Collaborative Systems Thinking Research: Exploring Systems Thinking within Teams

This paper describes ongoing research that seeks to develop an empirical basis for collaborative systems thinking, defined as “an emergent behavior of teams resulting from the interactions of team members and utilizing a variety of thinking styles, design processes, tools, and communication media to consider system attributes, interrelationships, context and dynamics towards executing systems design”. This type of thinking is critically important to addressing engineering systems challenges, and the research seeks to inform and enable effective systems engineering practice in contemporary engineering enterprises. Focusing on the aerospace domain, collaborative systems thinking is examined through the alignment of enterprise culture and standard technical processes. This paper draws on a variety of literature to compose a definition of collaborative systems thinking and propose a research agenda going forward

Trust-free Systems - a New Research and Design Direction to Handle Trust-Issues in P2P Systems: The Case of Bitcoin

Trust has always been important in electronic commerce. Prior research in MIS has mainly focused on trust-building mechanisms and insurance against opportunistic behavior. We suggest a “trust-free system” approach, which addresses trust issues by eliminating the need for trust. Using Bitcoin, a decentralized electronic cash system, we illustrate how a system can solve trust issues by becoming “trust-free” through design. We discuss the design features of this approach, and explore research questions for generalizing the design to other information systems. The idea of a trust-free system opens a new way of thinking about trust issues in information systems. We believe that there is an untapped potential for new ideas and research on how to design and evaluate information systems

Using Systems Thinking in State Health Policymaking: An Educational Initiative

In response to limited examples of opportunities for state policymakers to learn about and productively discuss the difficult, adaptive challenges of our health system, the Georgia Health Policy Center developed an educational initiative that applies systems thinking to health policymaking. We created the Legislative Health Policy Certificate Program – an in-depth, multi-session series for law-makers and their staff – concentrating on building systems thinking competen-cies and health content knowledge by applying a range of systems thinking tools: behavior over time graphs, stock and flow maps, and a system dynamics-based learning lab (a simulatable model of childhood obesity). Legislators were taught to approach policy issues from the big picture, consider changing dynamics, and explore higher-leverage interventions to address Georgia’s most intractable health challenges. Our aim was to determine how we could improve the policymaking process by providing a systems thinking-focused educational program for legislators. Over 3 years, the training program resulted in policy-makers’ who are able to think more broadly about difficult health issues. The program has yielded valuable insights into the design and delivery of policy-maker education that could be applied to various disciplines outside the legislative process

DLT-based Regulatory Systems Dynamics

In this research, we examine the interplay between ‘actors’ and ‘agents’ in Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) systems. We identify regulatory interactions between off-chain agents setting the rules, as well as on-chain code as actors regulating the behavior of DLT users. We theorize about the relationship between agents and actors that mutually regulate each other in certain ways through the DLT system and identify the significant dimensions related to the trifecta in which the soft system agent sphere regulation of DLT is likely to interact with the hard system actor sphere regulation by DLT. By proposing the trifecta between DLT design, DLT protocol, and DLT use, we explain the relationship between these three and the role of DLT protocol as a mediator between DLT design and DLT use. Our research sheds light on the dynamics within DLT systems and the regulating forces at play from a systems’ thinking perspective.e

Of Systems Thinking and Straw Men

(Excerpt) In Content Moderation as Systems Thinking, Professor Evelyn Douek, as the title suggests, endorses an approach to the people, rules, and processes governing online speech as one not of anecdote and doctrine but of systems thinking. She constructs this concept as a novel and superior understanding of the problems of online-speech governance as compared to those existent in what she calls the “standard [scholarly] picture of content moderation.” This standard picture of content moderation — which is roughly five years old — is “outdated and incomplete,” she argues. It is preoccupied with anecdotal, high-profile adjudications in which platforms make the right or wrong decision to take down certain speech and not focused enough on the platform’s design choices and invisible automated removal of content. It draws too heavily from First Amendment contexts, which leads to platforms assessing content moderation controversies as if they were individual judicial cases. Douek calls her approach “both ambitious and modest.” The modest part calls for structural and procedural regulatory reforms that center content moderation as “systems thinking.” The notion of systems thinking conveys a generalized approach of framing complexity as a whole comprised of dynamic relationships rather than the sum of segmented parts. The ambitious part is dismantling the standard picture of content moderation scholarship and challenging the resultant “accountability theater” created by platforms and lawmakers alike. In Douek’s view, it is this “stylized picture of content moderation” that is to blame for regulators assuming “that the primary way they can make social media platforms more publicly accountable is by requiring them to grant users ever more individual procedural rights.” There is much to like about understanding content moderation as a complex, dynamic, and ever-evolving system. Particularly useful for an article titled Content Moderation as Systems Thinking that calls for regulation of technology, there is rich and detailed scholarship on content moderation in both sociotechnical theory and the law. Indeed, most of the academic work on content moderation is done by sociotechnical theory scholars who study content moderation and platform governance using systems-thinking and systems-theory frameworks. Sociotechnical systems theory posits that an organization is best understood and improved if all parts of the system — people, procedures, norms, culture, technology, infrastructure, and outcomes — are understood as relational and interdependent parts of a complex system. In analyzing private law under this theoretical framework, Professor Henry Smith describes systems as “a collection of elements and — crucially — the connections between and among them; complex systems are ones in which the properties of the system as a whole are difficult to infer from the properties of the parts.” Examples of systems abound at all levels of nature and society: from cognition to social networks or economies, or as Smith proposes, systems of law. Systems thinking, then, according to those that study it, is one step removed: “literally, a system of thinking about systems.” This definition is, of course, tautological; even the authors of the only article Douek cites on the topic seem confused. But the takeaway of “systems thinking” is much the same as that described by sociotechnical theory and by Smith: an “understanding of dynamic behavior, systems structure as a cause of that behavior, and the idea of seeing systems as wholes rather than parts” — wholes that create “emergent properties” whose origins cannot be traced to any one part or interplay of the system. It is both the ocean and the wave, the forest and the trees, as well as all of the interactions and the emergent properties resultant

