
man as an inquiring animal which developed the habit of understanding its
immediate context to inform its actions to ensure the food and safety
necessary for survival. As signs and grunts between members of the family
and between hunting partners developed into spoken language, the possibility
evolved of discussing and reflecting on what they were already in the habit of
doing. Eventually logical theory developed from this discussion. Thus inquiry
and action gave rise to theory, not the other way round. Dewey (1938)
expands on this in his book Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. It was this
emphasis on inquiry (along with the excitement of the story of the
emergence of pragmatism in the intellectual ferment in 18th century America)
that motivated me to write my paper on pragmatism.
Not surprisingly, I found that pragmatism fitted the practice of OR very well;
after all, OR is a profession dedicated to conducting inquiries. One
conclusion could be to just carry on as usual, as we were already, in effect,
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pragmatists. But as you have frequently pointed out OR may well be quite
sophisticated in developing and testing theories, but has been relatively slow
to develop to the same level when it comes to handling (ethical) values. This
imbalance stems from OR’s roots in natural science rather than social
science; its emphasis consequently is on things rather than people, on the
quantitative rather than the qualitative. I hope you would concede though
that over the last 30-40 years, as a result of your efforts and those of like
minded people, the level of awareness of such issues in OR has improved
somewhat: from the direction of science, multi-criteria decision analysis
ensures that cost minimization or profit maximization objectives are now
frequently considered in conjunction with other values arising from ethical
and environmental concerns; from the direction of social science and
philosophy, "soft" OR methods (based on the understanding that different
people see things differently and need to be involved in the process of
inquiry and decision making) have been developed and have, at least to an
extent, become part of the OR practitioner's tool kit and have affected the
way that some practitioners think about problems. Your CSH and its twelve
boundary questions have been welcomed as part of the OR academic debate
but have not as far as I know made much headway in achieving OR
practitioner take-up – perhaps there has been some at the policy end of the
profession, but little or none at the algorithmic end where the weight of OR
activity lies.
You will note that I keep talking about OR practice whereas you target a
much wider group of professionals. But, of course, by definition a
practitioner is always rooted in a particular profession. I presume the spread
of interest in CSH across other professions is rather similar, ranging from
plenty of interest among planning and evaluation professionals to practically
none among civil and mechanical engineers. You (and your readers) are in
any case stuck with the problem that in order to listen to the views of a
practitioner one has to accept that he or she will prefer to talk about the
particular, rather than the abstract universal principles, particulars that are
based on experience, which is usually gained in one particular profession. I
am no different in that respect. Quite apart from the burden that this places
on your readers and your good self, it points to the fact that the very
practitioners whom we want to adopt critical pragmatism will judge it by the
ease with which they can understand the general orientation and can imagine
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the potential use to which the methods and tools could be put – in their
particular context as they perceive it. Of course, continued use, and a deep
understanding of the methods, only come from the experience of using the
approach. For this to happen the basic ideas need to be theoretically sound
(your department), the presentation – the packaging – needs to appeal
(practitioners might be able to help here), and the experience of use needs to
be good (only practitioners or perhaps academics in consulting mode can
help).
It is worth considering why one approach, that of Peter Checkland (1981),
your collaborator in your Lugano Summer Schools and one of the originators
of "soft OR," has been so successful in doing something very similar.
Soft systems methodology (SSM) as example of successful dissemination
SSM has now been widely taken up by various practice disciplines including
OR and software engineering. Of course, there are several factors that led to
the success of SSM, not least the basic ideas and way of thinking it
encapsulates, the dissemination via an MSc programme and the many
published case examples of assignments he and others undertook. However, I
think something can also be learnt from SSM in terms of format and
presentation.
