Abstract—Access to safe water and sanitation services is a

chronic problem for 40% of people around the world and has

remained intractable for decades. Inappropriate technology,

systemic corruption in the allocation of funding, population

growth, migration patterns, and the availability of water are

some of the factors that contribute to the global problem. Any

hope for sustainable development and improvements in human

health and welfare in these developing communities is

contingent on the resolution of these and other contributing

factors. Holistic systems thinking is needed in these situations.

This project examines the application of so-called “hard”

systems approaches to a community-based water and sanitation

project in the Limpopo province of South Africa. In its first

year of involvement, a student team of systems engineers

developed a systems framework for managing this

community-based project which brings together an

international multidisciplinary team of engineers,

environmental scientists, planners, physicians, and nurses.

They have all worked and continue to work closely with two

selected villages, municipal government officials, and traditional

leaders from the region, to develop a comprehensive model for

community-based delivery of sustained access to safe water,

sanitation services, and improved outcomes in community

health in the region. However, it is found that hard systems

approaches prove to be inadequate in managing the plurality of

rationalities, disciplines, and stakeholders typically involved in

these types of development situations and that alternative

systems approaches should be explored.

I. INTRODUCTION

WO of the most problematic issues related to global

health, access to safe water and sanitation services, are

chronic problems for 40% of the world’s population and have

remained intractable for decades. The World Health

Organization (WHO) reports that there are about 2.6 billion

people that do not have access to safe, clean water or basic

sanitation services. It is estimated by the United Nations that at any given moment half of all hospital beds in the world are

Manuscript received April 5, 2009.

D. A. Cable is a student of the Batten School of Leadership & Public

Policy and the Systems Engineering Department at the University of

Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA (email: dac2t@virginia.edu)

J. H. Seok is a student in Systems and Information Engineering at the

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA (email:

jhs9p@virginia.edu)

R. Alemayehu is a student in Systems and Information Engineering at the

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA (email:

rba7b@virginia.edu)

A. T. Foster is a student in Systems and Information Engineering at the

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA (email:

atf6k@virginia.edu)

occupied by victims of water-borne diseases. Also, in

sub-Saharan Africa, it is predicted that an infant’s chances of

dying from diarrhea are 520 times greater than if that infant was born in the United States [1]. This problem is

particularly troublesome in areas of the Limpopo province of

South Africa. Remote villages that do not have access to

water from a reliable centralized distributor often rely on

local rivers and streams for water if they are lucky enough to

have access. Many development activists believe that

without the means to understand, much less solve the problem

of insufficient or unsafe water and sanitation, these small and

remote villages can greatly benefit from outside intervention.

However, outside development aid in the past has yielded

disappointing results. Inappropriate technologies, systemic

corruption in the allocation of funding, managing population growth, changing migration patterns, and climate change are

some of the factors that contributed to past difficulties. Any

hope for sustainable development and improvements in

human health and welfare in developing communities is

contingent on the resolution of many of these contributing

factors. Given the number and diversity of these confounding

factors involved in crafting systemic solutions to major

development problems, it is necessary to use holistic

approaches in constructing more effective solutions.

Specifically, there have not been enough community-level

investigations into the connections between unsafe water and poor sanitation services to community health. The emphasis

on contextualized investigations within the community is

vital because sustainable improvements in community health

are contingent upon the community’s ownership of the

problem and solution. Therefore, capacity building for

sustained access to safe water and sanitation is of paramount

importance in developing communities.

A new organization at the University of Virginia (U.Va.),

The Center for Water, Health, Education, and Development

(WHEAD), is working closely with the University of Venda

(UNIVEN) in Limpopo, South Africa on a multi-year project

to tackle these issues in rural communities in the region. Bringing together faculty, researchers, and students from a

variety of disciplines ranging from engineering, medicine,

environmental studies, and anthropology, the partnership

hopes to develop a model for appropriate interventions

through building capacity for access to safe water and basic

sanitation services in developing communities. In its first

year of operation, the Limpopo project has focused on two

villages in Limpopo, Tshapasha and Tshibvumo. Other

stakeholders in the project include the villagers themselves,

local governments, water distributors, and others.

