Strategic assumptions surfacing and testing (SAST) is a method for approaching ill-structured problems. It can be applied as a
dialectical
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...
approach to policy and planning.
An ill-structured problem may alternatively be also labelled as a
wicked problem
In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fix ...
. SAST may be applied as a technique of
systems thinking
Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than by splitting it down into its parts. It has been used as a way of exploring and developing effective actio ...
.
An ill-structured problem is "one for which various strategies for providing a possible solution rest on assumptions that are in sharp conflict with one another". The purposes for an SAST method are:
* to help surface for explicit examination the underlying assumptions that analysts often unconsciously bring with them to a problem situation;
* to compare and to evaluate systematically the assumptions of different analysts;
* to examine the relationship between underlying assumptions and the resulting policies which are derived and dependent upon them; and
* to attempt to formulate new, novel, and originally unforeseen policies based on previously unforeseen assumptions.
Four stages in the method include:
# Assumption specification
# Dialectic phase
# Assumption integration phase
# Composite strategy creation
The method originated through the collaboration between
Richard O. Mason and
Ian Mitroff Ian Irving Mitroff (born 1938) is an American organizational theorist, consultant and Professor Emeritus at the USC Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California He is noted for a wi ...
, as an extension of the philosophy on the design of inquiring systems originating from
C. West Churchman
Charles West Churchman (29 August 1913 – 21 March 2004) was an American philosopher and systems scientist, who was Professor at the School of Business Administration and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California ...
. SAST follows the prescriptions of ''dialectic inquiry'', sweeping in multiple perspective onto the full breadth of underlying assumptions to collaborative problem solving and strategic design.
Notes
References
Mitroff, I. I., and J. R. Emshoff. 1979. “On Strategic Assumption-making: A Dialectical Approach to Policy and Planning.” ''Academy of Management Review'': 1–12. https://www.jstor.org/stable/257398
Mason, R.O., and Mitroff, I.I., 1981; "Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions:Theory,Cases and Techniques", NY, Wiley, {{ISBN, 0-471-08219-8
Mitroff, Ian I., and Richard O. Mason. 1981. ''Creating a Dialectical Social Science: Concepts, Methods, and Models''. D. Reidel. https://books.google.com/books?id=cKJ8AAAAIAAJ.
Mason, Richard O., and Ian I. Mitroff. 1981. ''Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions: Theory, Cases, and Techniques''. Wiley. https://books.google.com/books?id=EmaQAAAAIAAJ.
Business planning
Problem structuring methods