In its initial conception SSM had seven steps: (1 and 2) understanding the
context (tool: rich pictures representing the actual); (3) developing system
root definitions (acronym: CATWOE); (4) drawing an idealized model of the
system (tool: conceptual modeling); (5) identify potential improvements
(method: compare ideal in step 4 with actual in step 2); (6) evaluate potential
improvements (method: debate the desirability and feasibility of the
proposed improvements); (7) take action to improve structures, procedures
and/or attitudes. At any stage iteration can and usually does take place as
some part of the previous analysis is found to be inadequate. After
implementation in step 7, reality is changed and one is back into steps 1 and
2. The whole process is iterative and flexible; steps are generally revisited as
new information (including viewpoints) comes to light. You can see the
advantage of supporting debate with very simple methods and tools which
the practitioner can easily remember and apply; CATWOE in particular is an
easy to remember checklist of the elements that are needed to define a
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system (Customers, Actors, Transformation, Weltanschauung, Owners and
Environment). These items are to be debated by participants, usually
resulting in several different points of view. The issues are often intellectually
complex yet supported by a very simple tool. The result is that Checkland’s
formulation for inquiring into the problem is elegant and helpful in
stimulating relevant conversation. In my view it sets the standard for which
we should strive.
The difficulty of providing methods and tools for pragmatism Part of the
difficulty as I see it lies in the fact that the classical pragmatists argued that
there should be no set method of inquiry; each investigation depends on the
circumstances as they are understood at the time. In the past you have
finessed the problem, not by laying down a method of inquiry but by
suggesting questions to be debated as the inquiry unfolds; I am referring, of
course, to the twelve boundary questions of your Critical Systems Heuristics
approach (Ulrich, 1983). These struck a chord with me when I was an active
practitioner. However, you now want to go further and provide help to the
practitioner to "operationalize" critical pragmatism. I have no doubt that
practitioners would take more interest in critical pragmatism if some such
guidance was given in the form of "what steps to take and how." There is a
demand for frameworks, methods and tools even though as pragmatists we
would want practitioners to adapt them to suit their circumstances and needs.
In other words, it should be made clear that the methods and tools that you
eventually settle on carry no authority, they are only suggestions. I think it is
possible that such an approach consistent with critical pragmatism could be
developed. In the end it is the responsibility of a practitioner to design a
suitable intervention for his or her particular investigation.
The philosophical theory, with which Checkland underpins SSM, was
developed from his experience of struggling with problems as a practicing
manager; the theory followed the practice. Therefore, like the originators of
pragmatism and Checkland, I will start with what practitioners actually do (in
my experience) and see how the logic evolves from there.
The experience of conducting OR projects in practice In general, there
are three steps in an OR project. First, a proposal has to be written, which, if
accepted by the prospective client, results in a contract. Second, once the
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contract has been agreed, the intervention is designed in detail; the result is a
plan. Third, the plan is put into operation until the envisaged end point is
reached or whenever either the client or the consultants decide to bring it to a
close. Within each phase there are a number of activities to be undertaken;
typically each step involves the following:
Step 1, writing the proposal The opportunity to submit a proposal to a client
may come about in many ways, from having a personal contact to receiving a
formal invitation to tender. At one extreme you start with a blank piece of
paper, at the other the client supplies you with a brief. Either way, to submit a
proposal you need to get to understand the client’s requirements, produce an
initial project plan and estimate the costs. To understand the client’s
requirements involves talking to the client (and maybe others) about the
context, the scope of the envisaged engagement, the aims and values of the
client, and the competences that from your side can be brought to bear. As
the conversation proceeds, both parties may want to change their initial
views; for instance, when clients realize the cost of some of their
requirements they sometimes decide to reduce the scope, or in other cases
the consultant may decide to offer something radically different from the
client’s original conception. It may take a few iterations before agreement is
reached. All costs during this stage become part of the development costs of
the
consulting
group
(business
or
internal
department).
Output:
proposal/contract including the aim, means, resources and costs and an
outline project plan.
