Rich pictures originated in the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) [4, 3, 18]. SSM, in turn, had its origins in sociotechnical approaches to system design [15]. Within this tradition, identifying multiple viewpoints of a work situation is a recurrent problem. SSM was developed during the 1960s and 1970s by Peter Checkland and his students at Lancaster University. At the core of SSM is a desire to understand human activity systems in a way that is meaningful to the actors in that system. SSM consists of seven main stages that proceed from articulating the problem situation, through building alternative systems models, to making recommendations for action. Checkland proposes the rich picture as a representation to be used at the beginning of this process.