Thinking Tracks for Multidisciplinary System Design

Abstract

Systems engineering is, for a large part, a process description of how to bring new systems to existence. It is valuable as it directs the development effort. Tools exist that can be used in this process. System analysis investigates existing and/or desired situations. However, how to create a system that instantiates the desired situation depends significantly on human creativity and insight; the required human trait here is commonly called systems thinking. In literature, this trait is regularly used, but information on how to do systems thinking is scarce. Therefore, we have introduced earlier twelve thinking tracks that are concrete and help system designers to make an optimal fit between the system under design, the identified issue, the user, the environment and the rest of the world. The paper provides the scientific rationale for the thinking tracks based on literature. Secondly, the paper presents three cases of application, leading to the conclusion that the tracks are usable and effective.

Maturity Models for Systems Thinking

“…However, when applied to systems thinking, an immediate problem presents itself: what is systems thinking actually? A ubiquitous term [21], in the past 50 years many scholars have posited many definitions, e.g., [22][23][24][25]. Additionally, a sizable popular literature has emerged to teach people what it is and how to do it [26].…”

“…Such purposes arise from the ways members organize meanings [25]. A system's behaviour expresses explicitly espoused purposes [34] and also tacit purposes which may be unrecognized by members themselves [35,36].…”

“…Working effectively with these requires, for example, that one consider both a system's parts [25,38] and its nature as a coherent whole [24,36,39], akin to working with both "figure and ground", as described by Gestalt principles of perception [40].…”

“…Thus, systems thinkers must orient themselves toward the difficult work of eliciting communication about mental models, 4 translating people's tacit perceptions into discussable language [31,73]. While doing this, they must also refrain from imposing their own judgments on the models of others [25]-striving for a "rigorous approach to the subjective" [24] (p. A43).…”

Collective understanding of system behavior : incorporating simulations in conceptual systems design

“…An example of this are the dynamic and operational thinking tracks proposed in [Bonnema, 2012]. To concretize these lines of thinking, various 3.2 Behavioral Analysis in Conceptual System Design | 43 design questions can be envisaged using the WHWWW question generator [Muller, 2004] [Boardman and Sauser, 2008].…”