The purpose of this particular project is to apply a holistic systems approach that can help with managing WHEAD’s

Using a Systems Approach in Managing and Evaluating Water and

Sanitation Development Projects

Dustin Cable, Julius Seok., Robel Alemayehu, and Alexander Thomas Foster

T

Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Systems and InformationEngineering Design Symposium, University of Virginia,Charlottesville, VA, USA, April 24, 2009

FPM1Env.Eco.4

1-4244-4532-5/©2009 IEEE 147

efforts to build capacity and investigate the linkages between

water, sanitation, and health in these two villages. A cadre of

systems engineering students at U.Va. has been charged with

this task. Using basic systems analysis techniques derived

from Scherer and Gibson [2], the first year of this project

hopes to bring together the diverse interests of the whole Limpopo project around common goals and objectives. The

following paper outlines the findings, successes, and failures

of the systems engineering group in this first year of the

systems engineering student capstone project.

II. RELEVANT LITERATURE

In order to build a solid foundation of background

knowledge, the systems engineering team had to familiarize

themselves with the prevailing literature on a wide range of topics including development issues, non-government

organizations (NGOs), systems thinking, and relevant social

theory. Although an exhaustive taxonomy of these topics

would be impossible, the engineering group found the

following sources particularly useful.

Achieving success in development has always proven to be

quite difficult, and Alan Fowler has written pieces that give

some insight into what makes a certain development project

succeed. Alan Fowler is a development consultant who has

expertise in managerial and organizational issues with NGOs

that give aid. Fowler often examines the difficulties development NGOs face in managing the ever growing set of

actors and problems that NGOs naturally accumulate in

attempting to accomplish their goals [3]. These

organizations, as a result, find it harder and harder to link

goals and tasks with evaluative performance measures and

accomplishments. He offers several alternatives

development NGOs have in managing their organization

including systems-like approaches and describes the merits

and drawbacks of each and the effect these approaches have

on organizational culture and outputs. In the end, he offers a

hybrid type of NGO management in which NGOs must

operate on performance criteria that are continuously negotiated with the multitude of stakeholders in the particular

project.

Also, Fowler investigates the issue of decentralizing

decision-making in development projects [4]. Fowler

explains the potential positives of decentralization and the

corresponding effects this has on organizational culture and

decision making while explaining how an NGO’s overall

goals and objectives can get diluted down the

decision-making chain. Fowler concludes by stressing that

the decision of whether or not to decentralize

decision-making has serious implications for public policy in terms of effectiveness of aid, what systems and partnerships

are needed to mange a decentralized NGO, accountability,

and, in the end, the NGOs legitimacy in policy making.

Therefore, if a systems methodology is adopted in an

organization, the question of whether or not it will lead to a

centralized or decentralized decision-making system will be

an important consideration.

On a related subject, Power et al [5] explore the

interconnection, or lack thereof, between an organization’s

values and goals and the organization’s everyday practice.

The primary focus is on why organizations do not learn from

the “facts on the ground,” and, as a result, do not restructure

their organization to adapt to a developing community’s

changing needs or demands. The issue of whether or not a

systems organizational methodology can overcome the

organizational learning problems outlined in their work becomes central to project effectiveness.

It may now be easier to see how systems engineering

approaches to management fit within the larger picture of

NGOs and development. The standard operating text for

systems engineering students at U.Va. is Scherer and

Gibson’s work on systems analysis [2]. They offer a

straightforward but in-depth overview of systems analysis

and best practices for systems engineers. Scherer and Gibson

combine the ideas of previous authors in operations research

(OR), management science, and systems engineering. They

also include broader discussions into problem formulation

and value analysis. Goal and objective formulation with clients is also a focus especially when it comes to linking

quantifiable metrics to these goals and objectives. Geared

towards students and practitioners alike, their book sets the

foundation for understanding hard systems approaches.

However, a respectable systems engineer must also

appreciate alternative systems thinking beyond this hard

systems paradigm. A great place to start in this line is with C.

