Multimethodology refers to the practice of combining different systems methodologies, models, and methods within a single intervention to address complex real-world situations. It emerged as a response to the growing recognition that no single systems approach is sufficient to fully understand and improve multifaceted problems.
Why Use Multimethodology?
The main reason for using multimethodology is to effectively:
- Address Multi-dimensionality: Complex problematic situations, often described as “messes” or “wicked problems,” exhibit multiple interconnected dimensions, such as technical, social, political, environmental, and personal beliefs. These aspects are too intricate to be fully addressed by a single perspective or methodology.
- Overcome Limitations: Every methodology has its own strengths and weaknesses, focusing attention on certain issues while ignoring others. Multimethodology aims to combine the strengths of various approaches to enhance their overall effectiveness and address individual shortcomings. This empowerment allows practitioners to feel more confident in their problem-solving capabilities.
- Promote Comprehensive Improvement: It aims to drive multifaceted improvement, considering aspects like efficiency, effectiveness, viability, mutual understanding, empowerment, and emancipation, which may be prioritized by different methodological traditions.
- Facilitate Learning and Adaptability: Multimethodology supports continuous learning and adaptation throughout an intervention, recognizing that problem situations evolve and require flexibility in approach. This adaptability enables practitioners to respond effectively to changing priorities, making them feel more flexible and responsive.
Challenges of Multimethodology
Although multimethodology offers several advantages, it also encounters various challenges.
- Complexity for Practitioners: The sheer variety of methodologies and methods can be overwhelming for practitioners who haven’t had extensive training.
- Risk of “Pragmatism”: Without firm theoretical grounding, simply “mixing and matching” methods (“pragmatic pluralism”) can lead to unreflective practice, where methods are used in service of an implicit, limited worldview, losing the benefits of true paradigm diversity.
- Serial vs. Parallel Use: Some approaches adopt a “serial” application (different methodologies for different stages), which can limit flexibility and the ability to respond to changing priorities, as opposed to “parallel” usage where multiple perspectives are maintained throughout.
Overall, multimethodology represents a sophisticated evolution in applied systems thinking, acknowledging the inherent complexity of real-world problems and striving for more comprehensive, adaptable, and ethically informed interventions through the judicious combination of diverse theoretical and practical tools.