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Enablers and barriers to systems thinking development: Results of a qualitative and quantitative study
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In order to support or discredit existing heuristics on how senior systems engineers develop, a field study has been designed to gather data on enablers, barriers, and precursors to systems thinking development. In a series of host companies, information is being collected on formal company procedures for developing senior systems professionals, and senior systems architects and systems engineers are being studied to better understand how they developed. Using interview and survey data, comparisons are made of the characteristics and development histories of two control groups and these senior systems professionals. Results of this study are given. By providing information and data on this development process, this research helps companies understand how to more rapidly develop senior systems engineers.
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... Furthermore, there is evidence that this approach addresses and satisfies the goals of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE, 2011), which calls for measures to increase the number of cybersecurity workers, including the population of cybersecurity architects. This research adds to a thin body of knowledge on cybersecurity architecture and cybersecurity education, and extends and confirms systems thinking research (Valerdi, 2011;Frank, 2006;Davidz, 2005. ...
... Benefits are anticipated in terms of both improving the skill level of people and advancing and applying processes. People, or the cybersecurity engineers that can be affected by this research, will be provided with enhanced opportunities to leverage systems thinking approaches (Davidz, 2005) that will help increase both the number of competent cybersecurity engineers and accelerate their knowledge development (Davidz, Nightingale, & Rhodes, 2005). These opportunities are already available due to the current and projected shortage of cyber architects and cyber systems engineers that has been reported every year since 2008 (Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS),, 2008; Khoo & Harris, 2009;Duncan, 2011;Finkle & Randewich, 2012;Busmiller, 2013). ...
... Benefits are anticipated in terms of both improving the skill level of people and advancing and applying processes. People, or the cybersecurity engineers that can be affected by this research, will be provided with enhanced opportunities to leverage systems thinking approaches (Davidz, 2005) that will help increase both the number of competent cybersecurity engineers and accelerate their knowledge development (Davidz, Nightingale, & Rhodes, 2005). These opportunities are already available due to the current and projected shortage of cyber architects and cyber systems engineers that has been reported every year since 2008 (Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS),, 2008; Khoo & Harris, 2009;Duncan, 2011;Finkle & Randewich, 2012;Busmiller, 2013). ...
It is recognized that there is a lack of talent in this country and throughout the world with respect to cybersecurity and with particular emphasis on cybersecurity architecture. The problem points to the issue of how to improve the design process of cybersecurity defense through design consistency enabled by information security training specifically for cybersecurity. The solution was a cybersecurity architecture learning and development course that contained three primary learning competencies: to understand cybersecurity requirement relationships to cyber architecture; to be able to apply system architecture pictorial views yielding repeatable architectural descriptions and artifacts; and to be able to apply the learning on the job. This was a qualitative study with interviews that was designed to contribute to a greater understanding of cybersecurity architecture and cybersecurity architecture education. The research shows that previous approaches to cybersecurity were mostly ad hoc and that the students who completed the cybersecurity architecture course perceived an increased level of consistency in the approach to cybersecurity requirements analysis and cybersecurity architecture development. There are also results indicating that the use cybersecurity views resonated with customers showing increased value to the business. Furthermore, there is evidence that this approach addresses and satisfies the goals of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), which calls for measures to increase the number of cybersecurity workers, including the population of cybersecurity architects. This research adds to a thin body of knowledge on cybersecurity architecture and cybersecurity education, and extends and confirms systems thinking research (Valerdi, 2011; Frank, 2006; Davidz, 2005, 2008).
... Learning about food and sustainability contributes to the development of systems-thinking abilities. Akiri et al. (2020) Issues related to social and environmental topics need to be linked to systems thinking to support learners' creativity and use of models Engström et al. (2021) Integrating design-based research and nature-based learning Stanfield et al. (2022) Effects of practice and experience on the learning process Practicing systems thinking Kim and Senge (1994) Learning from experience is one of the key factors that enable systems thinking Davidz et al. (2005) Personal analysis, personality, talent, task management, and experience influence systems thinking. Davidz (2006) Experience in engineering-based teamwork in a natural work environment can enable one to apply materials learned in class, collaboration, communication, and planning Valerdi and Zonnenshain (2012) Acquiring experience on a wide range of work issues, changing positions, and becoming familiar with diverse technological systems can improve systems-thinking capabilities Kordova and Frank (2015) Implementing projects improve CEST Frank and Koral-Kordova (2016) Training, diverse work experience, and certain personality traits can improve systems-thinking abilities Frank and Koral-Kordova (2016) Diversity of practice areas and experience have an impact on developing skills for systems thinking Padhi et al. (2018) Using practical experience Kordova and Frank (2018) A project that combines active learning strategies and actual financial data, internal auditing, and project management help to develop systems thinking Czegledi et al. (2022) ...