West Churchman and what has become to be called “soft”

systems and social systems design [6]. Also, in Jackson’s

Systems Approaches to Management [7], the burgeoning

work on “emancipatory” and “critical” systems approaches is explored. These alternatives have in common a fundamental

departure from the hard, positivists, and instrumentalist

paradigm. They also focus on pluralities and conflicts in the

imperatives of not only systems practitioners and clients but

broader stakeholders as well. In the complexity of

development problems, these approaches may have a place in

managing development projects like the one pursued by

WHEAD and UNIVEN partners.

III. LIMPOPO PROJECT

The Limpopo Project has several long term goals. The

stakeholders in the project plan to work collaboratively to

address the problem of inadequate access to safe water,

sanitation, and poor community health. By the end of the

multi-year endeavor, the project hopes to develop a model to

improve the water conditions and sanitation practices that

have led to the preventable deaths of a large number of people

in Limpopo communities. Several similar projects in

developing communities have failed due to a wide range of

reasons such as inappropriate technologies, systemic corruption, sustainability, and others. In an effort to avoid

these common problems, the Limpopo Project has paid

special attention to involving the community as a vital

stakeholder and has tried to enable community members to

actively participate in designing a solution to the problem. In

doing so, stakeholders from both academic institutions, U.Va.

and UNIVEN, will better understand the causes of the water

problems in the region and in turn find viable and effective

solutions. It is the belief of the participants from both

institutions that, rather than wasting considerable resources

1-4244-4532-5/©2009 IEEE 148

on drastic third-party interventions, it will be better to

develop a system that will enable the community to “build

capacity” to provide sustained access to safe water and

sanitation services. In essence, the Limpopo project wishes to

provide the community with the skills and knowledge to solve

its own problems. Even though this plan may not be the most effective in terms of providing continuous supply of safe

water in the short term, it is commonly understood among

project members that it will lead to a long-term, efficient, and

sustainable outcome. As a result of the local capacity to

provide safe water, it is believed that the health conditions in

the region will improve dramatically.

In accomplishing its goal, the Limpopo project hopes to

witness several positive outcomes from its work. One of the

most important is the establishment of a sense of ownership

of the problem and its solution by each community member.

Ownership and management of the problem and its solution

are critically important, especially for long-term sustainability. Another positive outcome would be the

exchange of knowledge and the foundation for future

collaboration among U.Va., UNIVEN, and Limpopo

communities. The partnership may lead to new projects with

communities not only in Limpopo villages but other

communities that face similar problems. It is also hoped that

the project will strengthen the skill sets and the experiences of

researchers from both academic institutions. In the era of

globalization, it will be crucial to form partnerships like this

to confront some of the most complex global development

problems. The Limpopo project operates in this spirit.

IV. GOALS OF THE SYSTEMS CAPSTONE

One of the toughest challenges for such projects is the

management of all of the interests and tasks of the project.

Successful completion of the project requires, among other

things, efficient allocation and use of resources, effective

communication, clear information as to how the project is

progressing and where it is heading…etc. The success of the

Limpopo project is highly dependent on meting all of these requirements due to several factors: The involvement of two

academic institutions on separate continents and at least five

departments from each institution, major cultural differences,

the large number of stakeholders, and the differences in

availability of resources in the two institutions all make the

project very complex and in need of an effective

management.

The systems capstone team, composed of four systems

engineering students from U.Va. working in collaboration

with the UNIVEN Student Sustainability Club, was assigned

the responsibility to develop an overall plan for the successful management of the entire Limpopo project. WHEAD,

UNIVEN, and the communities will then use this plan as a

guide for the execution of the tasks involved in achieving

their goals in future years of the project.

The capstone team has several objectives through which it

can achieve its goal. First, there must be an efficient strategy

for communication among stakeholders. There needs to be

sufficient transparency and accountability in the project and

communication is essential towards this end. As most of the

correspondence happens remotely, it is important to know

who is doing what and what progress has been made on

certain tasks. Second, there must be detailed, clear, and

documented goals and objectives for the entire Limpopo

project. This will also help increase accountability in the

project as each stakeholder will know the overall

responsibilities of the project and consequently avoid any confusion that may lead to unfavorable outcomes. Third,

detailed goals and objectives must be complimented with an

outline of specific tasks under those goals and objectives.