Reforming Japan's Capital Markets

The Japanese version of the Big Bang announced in November 1996 was a major plan to drastically reform the financial and capital markets in Japan through significant revisions to laws such as the Securities and Exchange Law. The Japanese Big Bang was planned because of mounting worries about the lowering of the international status of Japanese markets and deadlock of the existing financial structure which depended excessively on indirect financing, mainly of bank loans. The Japanese Big Bang was supposed to have been completed by the end of March, 2001, but in reality system reforms for financial and capital markets are still continuing including revisions of the Securities and Exchange Law and of the taxation system of securities. Reform of the financial structure -- the goal of Big Bang -- has not made notable progress, an example being that most privately held financial assets are still in the form of deposits, because of the following reasons. The first reason is that participation of individual investors in the security market has not significantly increased. This is due to lack of familiarity with security companies that broker investments in securities and lack of knowledge of the market and investments. The second reason is that the use of financial and capital markets to procure funds is being hindered by the irrational behavior of banks, an example of which is the placement of loans at interest rates which are not commensurate with the risks involved. This is particularly problematic. It is necessary to reveal the values of securities in the trading market to the maximum extent and to promote conversion of bank credit into securities in order to normalize the behavior of banks. To bring this about it is necessary to strengthen supervision to prevent unjust behavior in the market in order to raise investor confidence in the market. As a consequence of the Japanese Big Bang and subsequent reforms, the financial and capital market systems of Japan now bear comparison with those in the UK and the US, at least procedurally. However, the system reforms implemented in Japan may just become a state of tilling the ground and failing to sow if there is no change in the attitude of control that experts (including the managing authorities who design the systems) persist in maintaining and no change in the way of thinking of companies that regard procurement of funds in the market as merely being the means to make adjustments for bank borrowing.reform, Japan, capital market, Big Bang

Assessment of Human Performance in Industry 5.0 Research Via Eye-Tracking and Cognitive Biases

Manufacturing assembly is combining previously made components or subassemblies into a final finished product. The assembly process can be manual, hybrid, or fully automated. Human operators who are involved in assembly use their judgment to perform the process. They collaborate with the other work agents such as assembly machines, robots, smart technologies, and computer interfaces. The recent Industrial revolution, Industry 5.0, exploits human expertise in collaboration with efficient and accurate machines. Manufacturing facilities that feature Industry 5.0 work settings require higher expectations, higher accuracy, sustainability solutions, mass customization of products, more human involvement, and digital technologies in smart workstations. Given these features, the cognitive load exerted on human workers in this environment is continuously increasing, leading to the use of cognitive heuristics. Cognitive biases are getting more attention in the cognitive ergonomics field, to help understand the operational behavior of workers. Manufacturing facilities can integrate cognitive assistance systems to work in parallel with physical and sensorial assistance systems. Cognitive assistance systems help toward better work conditions for workers and better overall system performance. This research explores the impact of human thinking style and using a cognitive assistance system on workers\u27 cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction. This research presents the design and experimental implementation of a research framework based on a well-established three-layer model for implementing Industry 5.0 in manufacturing. The research framework was designed to apply the dual-system theory and cognitive assistance in Assembly 5.0. Two experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed research framework. A cognitive assistance system was designed and compared to a benchmark system from LEGO ® Company. Subjective and objective measures were used to assess the thinking style, cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction in Assembly 5.0. As Industry 5.0 requires higher expectations, higher accuracy, smart workstations, and higher complexity, cognitive assistance systems can reduce the cognitive load and maintain the work efficiency and user satisfaction. Therefore, this work is important to industry to expand the use of cognitive ergonomic tools and employ them for A5.0 workers\u27 benefits

Assessment of Human Performance in Industry 5.0 Research Via Eye-Tracking and Cognitive Biases

