UNDERSTANDING PROBLEMS AND PROBLEM SITUATIONS - A SYSTEMS APPROACH Shushma Patel South Bank University shushma@sbu.ac.uk Abstract In this paper we initially describe the nature and problems of business and define the office environment as one aspect of the business environment. We then propose a framework based on augmented soft systems methodology that captures both the soft and hard aspects of an office environment. We briefly outline a knowledge- based software tool that supports framework. Keyword: Soft Systems Thinking, Knowledge Representation, Telos, SCORE. 1. INTRODUCTION The term ‘business’ denotes an organisation that is involved in trading. Trading is the exchange of one thing for another. Running a business includes purchasing and selling products or services. The customer or receiver of the product/service pays a price to the supplier of the product/service. One of the main goals in business is to maximise profit. The profit is the amount of net gain derived from trading. This explanation of the term business is the bare minimum. In reality it is much more complicated than this. Running a business has become extremely complex. There are many issues, concepts and variables involved in understanding and efficiently running a business. These require better tools and techniques with which to manage and run the business and help the business work effectively, efficiently and productively. Building information systems has been seen to be one of the solutions to some of the business problems. It can also be used for improving the running of the business. An information system can be summarised as: • a set or arrangement of elements that are organised to accomplish some predefined goal. • a set of organised data that represents messages, knowledge and/or abstract real-world entities and it has a value to the stakeholder in a specific content. • a set or collection of collaborating resources (e.g. hardware, software, people, database, documentation, etc.) organised for the goal of storing, browsing, accessing, retrieving handling, manipulating and processing data to provide information to the stakeholders. The use of computers in complex organisations has changed in that manipulation of knowledge and information are undertaken as cooperative activities [1]. In information systems development the concept of artefact mediation is interesting. The computer is an artefact that can mediate several aspects of activity. Based upon this the activity theory postulates that the nature of any artefact can only be understood within the context of human activity. That is, by identifying the ways this artefact is used by people, the purpose it serves and its developmental history [1, 2]. The software engineering and the information systems perspectives focus on the problem of developing systems for a given problem domain. Therefore, in traditional computing the purpose of the computer system is to handle, monitor or control. The discipline of Business Information Technology, however, extends the software engineering and information systems disciplines by focussing on both the problem and the application domains. Therefore, the application domain takes a wider view of the role of the computer system (the artefact) and how it is used within the organisational context [3]. The emphasis is placed on the integration of the real world and computer world. In this paper we look at one aspect of the business environment, namely the office environment. We define an office to be an open, dynamic, geographically unconfined socio-technical system, where information is handled using information and communication technology in socially coordinated actions in order to achieve the objectives of the organisation of which the office may only be one part. Additionally, in the office, individual objectives are also pursued. We propose a Soft-System-Conceived Office Model with Knowledge Representation (SCORE) [4]. 2. SOFT SYSTEMS THINKING First of all, an important shift in the soft system approach is that it moves from focusing on - 001 - Proceedings of the First IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics (ICCI’02) 0-7695-1724-2/02 $17.00 © 2002 IEEE