Step 2, designing the intervention Assuming the contract has been won, a
detailed plan has to be drawn up to guide and control future activities. Of
course, at this point there is already a preliminary plan in the proposal, but
that would have been based on a fairly limited inquiry because there would
have been no guarantee that the proposal would be successful and there
would be no return on the costs incurred (for external consultancies, it
generally takes 4-6 bids to win one job). The plan would need to break the
project into phases with the tasks to be carried out within each phase, the
resources that will be needed, and the expected output at the end of each
phase (to be carried forward to the next phase). Methods and tools (for
overall use or for individual phases) would need to be selected (some of
which might be publicly available, some propriety, some personal, others
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might be invented there and then to meet the particular requirements of the
project). Within each phase the activities or tasks are organized in series,
parallel and in loops to achieve the phase’s aims. To carry out this design
activity, more would have to be learnt about the context, the client’s
intentions, the scope, and who needs to involved/consulted. This may be a
matter of modest readjustment or the project definition may need to be
radically rethought and the terms of the contract renegotiated. This step may
require many meetings involving time and money which will eat into the
agreed contract total. The plan will need to include regular reviews with the
client (and perhaps a steering committee) to examine progress to date, future
requirements and budgetary implications. The final phase is likely to focus on
evaluating proposals in terms of the aims and values of the client organization
and including all those affected by the proposals. At one extreme, for
instance in the case of developing an improved algorithm for a commercial
firm, the evaluation is likely to be based largely on the relationship between
costs and expected benefits; at the other extreme, for instance in the case of
large infrastructure projects raising economic, social and environmental
concerns, the evaluation will be in terms of impact and conflicting
viewpoints. Output: intervention design and a detailed project plan covering
all aspects.
Step 3, conducting the project Now the plan is put into action phaseby-phase with cycles of inquiring, doing, reviewing and adjusting. The
investigation is conducted through data gathering, discussion and analysis,
communicating all the while with relevant parties. From time to time,
progress is compared to that expected according to the project plan,
particularly at the end of each phase but also at any time that some major
new factor arises. As a result, the design and plans may be adjusted and in
some case radically altered (including the possibility of terminating the
contract). Final output: project findings and recommendations, the learning
of all involved and, if appropriate, intentions/commitments of the client
organization to implement the recommendations. The consultant may
recommend further investigations and/or a plan of implementation. In the
case of algorithmic development, it may be that implementation is included in
the project and is the primary aim. Output: a professionally conducted
intervention appreciated by the client and others involved and found to be
useful.
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What logic flows from the experience of conducting OR projects in
practice I have selected some examples of logical approaches/reasoning that
can be observed in the practice of OR as described above. Of course, these
are not unique to OR; I have favored those that I think are important and
where pragmatism might have something to say. The likely application of
each logic within each step is indicated in Table 1.
Table 1: Examples of logic arising from OR intervention
("The logic of what practitioners actually do")
Step 1
Propose
Step 2
Design /
Plan
Step 2
Operate
The logic of trial and error
Apply
Apply
Apply
The commercial logic
Apply
Apply
Apply
The logic of designing and planning
Approximate
Detail
Adjust
The logic of project management and control
Anticipate
Design
Apply
The logic of method choice
Anticipate
Choose
Adjust
The logic of participation
Apply
Apply
Apply
The logic of inference
Anticipate
Plan
Apply
The logic of evaluation and choice
Anticipate
Anticipate
Apply
Project step
Type of reasoning
Copyleft
2016 R.J..Ormerod
The logic of trial and error: The pragmatist position is that all inferences are
fallible; as a consequence, everything has to be continuously evaluated as
the project proceeds. As new information comes in and views change or
become clearer, then plans of action have to be adjusted, radically changed,
or abandoned.
The commercial logic: The overall logic of the three steps is the commercial
logic of the project, without which nothing happens. Commercial logic will
dominate except in relatively unusual cases, and it does have the merit of
focusing minds on the efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness of an
intervention in terms that all the parties can understand. But the dominance
of commercial concerns raises ethical issues.
