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TABLE 23-5 Mapping Methodologies—TOC TP

TABLE 23-6 Alternative Mapping of TOC as Meta-Methodology

In explanation of such categorization, we refer to the protocols and criteria of the M-B classificatory system relating to purposeful design. We note, for example, that while some soft OR methods were expressly designed and developed with the purpose of setting out to contest or change power relationships and structures, we cannot say that the TOC TP were designed for that specific purpose. That fact notwithstanding, TP tools have and may be used to attend to such matters successfully.

Indeed, the TOC TP may not address such issues unless diagnosis (using, say, the CRT) points to the power structure as being a core problem, or unless the power structure is seen to be an obstacle during the development of the PRT. Even though such challenge to power structures may be an emergent property of the TOC approach, since TOC does not aim to do this from the outset, nor is it a natural common outcome, we have left this box unshaded to maintain consistency with Mingers’ classificatory approach—which is that the classification of an activity requires that it is deliberately designed for that phase of intervention. Nevertheless, we may conclude that the characterization demonstrates that the TOC TP comprise what Dettmer calls the “complete package” and what we call a methodological set or meta-methodology.

The next section demonstrates how the related classificatory framework of Mingers (2003) may give rise to complementary insights.

The Philosophical Basis of the TOC TP

In Table 23-7, we provide an alternative characterization of each of the TOC TP tools and the 5FS method. In doing so, we again draw on the brief descriptions of each of the tools and methods as a basis for the characterization of the underpinning philosophical assumptions, using the classificatory system of Mingers (2003).

TABLE 23-7 Framework for Characterizing the Philosophical Assumptions underlying TOC Methods

We note that when the underlying assumptions and purpose are to be presented in this manner, we need to gain clarity about for what purpose and how the tools may be best used, and we may then develop realistic expectations about the use of the tools. In addition, we also note and foreshadow the scope for complementary use of the tools with respect to addressing multipurpose or multiobjective problem situations.

In the following section, we will re-examine the tools and their purposes in terms of their contributions to the different phases of intervention in the problem-solving process. It is worth restating here that even though the tools and methods are often used on their own for day-to-day problems, they are often used in combination for more infrequent and complex situations as well (Kim et al., 2008). The nature of such use, and reasons for its success or failure, can be explored appropriately by reference to the characterization of TOC tools presented in Table 23-7.

Table 23-7 captures and represents succinctly the defining nature and nuanced purposes of the TOC TP. In doing so, it makes explicit, somewhat ironically, the often unstated, sometimes unrecognized philosophical assumptions that underpin the TP, the associated TP tools, and their use. Some such assumptions relate to beliefs about what exists—cause-effect relations—and what could be—continuous or breakthrough improvement—and are ontological in nature. Other assumptions relate to the nature of information available, how we may access such information, and how we represent and process it, via causal logic trees. These are epistemological in nature. Similarly, other assumptions or beliefs relate to what we may expect a TOC tool “to do,” and to its axiological nature; that is, for whom the analysis is being conducted, and for what purpose the tool will be used. As such, Table 23-7 provides a different perspective on the TP tools, and on their development