What is CATWOE, and what does it do?

In some situations, often after first exploring a problem with an informal technique, it might be necessary to implement a more formal one.

Formal problem-solving techniques

These are formal in the sense that they are based upon specific rules and conventions drawn from the experience of others. Such rules and conventions can help to guide the process, and help navigate and express a complex problem situation, based upon best practice.

Some may find these formal techniques too constraining at first. Their rules require practice and can restrict more creative ways to explore the problem.

However, they usually allow for more powerful and advanced analysis and, because they use an established common language, they can aid communications between people who have encountered them before.

What is CATWOE?

CATWOE is another tool that forms part of Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology, along with Rich Pictures (see Checkland 2001). In some ways, it is similar to Rudyard Kipling’s ‘six honest serving men’.

CATWOE is a mnemonic used to identify the people, processes and environment that contribute to a situation, issue or problem under analysis. Each of the letters is a prompt to think about a different aspect of the problem.

The Soft Systems Methodology

The whole Soft Systems Methodology is useful in complex, messy situations when there are divergent views about the definition of the problem, or when the actual problem to be addressed cannot be agreed upon.

For example, ‘how can we improve the NHS?’ or ‘how do you address homelessness?’.

When using CATWOE, you consider a situation from six different perspectives:

Customers

Who are the people (groups or individuals) who will benefit (or potentially be harmed) from your innovations/intervention to improve the problem situation? How do the issues currently affect them?

Actors

Who is involved in the situation? More specifically, who will be involved in implementing the transformation you propose?

Transformation

What processes or systems are affected by the issue? What is the process that will result in the customers’ needs being met? What changes will take place? At this stage don’t worry about how this transformation will be enacted, just focus upon the transformation itself.

Worldview

What is the big picture that would make improving the problem situation a worthwhile thing to do? What are the wider impacts of the issue?

Owner

Who owns the process or situation you are investigating? Crucially, who has the power to stop you from carrying out the transformation?

Environmental Constraints

What are the constraints and limitations outside of your control that will impact the solution and its success?

“A system owned by [OWNERS], where [ACTORS] perform [TRANSFORMATION] on behalf of [CUSTOMERS] because [WORLDVIEW], but limited by [ENVIRONMENT].”

Checkland, P.B. (2001). ‘Soft Systems Methodology’, in Rosenhead, J. and Mingers, J. (eds), Rational Analysis for a Problematic World Revisited. Wiley, Chichester