In a world of high technology, it is paramount to gain a thorough understanding of the factors and forces that shape and stimulate innovation. Herein, innovation is characterized as a process of organizational intervention where rationality is valued more for its process than for its results. An interactive dialectical process of learning leads to innovative solutions through the reconceptualization of models and of organizational logics. The roles of metamodeling and of metaknowledge in innovation are also outlined.

Systems analysis is not only interdisciplinary. It is purposeful complex action in a complex milieu of science and administration. Analysts enter the profession from very disparate fields, indeed more often from the scientific than from the administrative side. Whatever the origin, there are limitations in the practice and the perspective of everyone. One result of the paper is a taxonomy for distinctions in systems analysis methodology. It classifies systems analysis projects as well as parts of such and even longer series of such production. A further result is a description and a comparison of a few more or less special theories of the field, by this taxonomy.

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