The logic of designing and planning: As we have seen above, designing and
planning occurs in each of the steps: in the proposal step it is tentative based
on limited information; in the design step, having developed a better
understanding, a more detailed design and plan is produced; in the conduct
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phase the plan will be further adjusted as new information comes to light.
Thus designing and planning is crucial throughout the process. Each time this
activity is carried out, it is a matter of understanding the context, the scope of
the engagement, the aims and values of the client (and others involved), the
competences that can be brought to bear and other factors such as the
physical location of relevant sites and the ethos of the client organization.
The plan will specify activities and their sequences, within phases.
The logic of project monitoring and control: The proposal step sets up the
aims of a project in terms of costs, time scales, and the physical and
intellectual goods to be delivered. The project design step builds in activities
to keep track of these items at all times, but particularly at the end of each
phase.
The logic of method choice: The methods referred to here are the
mathematical, scientific and interpretive methods and tools used to conduct
the analysis and guide the process of inquiry and the interactions between
those involved. The logic here can be described as a two-step logic. The first
step is to decide on a general orientation; will this be an exercise in
mathematical and statistical analysis or a scientific investigation to discover
the ‘facts’, or is it a matter of surfacing the views of different parties to try to
find a way forward, or perhaps a combination of all three? Having decided on
the general orientation, the second step is to choose among the various
methods and tools designed to support the chosen orientation. The tolerant
attitude taken by pragmatism towards methods and tools based on alternative
philosophies – pragmatists do not worry about incommensurability, nor do
OR practitioners – allows a free choice dependent only on the needs of the
project.
The logic of participation: In OR there has been a gradual realization over a
long period that it is vital to engage relevant people, not only in the final
decision but at every stage in the process (the means-ends chains) leading up
to the decision. "Participative processes" allow a wider group of people not
only to have some influence (e.g., by being interviewed) but also to
participate hands-on in the formative process of developing ideas and
imagining consequences. The logic is that a wider variety and depth of
knowledge is created and captured and the participants will become more
committed to the success of the project. In particular, the people responsible
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for implementing the decisions will be more likely to become fully committed
to the success of the enterprise and will more readily take ownership of
implementing the agreed proposals.
The logic of inference: One example of choice between among methods and
tools, frequently met in OR projects, is whether to try to draw inferences
from data using deductive methods only, or whether to allow inductive
methods as well, including abduction (inference to the best explanation) and
Bayesian inference (probabilistic reasoning).
The logic of evaluation and choice: At the core of pragmatism’s way of
thinking is the pragmatic maxim. The maxim asserts that the meaning of
objects, concepts, and statements lies not in their intrinsic merit but in the
effect they have. The project is designed to produce the effects that the
clients wants to achieve, while avoiding or minimizing those that they deem
to be undesirable. In choosing how to act so as to bring about (or move
towards) the desired ends whilst avoiding or mitigating unwanted
consequences, criteria have to be selected and assessed for their salience and
strength relative to each other; options have then to be considered against
each criterion.
Methods and tools for critical pragmatism James (1907, p. 29) says of
pragmatism: "At the outset, at least, it stands for no particular results. It has
no dogmas, and no doctrines save its methods." He draws the analogy of
different groups of people who work on different problems in different rooms
of a hotel but all own and must go through the central corridor of pragmatism
if they want to get into or out of their room. The methods of pragmatism that
he refers to are not codified in a way that a practitioner might find useful but
refer to a general (scientific) orientation derived in the first instance from
experience. He says:
Ideas (which themselves are but parts of our experience) become true just in
so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our
experience.… Any idea upon which we can ride, so to speak; any idea that will
carry us prosperously from one part of experience to any other part, linking
things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor; is true for just
so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally. This is the "instrumental"
view of truth.… (James, 1907, p. 30; italics as in the original).
