RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Collaborative Systems Thinking:The role of culture and process in supporting higher level systems thinking
Caroline Twomey Lamb, Doctoral Research Assistant
October 16, 2007
Committee: D. Nightingale (Chair), D. Rhodes, and A. Weigel
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Researcher’s BackgroundCaroline Twomey Lamb
• Research Interests– Design theory/Systems engineering
– Social component of engineering complex systems
– Impact of process standardization on systems thinking
• Education– 3rd year doctoral student, Aero/Astro ’08 (exp.)
– S.M. Aerospace Engineering (MIT ‘05)
– S.B. Aerospace Engineering (MIT ’03)
• Professional Experience– Pratt and Whitney
– Composites fabrication/testing for DARPA contract
– Wind tunnel testing
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Motivation
• Engineering is a socio-technical activity
• Historic emphasis on technical side
• Increasing systems
complexity
• No one individual can
possess necessary
competencies
• Move to team as
fundamental work unit
• Longer development
cycles
• Fewer program starts
• Process
standardization to
codify design practices
and knowledge
• Demographics crisis
within engineering
• Large anticipated loss
of skilled engineers in
near future
• 70% of system level
design knowledge
undocumented
Desire to understand how systems thinking manifests within engineering teams
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Research Summary
Project Title: Collaborative Systems Thinking:The role of culture and process in supporting higher level systems thinking
Sponsor: National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship/Lean Aerospace Initiative
Goal: Identify organizational culture and process-based enablers and barriers to collaborative systems thinking within the aerospace industry
Approach: Exploratory research anchored by a series of case studies looking at the enablers and barriers to engineering teams in theaerospace industry developing collaborative systems thinking
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Research Goal
To advance understanding of how
engineer’s develop systems thinking skills
by exploring the concept at the team level
Engineering Demographics in the US Manned Fighter Programs by Decade
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In other words…
“Dream Airplanes” by C. W. Miller
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Key Challenges
• Divergent definitions of systems thinking within engineering community– No universally accepted definition of systems thinking within
engineering community
– Following definition developed by Dr. Heidi Davidz and grounded in 200+ interviews
• Engaging teams and management in addressing social component of engineering– Dealing with soft issues in engineering design
– Historically topics engineers to not value/are not comfortable discussing
• Identifying ways to improve process implementation towards fostering systems thinking
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Research Questions
1. What is collaborative systems thinking?a) What is team thinking?
b) What does systems thinking look like at the team level
2. What are the enablers or barriers to
collaborative systems thinking?a) How might an organization’s culture, engineering culture, or
team sub-culture impact team-level systems thinking?
b) How do processes, meant to support shared practices,
promote or deter shared conceptualizations of the system?
3. What synergies or tensions between process
and culture contribute to collaborative systems
thinking?
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Collaborative Systems Thinking (1)
What is team thinking?
• Thinking is purposeful, reasoned and goal-directed action towards the solving of problems (Agkun and Lynn, 2005)
• Elements of thinking– Problem exploration
– Evaluation of alternatives
– Decision Making
• Team thinking is the human equivalent of parallel processing (Entin et.al., 2004)
– Emerges from intersection of individual team members’ thinking, behavior and team processes
– Team thinking is greater than the sum of individuals’ thinking
– Communication is key to team thinking
– Brainstorming, team norms, and processes enable this communication
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Pilot Interviews
Collaborative Systems Thinking (2)
What is systems thinking?
What is collaborative systems thinking?
Systems thinking is utilizing modal elements to consider the componential, relational, contextual, and dynamic elements of the system of interest (Davidz, 2006)
Systems thinking is utilizing modal elements to consider the componential, relational, contextual, and dynamic elements of the system of interest (Davidz, 2006)
Collaborative systems thinking is an emergent behavior of teams resulting from the interactions of team members and utilizing a variety of thinking styles, design processes, tools, and languages to consider systems attributes, interrelationships, context and dynamics towards executing systems design.
Collaborative systems thinking is an emergent behavior of teams resulting from the interactions of team members and utilizing a variety of thinking styles, design processes, tools, and languages to consider systems attributes, interrelationships, context and dynamics towards executing systems design.
Design Theory
Team T
hinking
Team Composition
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Culture and Standard Process
• The impact of culture and process
on team performance a repetitive
theme in literature
• Defining leverage points will help
in observing tensions and
synergies
• Process is must easier to change
than culture
• Alignment creates reinforcing loop
• Misalignment produces conflicting
stimuli and dysfunctional behavior
Undocumented
team norms
Documented tasks
and methods
Culture Standardized
Process
Espoused
beliefs
Vision
statements
Underlying
assumptions
Strategy for
standardization
Social
networks
Process flow
maps, org-charts
Undocumented
team norms
Documented tasks
and methods
Culture Standardized
Process
Espoused
beliefs
Vision
statements
Underlying
assumptions
Strategy for
standardization
Social
networks
Process flow
maps, org-charts
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Experimental Method
Literature
SearchReview
Past
Relevant
Cases
Pilot
Interviews
Theory
Synthesis
Data
Analysis
Theory
Generation
and Idea
Sharing
Coding,
statistical
analysis,
MS Excel
Case StudiesData Sources
Primary
Documentation
Interviews
Observations Surveys
Experimental Design
Identify
potential case
opportunities
Identify
potential case
opportunities
Work with
point
of contact
Work with
point
of contact
Collect survey dataCollect survey data
Interview engineering
team members
Interview engineering
team members
Observe team membersObserve team members
Case ?
Case Case
Case β
Case ?
Case ?
Case α
Case Case γ
Case
Case ε
Case ζ
δ
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Initial Results
• Effective communication is necessary
– Good communication uses the multiple language of design (sketches, equations, models,
simulations, etc)
– Evidence supports role of information sketching in improving early communication and
improving final design
• Use of multiple thinking styles: convergent and divergent
– As problem solvers, engineers excel at convergent thinking
– Leaves goal space only partially explored, missed opportunities improve design
– Divergent thinking predicated on culture that promotes early critical discussion without fear of
criticism
• Product orientation solidifies team objectives
– Clear goals enable better communication and teamwork
– Exciting, motivating goals, get people to think and act outside of the box
• Engineering culture is its own worst enemy
– Engineering archetypes affirm individuals, technology considerations over social, and
procrastination
– Norms limit communication and result in schedule pressure
• Culture and process are important elements in CST:
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Anticipated Contributions
Expected Outcomes:
• Operationalized definition of collaborative systems thinking
• List of enablers and barriers to collaborative systems thinking
Broader Impact:
• Provide organizations with information that facilitate positive interventions in process and shaping culture to promote systems thinking development in the workforce
Knowledge Deployment:
• Paper at 2008 Conference on SE Research (CSER)
• INCOSE 2008 Paper
• Series of journal papers on issues in collaborative engineering and systems thinking
• Targeted briefings for participating organizations
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Further Information
C. Lamb and D. Rhodes, Promoting Systems Promoting Systems Thinking Through Alignment of Culture and Thinking Through Alignment of Culture and Process: Initial Results,Process: Initial Results, CSER Conference, March 2007
C. Lamb and D. Rhodes, Standardized Standardized Process as a Tool for High Level Systems Process as a Tool for High Level Systems Thinking,Thinking, INCOSE 2007, June 2007