How to check correctness of total interpretive structural models?

Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) has been further interpreted in the form of total interpretive structural modelling (TISM). These are graphical models that represent the hierarchical relationships and help in better and precise conceptualization and theory building. ISM only interprets the nodes in a digraph, but TISM interprets both nodes and links. The errors observed in applications of ISM and TISM reported in past have acted as motivation for this paper to provide checks and guidelines for correctness of total interpretive structural models. The paper first gives an overview of past applications of TISM. The process of TISM is first outlined and then the guidelines and thumb rules are provided to check the correctness of TISM at each step. Some typical errors in TISM models and their modifications are discussed to help future modellers to translate their ill-structured mental models into sound theoretical models. A discussion on usefulness of TISM for big data analytics for theory building is provided and future directions of research are outlined.