Hierarchical Process Modelling (HPM) in Problem Structuring

Abstract

With its origins in the early 1990s as a functionalist approach to modelling engineered systems with explicit representation of uncertainty, Hierarchical Process Modelling (HPM) has gradually been incorporated into an approach to problem structuring where it fulfils a similar role to a model of purposeful activity in SSM. Its first appearance in this guise was published in 2010 in JORS. Since then, it has been taught to ~100 Engineering Doctorate (EngD) students as part of their programme in the EPSRC funded Industrial Doctorate Centre in Systems at the University of Bristol. It has also been applied as a PSM in two EU funded projects for energy and smart city planning where it was known as the STEEP Methodology - Systems Thinking for Efficient Energy Planning. The similarities and differences between this modelling approach and others used in PSMs are considered from the perspective of affordance and with particular reference to judgements of process performance using a simple visual representation of interval numbers as ‘Italian Flags’.