The capstone team will judge the success of its work against

these general criteria:

1) Adequate participation among all stakeholders in

various project activities

2) Sufficient transparency and accountability for project

activities

3) Efficient division of labor and resources among

stakeholders

V. PROJECT DESIGN AND ALTERNATIVES

The first stage of the design process in achieving the goals

and objectives of the capstone project involves determining

the appropriate systems approach for management. Jackson

(2000) classifies systems approaches into four general

categories, each with their own theoretical and philosophical

foundations. The basic tenets of these four categories

(functionalist, interpretive, emancipatory, and postmodern) are illustrated in Table 1 below:

For example, functionalist approaches are based on more

technical problems, and are known as hard systems

approaches, while interpretive approaches focus on differing

social imperatives, and are typically known as soft system

approaches. There are many unique methods that fall under

these categories (Jackson lists fourteen methodologies that

are classified as functionalist or interpretive alone), but the

differences between methods in the same category are small

compared to the differences between categories. In that sense, the decision between choosing a more functionalist,

interpretive, emancipatory, or postmodern approach is of

TABLE I

JACKSON’S FEATURES OF RESEARCH APPROACHES

Feature Functionalist Inter-

pretive

Eman-

cipatory Postmodern

Basic

Goal

Demonstrate

law-like

relations

among entities

Display

unified

culture

Unmask

domination

Reclaim

conflict

Method Nomothetic

science

Herme-

neutics,

ethno-

graphy

Cultural and

ideological

critique

Decon-

struction

genealogy

Hope

Efficiency,

effectiveness,

survival and

adaptation

Recovery of

integrative

values

Reformation

of social

order

Claim a space

for lost

voices

Problems

Addressed

Inefficiency,

disorder

Meaning-

lessness,

illegitimacy

Domination,

consent

Marginal-

ization,

conflict

suppression

M. Jackson presents this table in [7], pp. 42, to illustrate differences in the four

general categories of systems approaches.

1-4244-4532-5/©2009 IEEE 149

paramount importance. The selection of a specific

methodology in the chosen category is important as well but

typically does not involve fundamental philosophical

endorsements.

Limpopo project managers presumed the use of a particular

systems approach by the way they perceived the problem. An analysis of the perceived difficulties of this project has led

them to define key points of interest as follows:

1) Order: The stakeholders for this project and

geographic distance between them makes a highly organized

atmosphere important to fulfill objectives on time

2) Effectiveness: Previous development efforts have been

disappointing in that a coherent mission and purpose was not

adequately established

3) Sustainability: Any intervention, either social or

technological, will have to be maintained without continued

aid from WHEAD

These points influenced top managers of the Limpopo project to follow a functionalist approach to management.

This is not surprising as the most influential managers of the

project are from engineering and science disciplines. These

disciplinary and institutional biases undoubtedly led to the

Limpopo project hiring the capstone team of system

engineers to help manage the project. Some of the top

managers of the project (who are systems engineers

themselves) went as far as recommending using a specific

functionalist methodology: Scherer and Gibson’s (2007)

method of systems analysis. The capstone team followed this

recommendation in pursuing its own project goals and objectives in the first year of operation. The capstone team

will then measure the success of implementing this

methodology against the team’s criteria.

VI. IMPLEMENTATION AND ACTIONS

Using hard systems engineering and analysis

methodologies, the capstone team set out to achieve its goals

and objectives through various interventions. Keeping in

mind the various criteria in which the capstone team judges success, the team was careful in conducting its work

appropriately. The actions pursued this year were developing

an effective communication system, an objectives tree

document, an organization chart, and a stakeholder tasks

document.

A. Communication System

Communication problems were a leading cause of delay

and confusion for the Limpopo Project. Previously, project

members conveyed ideas through email and conference calls

once a month between UNIVEN and U.Va. However, email

has caused delays due to limited internet access in UNIVEN

along with other problems such as emails getting lost inboxes

amidst the flood of other emails students and faculty receive.