... On the other hand, another study conducted by Koral Kordova et al. (2018) did not find a correlation between the systems-thinking scores and experience of engineers. Davidz et al. (2005) found that learning from experience is a key factor that enables systems thinking. ...
The increased need for systems thinking has also created a growing need to detect systems thinkers. Systems thinkers grasp a system as one whole made up of interacting elements. They determine what affects the system by applying their ability to identify and understand the interrelationships between the system’s components and their impact on each other and on the system as a whole. This article investigates the factors influencing a person’s inclination to become a systems thinker. Four different groups had the same systems-thinking learning process. The four groups: working engineering students, full-time engineering students, social workers, and technological college faculty members differ in employment, professional skills, degree of familiarity with their working environment, and position in the organizational hierarchy. The participants completed a questionnaire to assess their systems-thinking capabilities before and after the learning process The questionnaire detected changes in their systems-thinking abilities following this learning and highlighted differences between the groups. The results show that various systems thinking aspects changed in each group following the learning process in a way linked with its different characteristics. Knowing that the diverse characteristics of different groups influence their ability to become systems thinkers enables designing systems thinking training programs adjusted to the characteristics of various groups.
... In our research, we proceed from understanding engineering thinking as a systemic one at its core. Therefore, the formation of engineering design thinking [1], universal competencies [2,3], among which the following competencies are of particular importance: communicative competencies [4][5][6][7], systems thinking [8], media education [9], team and individual project work [10][11][12], legal knowledge [13,14], knowledge of socio-humanitarian concepts [15,16] and the ability to apply them in practice. Engineering thinking allows seeing the multidimensionality of the problem (system), its parts (subsystems), their interconnection, as well as its place as a whole (supersystem). ...
The article is devoted to the possibilities of the formation and development of engineering thinking. The paper considers the features of engineering thinking, compares various concepts that characterize engineering activities. The authors compare the concepts of technical, economic, research thinking, identifying the principles of engineering thinking. The need for a humanitarian component in engineering thinking is noted. Consistency and multidimensionality are considered by the authors as the most important concepts for the formation of engineering thinking. In conclusion, the authors point out that engineering thinking universally orients the employee when solving different types of tasks and contributes to greater variability in making standard and non-standard decisions in the production process.
... The study resulted in rich descriptions of individual attitudes, problem solving strategies, technical acumen, and systems thinking capabilities required to do systems engineering at the highest level, and described leadership, communication, and other social skills as equally important for systems thinking and systems engineering. These findings are mirrored in several other studies from industry and academia (Davidz et al., 2005;Rhodes et al., 2008;Frank, 2000Frank, , 2006Frank, , 2012. Second, practicing engineers and engineering researchers are beginning to acknowledge the need for a more rigorous interdisciplinary framework for EST, to understand the social and psychological underpinnings of EST behaviours. ...
Design thinking (DT) and engineering systems thinking (EST) are two complementary approaches to understanding cognition, organization, and other non-technical factors that influence the design and performance of engineering systems. Until relatively recently, these two concepts have been explored in isolation from one another; design thinking methods have been applied to industrial design and product development, while engineering systems thinking is used in professional systems engineering practice and large-scale, complex systems design. This work seeks to explore the relationship between these two concepts, comparing their historical development, values, applications, and methods. The primary contribution of the work is a set of four concept models that depict plausible relationships between design thinking and systems thinking for engineering design.
... According to (Davidz 2005), the development of systems thinking does not occur "automatically", nor is it necessarily rapid: "some systems leaders believe it may take fifteen to thirty years to develop a senior systems engineer". 14 In order to reduce this time, the paper discusses "enablers" for the development of systems thinking. ...
