General Morphological Analysis

INTRODUCTION

General Morphological analysis was developed by Fritz Zwicky - the Swiss-American astrophysicist and aerospace scientist based at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) - as a method for structuring and investigating the total set of relationships contained in multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable, problem complexes (Zwicky 1966, 1969).

Zwicky applied this method to such diverse fields as the classification of astrophysical objects, the development of jet and rocket propulsion systems, and the legal aspects of space travel and colonization. He founded the Society for Morphological Research and enthusiastically advanced the "morphological approach" for some 40 years - between the early 1930's until his death in 1974 (Greenstein & Wilson, 1974).

More recently, morphological analysis has been applied by a number of researchers in the USA and Europe in the field of policy analysis and futures studies (Rhyne 1981, 1995a, 1995b; Coyle 1994, 1995, 1996). In 1995, advanced computer support for MA was developed at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. This has made it possible to create non-quantified inference models, which significantly extends MA's functionality and areas of application (Ritchey 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2006a, 2006b). Since then, some 80 projects have been carried out using computer aided morphological analysis, for structuring complex policy and planning issues, developing scenario and strategy laboratories, and analyzing organizational and stakeholder structures (see Wicked Problems).

This article will begin with a discussion of some of the methodological problems confronting complex, non-quantified modeling, especially as applied to policy analysis and futures studies, including technological forecasting. This is followed by a presentation of the fundamentals of the morphological approach along with a recent application to policy analysis.

METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

Analyzing complex policy fields and developing futures scenarios presents us with a number of difficult methodological problems. Firstly, many, if not all of the factors involved are non-quantifiable, since they contain strong social-political dimensions and conscious self-reference among actors. This means that traditional quantitative methods, causal modeling and simulation are relatively useless.

Secondly, the uncertainties inherent in such problem complexes are in principle non-reducible, and often cannot be fully described or delineated. This represents even a greater blow to the idea of causal modeling and simulation.

Finally, the actual process by which conclusions are drawn in such studies is often difficult to trace - i.e. we seldom have an adequate "audit trail" describing the process of getting from initial problem formulation to specific solutions or conclusions. Without some form of traceability we have little possibility of scientific control over results, let alone reproducibility.

An alternative to formal (mathematical) methods and causal modeling is a form of non-quantified modeling relying on judgemental processes and internal consistency, rather than causality. Causal modeling, when applicable, can - and should - be used as an aid to judgment. However, at a certain level of complexity (e.g. at the social, political and cognitive level), judgment must often be used -- and worked with -- more or less directly. The question is: How can judgemental processes be put on a sound methodological basis?

Historically, scientific knowledge develops through cycles of analysis and synthesis: every synthesis is built upon the results of a proceeding analysis, and every analysis requires a subsequent synthesis in order to verify and correct its results (see Ritchey, 1991). However, analysis and synthesis - as basic scientific methods - say nothing about a problem having to be quantifiable.

Complex social-political problem fields can be analyzed into any number of non-quantified variables and ranges of conditions. Similarly, sets of non-quantified conditions can be synthesized into well-defined relationships or configurations, which represent "solution spaces". In this context, there is no fundamental difference between quantified and non-quantified modeling.

Morphological analysis - extended by the technique of cross consistency assessment (CCA) - is a method for rigorously structuring and investigating the internal properties of inherently non-quantifiable problem complexes, which contain any number of disparate parameters. It encourages the investigation of boundary conditions and it virtually compels practitioners to examine numbers of contrasting configurations and policy solutions. Finally, although judgmental processes may never be fully traceable in the way, for example, a mathematician formally derives a proof, MA does go a long way in providing as good an audit trail as one can hope for.

THE MORPHOLOGICAL APPROACH

The term morphology comes from classical Greek (morphe) and means the study of shape or form. It is concerned with structure and arrangement of parts of an object, and how these "conform" to create a whole or Gestalt. The "objects" in question can be physical objects (e.g. an organism, an anatomy or an ecology) or mental objects (e.g. linguistic forms, concepts or systems of ideas).