Manufacturing assembly is combining previously made components or subassemblies into a final finished product. The assembly process can be manual, hybrid, or fully automated. Human operators who are involved in assembly use their judgment to perform the process. They collaborate with the other work agents such as assembly machines, robots, smart technologies, and computer interfaces. The recent Industrial revolution, Industry 5.0, exploits human expertise in collaboration with efficient and accurate machines. Manufacturing facilities that feature Industry 5.0 work settings require higher expectations, higher accuracy, sustainability solutions, mass customization of products, more human involvement, and digital technologies in smart workstations. Given these features, the cognitive load exerted on human workers in this environment is continuously increasing, leading to the use of cognitive heuristics. Cognitive biases are getting more attention in the cognitive ergonomics field, to help understand the operational behavior of workers. Manufacturing facilities can integrate cognitive assistance systems to work in parallel with physical and sensorial assistance systems. Cognitive assistance systems help toward better work conditions for workers and better overall system performance. This research explores the impact of human thinking style and using a cognitive assistance system on workers\u27 cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction. This research presents the design and experimental implementation of a research framework based on a well-established three-layer model for implementing Industry 5.0 in manufacturing. The research framework was designed to apply the dual-system theory and cognitive assistance in Assembly 5.0. Two experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed research framework. A cognitive assistance system was designed and compared to a benchmark system from LEGO ® Company. Subjective and objective measures were used to assess the thinking style, cognitive load, bias-related human performance, and user satisfaction in Assembly 5.0. As Industry 5.0 requires higher expectations, higher accuracy, smart workstations, and higher complexity, cognitive assistance systems can reduce the cognitive load and maintain the work efficiency and user satisfaction. Therefore, this work is important to industry to expand the use of cognitive ergonomic tools and employ them for A5.0 workers\u27 benefits

A Systems View of Life: A Grander Order in the Complexity of Life

Design has been a key and yet elusive word in the areas of science and philosophy for many years. It seemed to reach its apex in 1802 with Paley’s Natural Theology. However, in the wake of Darwin’s Origin the recognition of design as part of a biological research paradigm has been greatly undermined. Design as expressed in Natural Theology is equivalent to that of a highly tuned machine. The parts are idealized and their relationships are synchronized and static. Although we see design of this type in nature, it has limitations when dealing with dynamic, complex interactions between components of a system. Component interaction can range from that of an organism within a biosphere to that of an organelle within the cell. Could there be a broader definition of design that can provide useful insights into the study of the creation and in turn become part of a fruitful research paradigm? Here systems theory is used to develop a framework for defining design in a broader fashion. General systems theory, developed in the 1930s by Ludwig Bertalanffy, proposes the existence of properties or laws that describe the interactions between systems. These laws of interaction apply not only to biological systems, but also to social, political and mechanical systems. Cybernetics, a subdiscipline of systems theory, treats each component of a system as a black box. The black box interacts with its environment through inputs and outputs. Although the outputs of a component are dependent on its environment and internal state, it is possible to study component interaction without knowing the internal function of the component. This is a more holistic approach and provides a context from which to study adaptation, complexity and optimal design. In recent years computer scientists have gained experience working with the design of complex systems. One fruitful approach to software design is Object Oriented Programming (OOP). In this approach complex programs are broken into smaller interacting components. By restricting the amount of interaction between components, the programmer is able to better anticipate the complexities of the system’s behavior and, therefore, control and hopefully eliminate errant behavior. Out of OOP came the concept of design patterns, which are rules of “best practices” when solving certain software problems. Gamma et al. (1995) identified twenty-three such design patterns. Assuming these patterns capture the essence of design in a broader sense, a comparison can be made to biological systems. From this comparison there is at least an analogous correspondence between OOP and biological systems. This gives confidence that design patterns provide a starting point for developing an inter-disciplinary language of design. As a research paradigm, a design language provides potential solutions to classes of biological problems. Although it does not prescribe the particular solution, it does restrict the number of viable solutions for a well behaved system. As biologists are able to recognize and communicate design concepts effectively, new patterns can be discovered, which can benefit the OOP community as well as others. As a specific application, systems theory and design patterns can be applied to the study of limits of variability in the creation. Thinking of an organism as a collection of interacting components, it is possible to differentiate between components exercising global control and those exercising only local control. Likewise a distinction can be made between components of interdependent function and components of peripheral function. Although the loss of a peripheral component is not lethal, it may reduce the ability of an organism to adapt to its environment. Assuming there has been a systemic degradation of each holobaramin since the fall, it may be possible to restore some of the adaptive capabilities of an organism by comparing current members of a particular holobaramin

Challenging the Computational Metaphor: Implications for How We Think

This paper explores the role of the traditional computational metaphor in our thinking as computer scientists, its influence on epistemological styles, and its implications for our understanding of cognition. It proposes to replace the conventional metaphor--a sequence of steps--with the notion of a community of interacting entities, and examines the ramifications of such a shift on these various ways in which we think