For pragmatists the search for truth is never ending. All theories are fallible.
Truth is something determined at a time, in a particular context, for a
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particular purpose. It is instrumentally useful in getting things done. It helps
ideas pass through the hotel corridor.
But we are seeking here specific methods for the practical purpose of helping
professionals. We are free, of course, to open the doors to the rooms and
make use of the methods and tools that we find have been developed. This is
what I suggest we do – make use of existing tools developed in different
hotel rooms. I have selected six tools that could be usefully deployed in an
intervention (or in an engagement, inquiry or whatever you prefer to call it).
The tools form an eclectic mixture derived from theory, experience and
behavioral research.
Tool 1. Orienting initial thoughts: reflecting on metaphors Before getting
stuck in to designing a project it is a good idea to reflect on what sort of job
this is: Are we looking at a machine that needs some fixing, or a brain that
processes information, or an ecological system that evolves dynamically? In
the OR context the idea of using metaphors has been advocated particularly
by Flood and Jackson (1991) as part of their total systems intervention (TSI)
approach. They describe TSI as "creative problem solving" with a debate on
metaphors supporting the creativity stage. This is consistent with the
pragmatists’ view that inquiry is a creative endeavor.
Tool 2. Designing the intervention: choosing the boundaries This tool
contributes to the logic of designing and planning both at the start and later
when the position is reviewed, particularly if the project has strayed from the
original design. Twelve boundary analysis questions, taken from Critical
Systems Heuristics (CSH, Ulrich, 1983), are discussed, primarily by the
consultant and client, who will bear in mind the orientation selected for the
intervention. These twelve questions are first used during the proposal step
and then revisited every time the project design and plans are reconsidered.
Answering these questions ensures that adequate thought is given to the
scope of the project and the use of competences, expertise, different
viewpoints and authority in order to ensure that due care is taken in offering
conclusions. CSH is deeply indebted to pragmatism and carries with it many
of its orientations; its tool, the twelve questions, therefore has a clear place in
any pragmatist's tool kit. CSH also draws attention to the fact that all
anticipated actions have ethical consequences. Thus the building of a power
station not only has consequences for society once it is built, but there are
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also issues related to the impact on people and the environment along the
way. One of the most important questions to be addressed is that relating to
the people affected but not involved in the process; how are their interests
taken into account?
Tool 3. Designing the intervention: negotiating the aims, resources and
constraints of the project This tool addresses the logic of design and
planning directly. A list of factors to be considered can be found in my paper
on "The transformation competence perspective" (Ormerod, 2008, p. 1437,
Table 2). The challenge is to juggle the aims, resources and constraints so as
to derive a plan that will deliver something the client wants, and will yield
sufficient benefits at an acceptable (competitive) cost. There is no analytic
way to come up with a design; a pragmatic approach of trial and error in
dialogue with the client is required. Following the suggested approach of the
pragmatists, all the factors have to be brought into balance. The main focus
will be on the core issue, that is, determining the transformation required in
the light of the competences that can be brought to bear on the project. The
required "transformation" defines the ambition that is to be met by the craft
skills and expertise of people, supported if appropriate by pre-defined
methods. The available "competence" refers to the skills, the time and the
ability to act of those involved in the intervention. In designing the
intervention, activities have to be planned in the light of the transformation
being sought, the competence involved and the methods available. Getting
the balance right is what the transformation competence perspective is all
about (see Ormerod, 2008).}
One way of exploring whether the right transformation has been arrived at, is
to ask the question: What Weltanschauung makes this transformation
relevant? This is a question that sits at the centre of Checkland’s (1981)
approach to defining a root definition of a human activity system. It is often
intellectually challenging to do, but it ensures that careful thought is given to
the relationship between the fundamental aims of the host organization and
the specific transformation being sought.