The first to use the term morphology as an explicitly defined scientific method was J.W. von Goethe (1749-1832), especially as concerned his "comparative morphology" in botany. Today, morphology is associated with a number of scientific disciplines in which formal structure, and not necessarily quantity, is a central issue. In linguistics, it is the study of word formation. In biology, it deals with the form and structure of organisms, and in geology with the characteristics, configuration and evolution of rocks and land forms.

Fritz Zwicky proposed a generalized form of morphological research:

Essentially, general morphological analysis (MA) is a method for identifying and investigating the total set of possible relationships or "configurations" contained in a given problem complex. Typology construction (Bailey 1994, Doty & Glick 1994) is a special case of morphological analysis. MA, however, is more generalized in form and conceptual range.

In his main work on the subject, Discovery, Invention, Research through the Morphological Approach (Zwicky, 1966), Zwicky summarizes the five (iterative) steps of the process:

"First step. The problem to be solved must be very concisely formulated.

Second step. All of the parameters that might be of importance for the solution of the given problem must be localized and analyzed.

Third step. The morphological box or multidimensional matrix, which contains all of the potential solutions of the given problem, is constructed.

Fourth step. All the solutions contained in the morphological box are closely scrutinized and evaluated with respect to the purposes that are to be achieved.

Fifth step.The optimally suitable solutions are ... selected and are practically applied, provided the necessary means are available. This reduction to practice requires in general a supplemental morphological study." (My emphasis)

The approach begins by identifying and defining the dimensions (or parameters) of the problem complex to be investigated, and assigning each of these a range of relevant "values" or conditions. A morphological box - also fittingly known as a "Zwicky box" - is constructed by setting the parameters against each other in an n-dimensional parameter space (see Figure 1, below). Each cell of the parameter space contains one particular value or condition from each of the parameters, and thus marks out a particular state or configuration of the problem complex.

For example, imagine a simple problem complex, which we define as consisting of three dimensions - let us say "color", "shape" and "size". In order to conform to Figure 1, let us further define the first two dimensions as consisting of 5 discrete "values" or conditions each (e.g. color = red, green, blue, yellow, brown) and the third consisting of 3 values (size = large, medium, small). We then have 5 x 5 x 3 ( =75) cells in the Zwicky box, each containing 3 conditions - i.e. one from each dimension (e.g. blue, round, small). The entire 3-dimensional matrix is, in Zwicky's terms, a morphological field containing all of the (formally) possible relationships involved. Zwicky called this "complete, systematic field coverage".

The point is, to examine all of the configurations in the field, in order to establish which of them are possible, viable, practical, interesting, etc., and which are not. In doing this, we mark out in the field what might be called a "solution space. The "solution space" of a Zwickian morphological field consists of the subset of configurations, which satisfy some criteria.

Of course, the matrixing of parameters, in order to uncover the multiplicity of relationships associated with a problem complex, is nothing new. The virtually universal use of "four-fold tables", and the study of typology construction as a form of theory generation, attests to this fact (Bailey, 1994, Doty & Glick, 1994). However, Zwicky's highly systematic approach to this field — and his use of far more parameters than is practical in traditional typology construction — should not be underestimated. The method seeks both to be integrative and to explore the boundary conditions of complex problems. Used properly, and on the right types of problem complexes, the method is deceptively complex and rich.

The morphological approach has several advantages over less structured approaches. Zwicky calls MA "totality research" which, in an "unbiased way attempts to derive all the solutions of any given problem". It may help us to discover new relationships or configurations, which may not be so evident, or which we might have overlooked by other - less structured - methods. Importantly, it encourages the identification and investigation of boundary conditions, i.e. the limits and extremes of different contexts and factors.