Conference calls are inconvenient because of the time

difference between U.Va. and UNIVEN. In addition, due to

time constraints, meetings were rushed and important topics

where consequently being overlooked. The greatest problem remains in communication between the communities and

tribal members with UNIVEN and U.Va. The Internet cannot

be used as these communities do not have access to

computers, even in most schools. All meaningful

communication between UNIVEN, U.Va., and the villagers

has been done in person.

To address some of these communication problems, several

ideas were implemented. The U.Va. Collab system is

currently used as the main medium for updating all project members at the two academic institutions. Collab is an

internet website where documents and announcements can be

posted, and it also has the option of notifying members

through email of important dates and topics. There are also

other tools incorporated in the website that can assist better

communication such as the “schedule” option, which has a

timeline of events, and the “discussion” option, which allows

team members to communicate important issues related to the

project. Supplementing Collab, email remains an important

means for communication. Other tools used included

Facebook, an Internet social networking site, which helped

with faster communication between student members from both U.Va. and UNIVEN, and Flikr, an online photo album

tool, which allows easy photo uploads. Despite different

communication systems implemented, communication is still

a recurrent problem. Even though Collab and other tools have

expedited and streamlined communication, better systems

can be implemented in the future to minimize delay and

confusion.

B. Objectives Tree

Clearly defined objectives and goals are key components to

a successful project. It is essential that all members of the

Limpopo project know and understand the goals of the

enterprise. An overall objectives tree provides a clear

direction of where the team is going and what the project

intends to accomplish. The Limpopo project aims to build

capacity for improving access to clean water and basic

sanitation services in Tshapasha and Tshibvumo. To

accomplish this main goal, there are many sub objectives that must be met such as assessing the water in the communities

by testing water samples for harmful substances and

assessing community health through collecting high level

health data. These detailed objectives supplement the larger

goal and make it easier to assign specific tasks to that goal.

C. Organization Chart

This project is a multidisciplinary project that gathers

faculty, researchers, students, government personnel, and

community members from a variety of backgrounds

including engineering, medicine, environmental studies,

anthropology, architecture, administration…etc. Due to the

project’s size, members tend to be overwhelmed by the

complexities of connections between other members. Thus,

an organization chart that arranges team members to help

identify their roles is essential.

The organization chart is divided by three main entities:

U.Va., UNIVEN, and the Limpopo Provincial Government. Major contributors to the project are linked to one of the

subcommittees or departments under each main entity. There

are also lines of communication connected between entities

which illustrate how team members from U.Va., UNIVEN,

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local government, and the communities communicate with

each other.

D. Stakeholder Task Document

Each stakeholder has an important role and has tasks that

must be accomplished to ensure the project is executed well.

However, in order for the stakeholder to take responsibility,

the roles and tasks must be clearly defined and assigned.

Therefore, a stakeholder task document is a necessity for

efficient project progress.

The document encompasses three sections: the

stakeholders, the shared tasks, and the specialized tasks. The

stakeholders are the entities including faculty, students, institutions… etc. that have a direct or indirect relation to the

Limpopo project. The shared tasks are duties assigned to

more than one stakeholder. For example, “educating families

on the importance of good hygiene” is a task for UNIVEN

nursing students and faculty, the individual villager members,

the village chiefs, civic councils, and the local schools. These

shared tasks are usually high-level and require collaboration

of all relevant members and span the whole cycle of the

project or even longer. The specialized tasks are usually

specific and allocated to one stakeholder. For example the

U.Va. systems capstone team has additional responsibilities including managing data from census, surveys, GIS, and

maps. This does not, however, require that specialized tasks

be accomplished by one stakeholder individually. Other

stakeholders can be consulted for assistance to accomplish

these tasks. The U.Va. capstone team is encouraged to

consult U.Va. faculty and UNIVEN faculty. However, the

specific stakeholder is responsible for the completion of the

task and any milestones that are delivered through that task.

