I was delighted to be invited to write a review of Peter B. Checkland's Systems Thinking Systems Practice – A 30 years Retrospective. As someone who has spent a significant amount of their career immersed in soft systems this was a welcome opportunity to retrace my steps by rereading one of the most significant Systems texts published in the past 35 years. I base my review of the text on my experience as a post-graduate and PhD student of Checkland's, a practitioner and an academic.