It also has definite advantages for scientific communication and - notably - for group work. As a process, the method demands that parameters, conditions and the issues underlying these be clearly defined. Poorly defined concepts become immediately (and embarrassingly) evident when they are cross-referenced and assessed for internal consistency (see below).

One apprehension that has been voiced against MA is that it is too structured - too much German Grundligheit - and that this risks inhibiting free, creative thinking. Zwicky would turn in his grave! For him, the whole point of morphological analysis is to get us "out of the box", to push consciousness to the limits of the conceivable and to facilitate discovery, not to obstruct it. Properly applied, general morphological analysis offers an excellent balance between freedom and (necessary) constraints.

Two simple examples of morphological analysis may suffice to illustrate the principles of the method. The first of these is an example which Zwicky himself presents in his cited book. As a preparatory step in the investigation of new propulsive systems, Zwicky matrixed a list of "energy forms" against itself in order to examine every possible form of energy conversion. Suppose we wanted to investigate such conversions in three steps instead of two (in this example I have shortened the list of "energy forms" to five.)

This particular matrix involves 5 x 5 x 5 (= 125) possible configurations, each of which can be examined from the point of view of possibility, practicality, effectiveness, applications, or whatever criteria are relevant for the problem at hand. (Note that this matrix is simply a transformation of the 3-dimensional Zwicky box in Figure 1. The marked configuration K->E->C, for instance, represents a single cell in the box.)

For example, K->E->C can represent hydroelectric generation which is then stored in a battery. C->T->K could represent an internal combustion engine (chemical energy transformed into thermal energy) leading to energy being stored in a flywheel. E->C->T represents a common refrigerator.

Even this simple example is surprisingly complex. Zwicky examined single conversions for 10 different "energy forms" in a 2-dimensional matrix. Try it - and you will be surprised about how much you learn about energy.

A second example is drawn from work that my organization - the Swedish National Defence Research Agency (FOI) - has done concerning the future of the Swedish bomb shelter program. During the Cold War period, Sweden invested large sums of money annually in the planning, building and maintenance of these shelters. With the end of the cold war, the shelter program - its form, usefulness and expense - came under greater scrutiny. This problem, which has aspects of both policy analysis and a futures study, is eminently suited for morphological analysis.

The first problem was to identify and properly define the dimensions of the problem - that is to say, the relevant issues involved. These include technical, financial, political and ethical issues. One of the advantages of MA is that there are no formal constraints to mixing and comparing such different types of issues. On the contrary, if we are really to get to the bottom of the policy problem, we must treat all relevant issues together.

Secondly, for each issue (parameter), a spectrum of "values" must be defined. These values represent the possible, relevant conditions that each issue can assume. For instance, if one of the relevant issues is shelter size, then we can - with the proper expert group present or consulting from a distance - determine all possible size differentiations. (In the somewhat simplified example below, we distinguish only between "small" and "large". Note that this column in fact consists of a four-fold table, where we have combined two binary relationships - size and degree of cramming - into a single parameter.) A portion of one of the policy spaces that were developed for this study is presented in Figure 3, below. It has been reduced from its original ten parameters to six.

This segment of the shelter matrix contains 2304 possible configurations, one of which is shown in the figure. (The number of possible configurations is the product of the number of conditions under each parameter: 4x4x4x3x3x4). It is fairly easy - by hand - to identify and mark out a few dozen realistic policy configurations. Examining all possible configurations, however, would take a good deal more time and effort. Furthermore, the original 10-dimensional shelter matrix contained more than 300,000 possible configurations - far too many to deal with by hand.

ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF COMPLEX POLICY SPACES

The next step in the analysis-synthesis process is to reduce the total set of (formally) possible configurations in a morphological field to a smaller set of internally consistent configurations representing a "solution space". This is what Zwicky called his principle of contradiction and reduction. As a procedure, I will refer to this as the process of "cross-consistency assessment" (CCA).