VII. ANALYSIS OF IMPLEMENTATION

Based on the criteria by which the capstone team measures

success, using the Scherer and Gibson and functionalist

systems approaches to management has yielded mixed

results. After nine months on the project, the systems

capstone has made significant positive contributions towards

managing the greater Limpopo project. However, the

capstone team now has serious reservations on the

applicability of functionalist systems approaches and their

corresponding philosophical paradigms for development

issues. The hierarchical and reductionist nature of hard systems approaches has proven to be useful in increasing the

transparency of the Limpopo project’s operations,

accountability among project participants, and directing

participants toward more efficient use of their particular skills

and knowledge. However, the first criterion of success

involving the adequate participation among all relevant

stakeholders is seriously undermined by the positivist and

instrumentality of hard systems approaches. The following

are some of the capstone team’s findings.

The capstone team’s implementation of a new means of

communication has proved to be a significant improvement

from when the Limpopo project was first organized. By utilizing platforms for communication beyond email and

teleconferencing, the team managed to fundamentally change

the way WHEAD disseminates information about the

Limpopo project. U.Va. Collab has proven to be a useful and

organized means for project participants from U.Va. and

UNIVEN to share ideas and documents. All students and

faculty from both institutions have access to Collab and have

commented on each others’ contributions to the website.

Above all else, however, Collab has provided a centralized means, detached from searching individual email inboxes, to

store important documents and conversations. For example,

the systems capstone team and the UNIVEN Sustainability

Club are now posting and sharing meeting minutes,

photographs, and project documents. The systems capstone

team has disseminated its objectives tree diagram and

stakeholder task document through Collab and has received

feedback on it from U.Va. and UNIVEN participants.

The organizational documents themselves (including the

objectives tree, stakeholder task document, and the

organization chart) have proven to be immensely useful for

the U.Va. managers of the Limpopo project. There is now far less ambiguity among U.Va. participants about the goals,

objectives, and tasks of the Limpopo project from when

WHEAD was first established. The capstone team’s

experiences from the early days of its hiring were often

frustrating as the faculty who participated in the project had

widely different conceptions on what the Limpopo project

was about. Also, being from very different disciplines, the

U.Va. participants often spoke of no common ground from

which to speak to one another. Now, U.Va. stakeholders

have these documents as a foundation for communicating

their ideas and putting them within the context of the larger Limpopo project.

Despite these successes, however, participation in the

design process by all relevant stakeholders is severely

lacking. Community members have almost never been

present in any of the serious management decisions including

the crucial phase of articulating the problem situation and

developing project goals. In line with the functionalist

paradigm, the project has largely consisted of a small group of

“experts,” with particular worldviews, defining the problems

these developing communities are facing, the methodologies

to be used to address the problems, and the language and

means of communication. Community stakeholders are not the only ones subject to these impositions. Participants from

UNIVEN have also been largely absent from the crucial

management decisions made at U.Va. Problems and issues

within the scope of the Limpopo project are usually first

explored by U.Va. stakeholders. Only when there is a

significant degree of consensus on management decisions

among U.Va. participants are UNIVEN stakeholders apprised

of the developments and asked to give feedback. As a result,

a commonly repeated theme among some of the students and

faculty at UNIVEN has been “disempowerment.” Adequate

participation has also been a problem at U.Va where participants are overwhelmingly from engineering, design,

and science backgrounds with the exception of one

anthropologist.

As mentioned previously, these biases have undoubtedly

led toward preferences for using a functionalist systems

approach to management, but using such an approach will

invariably exacerbate the problem of excluding different

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rationalities, disciplines, and ultimately vital stakeholders.

Practitioners of hard systems approaches, like that of Scherer

and Gibson’s systems analysis methodology, usually do not

make it incumbent upon themselves to delve into the

philosophical and sociological assumptions embedded with

their own approaches, and have, as a result, labeled their activities as “scientific” and “objective” [7]. Due to these

positivist and functionalist underpinnings, systems are seen

as “machines,” composed of different parts and functions that

together define the purpose of the whole system. The

reasoning of hard systems practitioners is centered on

designing the most efficient or cost-effective means towards

that purpose.

