Thinking Tracks for Integrated Systems Design

The paper investigates systems thinking and systems engineering. After a short literature review, the paper presents, as a means for systems thinking, twelve thinking tracks. The tracks can be used as creativity starter, checklist, and as means to investigate effects of design decisions taken early in the process. Tracks include thinking about time, risk and safety, and different types of life-cycles. The thinking tracks are based on literature, teaching experience and practice as a system designer. By using the tracks a more complete picture of the system under design, the issue to be solved, the context, stakeholders and the rest of the world is created

Taking the engineering path to business leadership and entrepreneurial success in Canada and USA

A cross-sectional longitudinal study of Canadian graduate engineers yielded unexpected percentages of engineers gravitating towards entrepreneurial opportunities. The aggregate of the classes of 1954, 1959, and 1964 demonstrate entrepreneurial / intrapreneurial outcomes at a rate that is many times higher than the general population. The rate is well over double the rate cited previously for engineers intending to pursue entrepreneurial outlets (Tremblay et al. 1998; Tremblay et al. 2007). This paper explores possible reasons for those findings. Existing literature is combined with a crosssectional, longitudinal study of graduate engineers. Interpretive insight is offered from a separate exploratory study investigating the value of knowledge. Seeking to understand the high incidence of engineers gravitating to entrepreneurial opportunities, we refer to a separate study exploring potential knowledge; how knowledge is valued, and how the value of knowledge is shared between the organization and the employee. We present a framework for knowledge to be applied, or potential. Firms that saw potential knowledge in some employees recognized and captured its economic value. Instead of sharing the value generated by the knowledge with the individual, the firms indicated increasing the work load and adding responsibilities to the individual. We advance a proposition that the selection and training of engineers emphasizes potential knowledge, which is a form of intellectual property; a resource with economic value. As a valuable resource, one can expect the individual to seek a reasonable return on this asset. If the firm appropriates all of the returns, it is reasonable to expect the individual to seek a higher personal return from his or her intellectual property. Those with potential knowledge may seek alternative opportunities to capture some of the value of their intellectual property for themselves, and thereby pursue entrepreneurial outlets even if they had not initially intended or desired to do so

Autism:Implications for Inclusive Education with respect to Software Engineering

Contains fulltext : 219448.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access)CSERC '1

Using a systemic skills model to build an effective 21st century workforce: factors that impact the ability to navigate complex systems

The growth of technology and the proliferation of information made modern complex systems more fragile and vulnerable. As a result, competitive advantage is no longer achieved exclusively through strategic planning but by developing an influential cadre of technical people who can efficiently manage and navigate modern complex systems. The dissertation aims to provide educators, practitioners, and organizations with a model that helps to measure individuals’ systems thinking skills, complex problem solving, personality traits, and the impacting demographic factors such as managerial and work experience, current occupation type, organizational ownership structure, and education level. The intent is to study how these skills, traits, and demographic factors can impact an individual’s abilities in working effectively with modern complex systems. These skills and traits also enable individuals to display distinctive patterns of thoughts in developing solutions that address complex technical problems. The dissertation further provides strategies for the management and enhancement of technical individuals based on assessing their performance. The model consists of three established instruments: Systems Thinking Skills, Perceived Complex Problem-Solving (PCPS), and Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator. These instruments are applied at the individual level to identify strengths and weak areas of improving an organization. In particular, PCPS is a researcher-developed instrument that captures the complex problem-solving perception of individuals. The different samples of the population for the dissertation come from students and practitioners

System Modeling: An Exploratory Study Of Engineering Students’ Conceptual Knowledge And Problem-Solving Skills

System modeling (SM) instructional strategy, an application of system thinking (ST), canbe used as an instructional approach to help students develop SM skills and deepen their understanding of subject matter (Hung, 2009). Mechanical engineering students have difficulty applying gained knowledge in real-world contexts and are reportedly underprepared for workplace challenges (Kirkpatrick et al., 2011; Warsame, 2017). This study explored the efficacy of system modeling (SM) instructional strategy in a mechanical engineering course. Specifically, the study sought to understand students’ perceptions and experiences with the use of system modeling in enhancing their conceptual knowledge and problem-solving skills. This study employed a qualitative inquiry approach to understand engineering students’ experience and perceptions of the use of system modeling. A purposeful sampling technique was utilized to recruit mechanical engineering students to participate in the study. Semi-structured interviews and students’ artifacts including problem solving survey and causal modeling diagrams, were used to explore and gain an in-depth understanding of students’ experiences with the use of system modeling (SM) instructional approach. The findings indicated promising effects of the SM approach on students’ learning outcomes. Seven major themes emerged from the in-depth interviews conducted to gain insights into students’ experiences. These themes included: problem diagnosis, interconnection and interdependency, linearity, external representation of causal relationship, wholeness and decision making, organize problem-solving approach, and systematic and forward-thinking process. Students’ artifacts and data presented in this study supported their positive experiences using the SM approach. The problem solving inventory PSI survey responses indicated that most of the participants believed the SM approach affected their perceived problem-solving skills, especially their approach-avoidance style. Furthermore, the model diagram analysis suggested that all participants showed moderate system thinking skills after the SM instructional strategy. This current study provides insight and understanding about SM instructional strategy effectiveness and how it can help enhance student learning outcomes. Exploring the impact of SM on student learning experiences is important not only because it could provide alternative instruction to the traditional methods, but also to inform instructors of its potential benefit of undergraduate education instruction. Furthermore, the current study could serve as a guide for instructors on how to implement the SM instructional strategy in a mechanical engineering curriculum

Applying systems-thinking to reduce check-the-box decisions in the audit of complex estimates

Even as audit regulators push for increased use of professional judgment in the audit of complex financial statement accounts, auditors seem to interpret audit standards as increasingly prescriptive. This leads to mechanical, or check-the-box audit decisions in just those situations in which it is most important to make decisions based on professional judgment. In response, regulators can, and do, issue new audit standards with a focus on providing auditors with guidelines instead of bright-lines, though those new standards often contain additional examples, definitions, and guidance which may be perceived as prescriptive. I conduct an experiment using practicing auditor participants to evaluate the joint effect of prescriptive versus judgment-based audit standards which allow auditors to use professional judgment without additional constraints, and systems- versus reductionist-thinking perspectives on auditor decisions related to complex estimates. My results indicate that introduction of a judgment-based standard is not sufficient, by itself, to decrease auditors’ check-the-box mentality. As expected, however, auditors who adopt a systems-thinking perspective are better able to apply both the prescriptive and judgment-based standards, resulting in less check-the-box decisions related to material misstatement decisions, but not to material weakness decisions. I find evidence that the systems-thinking perspective changes how auditors incorporate business process complexity into their audit planning process and changes how they perceive management’s role, relative to the role of process complexity itself, in potential accounting errors. These results suggest a potential limit to the ability to reduce auditors’ check-the-box mentality and increase their use of professional judgment by simply introducing more judgment-based standards. These results also suggest, however, that the goal of improving professional judgment may be achieved with an underlying change to the way auditors’ think, whether standards are prescriptive or more judgment-based