Many modern systems have a high degree of dependence on embedded software in order to perform their required functions. Some examples include transportation systems, hand-held devices, and medical equipment, among others. In designing their products, systems engineers typically take a top-down, process-oriented approach, decomposing a complex system into simpler, easier to manage, subsystems; the system requirements can then be allocated and flowed down as necessary to the appropriate subsystems. Software engineers take a more bottom-up, object-oriented approach, using simple building blocks to create a more complex system, and enhancing their existing blocks with new ones where necessary.
... The related area of systems engineering has also undertaken some research into the people aspects (Frank 2000(Frank , 2006bINCOSE 2006) with a focus on identifying the characteristics for success in critical engineering systems thinking and how to develop those characteristics (Davidz, Nightingale & Rhodes 2005;Di Carlo & Khoshnevis 2006;Eriksen 2006;Frank 2002Frank , 2006a. Other research has investigated the people characteristics associated with the successful engineering of systems of systems (Jakobsson & Kingston 2006). ...
All Information Technology (IT) systems have architecture and these architectures are developed by people, frequently called IT architects. These people vary in their capabilities and this directly affects the systems they work with. This research investigates whether some previously identified capabilities, (intuitive cognitive style, problem solving, visualisation, and future vision) differ between IT architects of different skill levels. We found that while all IT architects reported as very skilled problem solvers, the more highly skilled IT architects approached problems in a different manner than the others. We also found that the higher skilled IT architects had a significantly longer view of their actions. These results are important for the education of aspiring IT architects and also the selection and development of existing ones.
Much has been written about what systems engineering is, what systems engineers do, what defines competency, and how to teach systems engineering. There has been significant research in other fields about how expertise is developed. This paper reviews key elements of that research and looks at its applicability to systems engineering and how it could be applied to improve the development of expertise in systems engineering. In particular, the role of deliberate practice is investigated and compared to the reliance on experience for development of systems engineers.
As more senior systems engineers are needed to handle the increasing complexity
of contemporary systems, there is an increasing need to accelerate the development of these
senior professionals. However, the process of efficiently developing a senior systems engineer is
not well-understood. To compact this problem, the skill set needed by senior systems engineers
continues to broaden as system complexity increases and as system boundaries expand. In order
to better understand the mechanisms that most effectively and efficiently develop these
individuals, this article discusses enablers, barriers, and precursors to this development process.
In addition to reviewing related literature, specific interventions currently used to accelerate
systems thinking development are discussed. Findings from ongoing research related to this
topic provide preliminary information about current understanding and practice. Better
understanding of systems thinking development provides a foundation for educational
interventions and employee development in systems thinking for engineering professionals
across industry, government, and academia.
Game-based learning has the potential to improve the education and performance of engineers and decision makers in the systems engineering field. This paper reviews the arguments for the use of educational gaming, with particular attention to the aspects of game-based learning that are well suited to tackling the complex sociotechnical systems engineering problems that currently are trusted only to experts with years of experience. It also describes the development of an educational game, Space Tug Skirmish, designed to be used as a teaching and research tool for systems engineering core concepts.
As systems become more complex, the roles involved in developing and managing such systems also become more complex. As such, there is increasing interest in training engineering professionals to think systemically. However, sufficient data are missing to understand the mechanisms that most effectively and efficiently develop systems thinking. This article discusses preliminary findings on enablers, barriers, and precursors to the development of systems thinking. In addition to reviewing related literature, this article also discusses insights gained by interviewing systems leaders on how to identify and develop systems thinkers. Specific individual characteristics, assigned work roles, and educational interventions inhibit or accelerate systems thinking development. This article defines the research space on this topic, while also providing preliminary information about current understanding and practice. Better understanding of systems thinking development provides a foundation for educational interventions and employee development in systems thinking for engineering professionals across industry, government, and academia.
As technological systems grow larger, more complex, and interdisciplinary, electronics and hi-tech industries face a growing demand for engineers with a capacity for “engineering systems thinking”. This paper presents a multifunctional definition and 30 laws of “engineering systems thinking”. The definition and the laws are based on a study that its purpose was to identify the characteristics of engineers who are able to think in the manner called “engineering systems thinking”. A thorough understanding of “engineering systems thinking” on both the theoretical and operational levels will prove useful in the design of curricula to improve and develop thinking of this sort.