Rich pictures

A rich picture is a way to explore, acknowledge and define a situation and express it through diagrams to create a preliminary mental model and can help to open discussion and come to a broad, shared understanding of a situation.

This method was originally developed as part of Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) (2008). Developing a rich picture covers steps 1 & 2 of the SSM which describe the real world:

1. Identify the issue you wish to address, and
2. Develop an unstructured description of the situation where the issue lies – how it is

(Other steps in the SSM support systems thinking about the world as it might be. The tensions between the real world as it is, and as it might be and between different perspectives of the real world and how it might be provide sites for creative thing. Refer to “Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit” by Bob Williams and Richard Hummelbrunner – 2010 for a detailed guide to using systems thinking in evaluation).

In his original writing, Checkland refers to the ‘situation’, the situation may be a program, issue, initiative or other term used in evaluation. Checkland provides some guidelines as to what should be included in the description so that a rich understanding of the situation is developed:

• Structures
• Processes
• Climate
• People
• Issues expressed by people
• Conflict

The description of the situation is depicted as a picture using diagrams, symbols, cartoons and words, it can be drawn by hand or electronically. As Williams and Hummelbrunner point out "There are many ways that this can be done: mind-maps, conversation maps, sketching. However, it is important that the picture should not structure the situation (as in a logic model or process chain). The whole point of a rich picture is to reflect as much going on as possible without privileging, predetermining, or presuming a particular point of view."