Tool 4. Controlling the project: tracking aims, benefits, costs, time and
involvement This tool contributes to the logic of monitoring and control. It
is, in effect, an extension of normal project management systems. Projects
are notorious for losing their way in terms of the original intentions; clients
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change the aims, problems are met, compromises are made. Costs and time
are routinely monitored in projects, but it is equally important to keep track
of aims and any benefits foregone as the project proceeds. If aims shift, some
of the anticipated benefits may no longer be forthcoming or relevant and
perhaps different people will have to be involved. Major changes, or an
accumulation of minor ones, may throw cost and benefit out of balance; as a
result, the project may have to be rethought or abandoned. Another
important factor that needs to be monitored is the degree of involvement
(enthusiasm and commitment) of parties who need to contribute to the
project. This may be a matter of a senior manager making time available for
meetings to authorize access to data or for taking some other key projectrelated decision. In participative projects such involvement may also be a
question of the degree to which participants engage with others in workshops
and in other ways; they need to be sufficiently motivated to contribute their
knowledge, expertise and creativity.
Tool 5. Controlling the project: tracking theories, proposals, actions, and
consequences This is another tool that can contribute to the logic of
monitoring and control, alongside Tool 4. Boothroyd's (1978, pp. 141f; see
also Ormerod, 2010, p. 1089) notion of articulate intervention characterizes
a process of "articulate reflection" that leads to well-considered action.
Crucial is that those involved in a project remind themselves of the
conjectural status of any point of deliberation as they move towards decisionmaking or taking action. As a basis for such reflection, Boothroyd suggests to
conceive of articulate intervention as a process in which one reflects on, and
articulates, the "numerous latent theories" that may inform action proposals
and, once implemented, then produce "cascades of consequences
proliferating into the future." (Boothroyd, 1978, p. 141, cf. his Fig. 8).
Tool 6. Evaluating proposals: the logic of evaluation and choice
Evaluative logic is clearly the main concern here. The activities of evaluation
and choice bring all that has gone before into focus and can capitalize on
what has been learnt by the involved parties about their own position and
that of others. In this area OR excels; evaluation and choice lie at the centre
of the discipline and have attracted intense OR research effort over a long
period. There is a wide range of methods available that were developed
specifically for this purpose coming under the general headings of decision
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analysis (DA) or multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA), or multi criteria
decision making (MCDM). At one end of the range are rigorous, highly
sophisticated, quantitative and qualitative methods; at the other are very
simple heuristics for narrowing down the options to be considered, for
instance, "strike out an option if it fails to satisfy more than one of the key
criteria, unless it is the best option for one of the other criteria." For a well
tried and tested, rule based approach see Friend and Hickling (2005, pp.
43-53). The simpler the method, the more easily it will be understood and the
easier it will be to engage participants. A balance therefore has to be struck
between intellectual rigor and practical feasibility. The pragmatic approach is
to choose a method that is fit-for-purpose and no more sophisticated than is
necessary in the particular context of the decision makers and the decision to
be taken.
Grounds for optimism? What I have tried to do here is to demonstrate that
it is at least feasible to develop some tools to equip the critically pragmatic
practitioner for the fray. Armed with these and standard project management
tools, plus some others that no doubt will be added in time, OR practitioners
would, I hope, be equipped to take on the imagining, designing and
implementing challenge that they face in a manner consistent with, and
informed by, a critical pragmatist orientation.
Does the problem still remain? Of course; how could it be otherwise. Is it a
step in the right direction? That's for you and others to say. Is there more to
do? Of course. One thing I have totally failed to do is to package and present
the tools in an attractive way, the importance of which I emphasized at the
beginning of this letter. For example, perhaps Tool 4 could be known as
BATIC (Benefits, Aims, Time, Involvement, Costs) and Tool 5 as TPAC
(Theories, Proposals, Actions, Consequences), pronounced as t-pac. Such
aide memoirs help, but I think elegance does not really rest in acronyms;
rather, it lies in crystallizing ideas parsimoniously in simple, transparent
words and diagrams. A challenge for the future perhaps. However, we can
think about a title: perhaps, critical pragmatism for practice (CPP); or
maybe critical pragmatism for professional practice (CPPP) or (CP 3),
pronounced as CP-cubed.