Practitioners of hard systems approaches often commit

serious errors by not acknowledging the social theoretical

assumptions that their methodologies embody. They often

must force closure on forming coherent system goals,

objectives, and alternatives in situations where there is a

plurality of different imperatives and marginalized groups.

This often implies the unintended domination of the

practitioner’s or client’s worldviews upon subjugated

stakeholders. It is perhaps easier for the hard systems

practitioner to do this as the people and social organizations

that are a part of the system under study are reduced to

functional components of the “machine.” By not

understanding or refusing to acknowledge these tendencies,

hard systems practitioners may apply their methodologies too

broadly in contexts where they may not belong. The systems

capstone team considers development projects like the one pursued by WHEAD to be one of those contexts.

Of course, this is not to say that hard systems

methodologies do not have a place in development projects.

They certainly do. However, a responsible manager and

systems practitioner must confine the positivist and

functionalist predispositions of these approaches to more

technical problems. If WHEAD was planning to build a

water treatment or distribution system, functionalist systems

approaches would indeed prove to be invaluable. However,

problem definition and goal development in these contexts

are not technical management problems, but must involve the

direct participation of relevant stakeholders with different, and often competing, worldviews through the course of the

project. It is realized that developing an effective

communication system is central towards this end. However,

a communication systems governed by a hard systems

management regime will not solve the problem but make it

worse. Alternative systems approaches and methods, such as

social systems design, Interactive Management (IM), or

Community OR should be further explored in these contexts.

It is vital that these considerations be taken seriously while

WHEAD is in its first year of operation and while its

management style is still flexible enough for significant reforms.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The Limpopo project hopes to use a systems approach to

management that not only helps improve the water problems

in Limpopo, South Africa, but also constructs a model that

can be applied to other countries and contexts that struggle

with similar problems. In order to tackle this problem, a

holistic approach is critical in the initial phase to outline the

objectives and goals and coordinate stakeholders and their

specific tasks. However, the systems engineering capstone

team’s efforts to form appropriate goals and objectives for the

Limpopo project proved to be daunting. This was often a result of the limitations of communication, but also was

fundamentally due to the positivist and functionalist

predispositions of hard systems approaches. Especially for

this specific project where a variety of rationalities,

disciplines, and stakeholders must work together, Scherer and

Gibson’s methodology proved to be inadequate by itself.

Despite these shortcomings, the capstone team did make

positive contributions in creating a foundation for better

communication and providing WHEAD and the larger

Limpopo project with a better understanding of the

complexities of the problem of development in Tshapasha

and Tshibvumo. The capstone team, however, still believes in the value of

systems thinking in managing the Limpopo project. The

organizational documents created by the systems capstone

team thus far are currently useful but must be properly

negotiated with all relevant stakeholders. As to which

particular systems approach should be used to manage this

project, it will be the task of next year’s and subsequent

capstone teams to investigate deeper. Other systems

approaches should be investigated and considered in

conjunction with that of Scherer and Gibson’s and other hard

approaches. And, with these more holistic approaches of management, WHEAD and UNIVEN can be better poised to

confront the challenges they face and accomplish their goals

for improving the welfare of these developing communities.

REFERENCES

[1] Water for life: making it happen. Geneva, Switzerland:

World Health Organization, Unicef, 2005.

[2] W. Scherer and J. Gibson, How to Do Systems Analysis.

Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2007. [3] Alan Fowler, “NGO Performance: Problems and

Possibilities,” Development in Practice, vol. 6, no. 1, pp.

58-65, Feb. 1996.

[4] Alan Fowler, “Decentralisation for International NGOs,”

Development in Practice, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 121-124, June

1992.

[5] G. Power, M. Maury, and S.Maury, “Operationalising

Bottom-Up Learning in International NGOs: Barriers

and Alternatives,” Development in Practice, vol. 12, no.

3, pp. 272-284, Aug. 2002.

[6] C. W. Churchman, The Systems Approach and Its

Enemies. Basic Books, 1979.

[7] M. C. Jackson, Systems Approaches to Management.

New York: Springer, 2000.

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