Peter Checkland is a British management scientist and professor of Systems at Lancaster University. He is the developer of soft systems methodology (SSM): a methodology based on a way of systems thinking.
Peter Checkland was born in 1930 in Birmingham, UK, where he attended George Dixon’s Grammar School. In 1954 he received a M.A. degree in chemistry at St John’s College in Oxford, where he graduated with 1st class honours.
He worked in industry for 15 years as a manager in ICI's chemicals business. At the end of the 1960s he joined the pioneering department of Systems Engineering at Lancaster University, where he became professor of Systems. At Lancaster he led a programme of action research. This research team developed a new way of tackling problem situations faced by managers — Soft Systems Methodology. The SSM approach is now used and taught worldwide. Since the 1990s he is Professor Emeritus of Systems in Lancaster University Management School.
Peter Checkland worked on the editorial board of journals such as European Journal of Information Systems; the International Journal of Information Management; the International Journal of General Systems; the Systems Practice; and the Systems Research journal.
In 1986 Peter Checkland was president of the Society for General Systems Research, now International Society for the Systems Sciences. In 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Czech University of Economics. In 2007 he was awarded the prestigious Beale Medal by the OR Society, in recognition of his sustained and significant contribution to the philosophy, theory and practice of operational research.
Soft Systems Methodology in Action: Includes a 30-year retrospective