CCA is based upon the insight that there may be numerous pairs of conditions in the morphological field, which are mutually inconsistent or contradictory. For instance, in the Shelter Program matrix (Figure 3), the condition "All (citizens) take the same risk" is incompatible with that of "No geographical priority" - if it is assumed that an adversary would, indeed, make geographical priorities by concentrating on bombing larger cities. Similarly, the shelter philosophy of "All get same shelter quality" is not consistent with any form of geographical priority.

Thus not all combinations of conditions are consistent or compatible. To the extent that a particular pair of conditions is a blatant contradiction, then all those configurations containing this pair of conditions would also be internally inconsistent.

To make a cross-consistency assessment, all of the parameter values (conditions) in the morphological field are compared with one another, pair-wise, in the manner of a cross-impact matrix (see Figure 4, below). As each pair of conditions is examined, a judgment is made as to whether - or to what extent - the pair can coexist, i.e. represent a consistent relationship. Note that there is no reference here to causality, but only to consistency.

There are three types of inconsistencies involved here: purely logical contradictions (i.e. those based on the nature of the concepts involved); empirical constraints (i.e. relationships judged be highly improbable or implausible on empirical grounds), and normative constraints (e.g. relationships ruled out on e.g. ethical or political grounds).

Note, that it is extremely important not to allow normative judgments to initially influence the cross-consistency assessment. For this reason, we only allow logical and empirical judgments to be made initially. Although normative judgments must be made eventually, they must never be confused with logical and empirical considerations. We must first discover what we judge as possible, before we make judgments about what is desirable.

This technique, of using pair-wise consistency relationships between conditions to weed out internally inconsistent configurations, is made possible by a principle of dimensionally inherent in the morphological approach. While the number of configurations in a morphological field grows exponentially with each new parameter, the number of pair-wise relationships between conditions grows only as a quadratic polynomial -- or, more specifically, proportional to the triangular number series. Naturally, there are practical limits reached even with quadratic growth. The point, however, is that a morphological field involving as many as 100,000 formal configurations requires no more than a few hundred pair-wise evaluations in order to create a solution space.

In most of the fields that we have worked with it is usually the case that 90% or more of the configurations are "relaxed", i.e. they fall out of the running because they contain some sort of internal contradiction. (Long-term "future scenario"-fields are an exception, because empirical constrains are more difficult to establish.)

This allows one to concentrate on a manageable number of internally consistent configurations. These can then be examined as elements of scenarios or strategies in a complex policy space. For this purpose, FOI has developed a Windows-based software package which supports the entire analysis-synthesis process which General Morphology entails. The program is called MA/Casper: Computer Aided Scenario and Problem Evaluation Routine. With computer support, morphological fields can be treated as dynamic inference models, where initial conditions can be defined, drivers designated and alternative solutions examined.

CONCLUSIONS

Morphological analysis, including the process of "cross-consistency assessment", is based on the fundamental scientific method of alternating between analysis and synthesis. For this reason, it can be trusted as a useful, non-quantified method for investigating problem complexes, which cannot be treated by formal mathematical methods, causal modeling and simulation.

Furthermore, both the morphological field itself, and the assessments put into the cross-consistency matrix, represent a fairly clear "audit trail", which makes the judgemental processes inherent in MA relatively traceable, and - in a certain sense - even reproducible. We have run trials in which identical morphological fields were presented to different groups for cross-consistency assessment. Comparing the results, and bringing the groups together to discuss diverging assessments, helps us to better understand the nature of the policy issues involved, and also tell us something about the effects of group composition on the assessments.

