Collaborative Systems Thinking: A response to the problems faced by Systems Engineering’s “middle tier”

Experienced systems engineers are adept at more than implementing systems engineering processes: they utilize systems thinking to solve complex engineering problems. Within the space industry demographics and economic pressures are reducing the number of experienced systems engineers that will be available in the future. Collaborative systems thinking within systems engineering teams is proposed as a way to integrate systems engineers of various experience levels to handle complex systems engineering challenges. This paper uses the GOES-R Program Systems Engineering team to illustrate the enablers and barriers to team level systems thinking and to identify ways in which performance could be improved. Ways NASA could expand its engineering training to promote team-level systems thinking are proposed. Introduction: What is Collaborative Systems Thinking? Systems Thinking: Broadly defined, systems thinking is a way of thinking about the whole: a system and its context. While many definitions exist for systems thinking, the common themes across these definitions are complexity, interrelationships (interfaces), context, emergence, and holism. Definitions specific to engineering focus on the use of tools and experience to consider the technical and social component and interactions of a system (Davidz 2006) and associated systems thinking with problem solving and brainstorming activities (Jansma and Jones 2006). Systems thinking is a skill leveraged to avoid potential future problems. Systems thinking skills include understanding dynamic system behavior, identifying feedback processes, finding and explaining patterns of system behavior, and identifying ways in which to influence that behavior (Richmond 1993, Sweeney and Sterman 2000). Such skills are useful in understanding the limitations of systems models, interpreting and influencing non-linear processes, and recognizing time delays between systems inputs and outputs (Sweeney and Sterman 2000). Within engineering, systems thinking development is enabled by experience, individual characteristics (e.g. curiosity and a tolerance for uncertainty), and a work environment that https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20090016182 2017-12-09T08:46:32+00:00Z