And so to … the deck. Summer is here (in the south west corner of England
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at least), and I am beckoned by the view of the estuary below and the
splendid sight of a steam train passing over the Royal Albert Bridge over the
Tamar, designed and built by the Victorian engineering genius Isambard
Kingdom Brunel. It is time to replenish my glass, enjoy the sunshine and take
in the view from my deck.
Regards, Richard
Note
1) (Editor's note) Readers will find the first six Bimonthly essays published in the series of
"Reflections on Critical Pragmatism" (i.e., Parts 1-6) listed in the References section of
Part 7, beginning with Ulrich (2006b). The hyperlinks provided there will lead you to
each of these previous articles. Alternatively, search the Publications section of this site
for "Reflections on Critical Pragmatism." [BACK]
References
Boothroyd, H. (1978). Articulate Intervention: The Interface of Science, Mathemathics,
and Administration. London: Taylor & Francis.
Checkland, P. (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Flood, R.L., and Jackson, M.C. (1991). Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems
Intervention. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Friend, J., and Hickling, A. (2005). Planning under Pressure: The Strategic Choice
Approach. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Holmes, W.O. (1881). The Common Law. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett.
Ormerod, R.J. (2006). The history and ideas of pragmatism. Journal of the Operational
Research Society, 57, No. 8, pp. 892-909.
Ormerod, R.J. (2008). The transformation competence perspective. Journal of the
Operational Research Society, 59, No. 11, pp. 1435-1448.
Ormerod, R.J. (2010). Articulate intervention revisited. Journal of the Operational Research
Society, 61, No. 7, pp. 1078-1094.
Ormerod, R.J. (2014). OR competences: the demands of problem structuring methods. EURO
Journal on Decision Processes, 2, No. 3, pp. 313-340.
Ormerod, R.J., and Ulrich, W. (2013). OR and ethics: a literature review. European Journal
of Operational Research, 228, No. 2, pp. 291-307.
Peirce, C.S. (1878). How to make our ideas clear. Popular Science Monthly, 12, January,
pp. 286-302. Reprinted in C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (eds), Collected Papers of
Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. V: Pragmatism and Pragmaticism, Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1934, para. 388-410, pp. 248-271.
Ulrich, W. (1983). Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to Practical
Philosophy. Bern, Switzerland: Haupt; pb. reprint edn. Chichester, UK, and New York:
Wiley, 1994.
Ulrich, W. (2016). Philosophy for professionals: towards critical pragmatism. Rev. version of
20 March 2016. Reflections on Critical Pragmatism, Part 7. Ulrich's Bimonthly,
March-April 2016 (orig. version in: Journal of the Operational Research Society, 58,
No. 8, 2007, pp. 1109-1113). http://wulrich.com/downloads/bimonthly_march2016.pdf,
accessed 25th March 2016.
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Picture data Digital photograph taken by R. Ormerod on 22 Nov 2015 at
4 p.m. from Plymouth in Devon, England, looking across the river Tamar to
Cornwall. ISO 32, exposure mode automatic. Aperture f/2.4, exposure time
1/350 seconds, and exposure bias 0. Metering mode multi-segment, contrast
normal, saturation normal, sharpness normal. Focal length 3.3 mm,
equivalent to 42 mm with a conventional 35 mm camera (i.e., with a
full-format sensor). Original resolution 1936 × 1936 pixels; current resolution
700 x 525 pixels, compressed to 213 KB.
May-June, 2016
Building a bridge between philosophy and practice: a pragmatic challenge
„It should be made clear that the methods and tools that we eventually
settle on carry no authority, they are only suggestions.”
(From this open letter)
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