‘What is a rich picture?’ animated tutorial

This tutorial contains drawings, text and connecting lines. In this description the term “label” refers to text in the diagram, and the term “phrase” refers to text in the audio description or transcript. 

Page	Transcript	Description	
Page 1	Peter Checkland introduced rich pictures for use in the early stages of his Soft Systems Methodology.	A drawing of a pin man appears, wearing glasses and a green top with “SSM” written in red writing. He is holding a piece of paper with the title “SSM”, and the numbered points “1.rich pic 2. blah 3.blah”. He is saying “Here you are…”.
The drawing shrinks and moves to the left side of the page.	
Page 2	They are possibly the most important, and probably the least popular, of the systems diagram types.	A drawing of a framed painting with a prize rosette containing the label “rich picture” appears. It shrinks and moves to the top of the page.
A small group of pin men with their arms raised appear in the bottom right, looking towards the rest of the page. They are saying “oh no, anything but rich pictures!”.	
Page 3	They address the state of unknowing that a group or individual is in at the beginning of an exploration or inquiry.	From the painting frame two arrows and two more drawings of pin men appear. One arrow is labelled “helps with” and points to a pin man who is looking confused and has question marks around his head. He is saying “where to start?”
The other arrow points to another small group of four pin men in the lower part of the page, who are looking up and also have question marks around their heads.	
Page 4	They’re a vehicle for moving from this state of messy confusion, where all you know is that you’re dealing with a problematic situation, to a state where you’ve identified one or more themes that – as a group or individual – you want to address.

In the Soft Systems Methodology, these themes are then refined and defined as systems of interest for further exploration in various ways.	A table with blank pieces of paper appears in front of the group of confused pin men, blue pens appear in their hands and they write and draw on the pieces of paper. 
At the phrase “to a state where you’ve identified” the question marks around their heads turn into exclamation marks. A piece of a paper with the heading “Themes” and numbered points (illegible) and an arrow pointing from the pin men to this paper appear.
At the phrase “In the Soft Systems Methodology”, another arrow appears pointing from the ‘Themes” piece of paper to Peter Checkland’s piece of paper.	
Page 5	To work with rich pictures you need to have lots of big sheets of plain paper…

And lots of big coloured pens.	From the painting frame two arrows appear, labelled “needs”. The arrows point towards drawings of a stack of blank white paper and some coloured pens.	
Page 6	Then you simply draw what you see happening in the situation.

You don’t have to be good at drawing – ‘pin’ men will do.	From the table in front of the group of pin men, one of the pieces of paper with a drawing on grows in size. The drawing on this piece of paper is of an adult pin man wearing a blindfold and being followed by children pin men. He is walking towards the edge of a cliff by the sea. There are seagulls drawn around them.	
Page 7	But you do need to show all that you perceive as problematic or significant – emotions and relationships as well as groupings and connections of various sorts.	The previous picture from the paper shrinks and is replaced by another piece of paper from the table. This shows a similar image, but with two of the children pin men away from the other group with love hearts over their heads. The adult pin man is saying “help”.	
Page 8	A rich picture can cope with any sort of chaos. It happily receives whatever chaotic mess of thoughts and perceptions pours down your arm from your brain, out of the pen in your hand and onto the page.	The previous picture from the paper shrinks. The table and one of the pin men who was drawing grow in size. A smaller drawing of another pin man and three love hearts are shown inside the larger pin man’s head. These then move from the head down the arm through the blue pen and onto the paper on the table. Another drawing of a pin man with a blind fold appears in the head and moves in the same way.
The two pin men drawings are close together on the piece of paper, with love hearts near them.	
Page 9	For many students, the value of rich pictures is only revealed once they start using them in a group.

One of the difficulties of thinking and learning about a messy situation is that different people in the situation have different perceptions of and assumptions about what is going on.

Looking at each other’s pictures is an effective way of revealing these differences because they express things you wouldn’t think of saying.	The large pin man and the table shrink back to their original size. 
The exclamation marks around the heads of the group of drawing pin men turn into hair. Different rich picture drawings on the table move position so that they are in front of the group of pin men. The pin men have different reactions to the drawings, sometimes with one pin man looking shocked and the others happy, and sometimes with all pin men looking shocked and only one happy.	
Page 10	And sometimes they allow you to say in a simple and unthreatening way things it might have seemed rude or frivolous to articulate.	Three of the pin men are smiling and talking. The other pin man is happy. 	
Page 11	Standing back to look at your own rich picture – and perhaps discussing it with others - can help you to see things you might otherwise have missed: connections, traps, possibilities, contradictions, and so on.	All four pin men are smiling and talking, and then stop leaving one pin man smiling and talking, and the others smiling.	
Page 12	It can be hard to face other people’s often surprisingly different assumptions, because this makes us question our own assumptions, which can be demanding and unsettling. It can mean throwing away the solutions we thought we had, going back to the beginning and starting afresh.

But that’s often exactly what is needed at the start of a systemic inquiry…	The smiling and talking pin man looks at the table with a happy face.
At the phrase “It can mean throwing away”, the pin man picks up the rich picture drawing in front of him and throws in an a bin that appears to the side of the table. He has exclamation marks around his head again.
At the phrase “starting afresh” the pin man with exclamation marks goes back to having normal hair and looking at the table with a happy face. Another pin man has question marks around his head again.	
Page 13	One of the reasons people find rich pictures difficult is that they try to convert ideas they’ve already verbalised into visual symbols.

But the benefit of rich pictures is in revealing thoughts you haven’t already had, and in saying things you haven’t already said.

Jake Chapman, who uses rich pictures with groups of highly articulate public policy makers, suggests the following trick to get around this problem:

Before asking the group to start drawing, he gets them to write down – in words – everything they already think about the situation. The things they always say about it. The things they’ve already articulated. These thoughts are valuable, but the desire to express them can get in the way of doing the simpler thing: just drawing what you ‘see’ happening in the situation.	A pin man looking sad appears, looking towards the framed painting. He is holding a page of text and is saying “how can I draw this?”.	
Page 14	In order to learn something new, you have to go through a state of unknowing. You have to accept that there are things you don’t already know.

So you might say that there’s something brave and heroic about using rich pictures. Going into unknown territory – into the dark.	At the phrase “something brave and heroic…”, a pin man appears holding a bag and is animated, walking away from the viewer through a dark opening.