Of course, as is the case with everything else, the output of a morphological analysis is no better than the quality of its input. However, even here the morphological approach has some advantages. It expressly provides for a good deal of in-built "garbage detection", since unclear parameter definitions and incomplete ranges of conditions are immediately revealed when one begins the task of cross-consistency assessment. These assessments simply cannot be made until the morphological field is well defined and the working group is in agreement about what these definitions mean. This type of garbage detection is something that policy analyses and futures studies certainly need more of.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Bailey, K.(1994) Typologies and Taxonomies - An Introduction to Classification Techniques, Sage University Papers: Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks.
Coyle, R. G., Crawshay, R. and Sutton, L.(1994) "Futures Assessments by Field Anomaly Relaxation", Futures 26(1), 25-43.
Coyle, R. G., McGlone, G. R.(1995) "Projection Scenarios for South-east Asia and the South-west Pacific", Futures 27(1), 65-79.
Coyle, R.G. and Yong, Y. C.(1996) "A Scenario Projection for the South China Sea". Futures 28 (3), 269-283.
Doty, D. H. & Glick, W. (1994) "Typologies as a Unique Form of Theory Building", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 19, No.2.
Greenstein J. & Wilson A.(1974) "Remembering Zwicky". Engineering and Science 37:15-19 . [Download, PDF] Thanks to the Swiss Fritz Zwicky Foundation.
Rhyne, R. (1981) "Whole-Pattern Futures Projection, Using Field Anomaly Relaxation". Technological Forecasting and Social Change 19, 331-360.
Rhyne, R.( 1995a) "Field Anomaly Relaxation - The Arts of Usage".Futures 27 (6), 657-674.
Rhyne, R. (1995b) Evaluating Alternative Indonesian Sea-Sovereignty Systems. Informs: Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

Ritchey, T. (1991) "Analysis and Synthesis - On Scientific Method based on a Study by Bernhard Riemann". Systems Research 8(4), 21-41. [Download reprint, PDF].
Ritchey, T. (1997) "Scenario Development and Risk Management using Morphological Field Analysis". Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Information Systems (Cork: Cork Publishing Company) Vol. 3:1053-1059.
Ritchey, T. (1998) "Fritz Zwicky, 'Morphologie' and Policy Analysis", Presented at the 16th Euro Conference on Operational Analysis, Brussels .
Ritchey, T. (2002) "Modeling Complex Socio-Technical Systems using Morphological Analysis", Adapted from an address to the Swedish Parliamentary IT Commission, Stockholm, December 2002. [Download PDF].
Ritchey, T. (2003) "Nuclear Facilities and Sabotage: Using Morphological Analysis as a Scenario and Strategy Development Laboratory". Adapted from a Study for the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, and presented to the 44th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management - Phoenix, Arizona, July 2003. [Download PDF].
Ritchey, T. (2004) "Strategic Decision Support using Computerised Morphological Analysis", Presented at the 9th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, Copenhagen, September 2004. [Download PDF].
Ritchey, T. (2005a) "Wicked Problems: Structuring Social Messes with Morphological Analysis". (Adapted from a lecture given at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, 2004.) [ [Download in PDF]
Ritchey, T. (2005b) "Futures Studies using Morphological Analysis". Adapted from an article for the UN University Millennium Project: Futures Research Methodology Series. [Download PDF].
Ritchey, T. (2006a) "Problem Structuring using Computer-Aided Morphological Analysis". Journal of the Operational Research Society, Special Issue on Problem Structuring Methods, (2006) 57, 792-801. Available for download in PDF for JORS subscribers at: [http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v57/n7/abs/2602177a.html].
Ritchey, T. (2006b) "Modeling Multi-Hazard Disaster Reduction Strategies with Computer-Aided Morphological Analysis". Reprint from the Proceedings of the 3rd International ISCRAM Conference, Newark, NJ, May 2006. [Download PDF]
Ritchey, T, Stenström, M. & Eriksson, H. (2002) "Using Morphological Analysis to Evaluate Preparedness for Accidents Involving Hazardous Materials", Proceedings of the 4th LACDE Conference, Shanghai, 2002. [ [Download in PDF]
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Zwicky, F. & Wilson A. (eds.), New Methods of Thought and Procedure: Contributions to the Symposium on Methodologies. Berlin: Springer (1967).

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