Designing socio-technical systems

Abstract

The Systems Engineering, Policy Analysis and Management (SEPAM) MSc curriculum taught at Delft University of Technology focuses on the design of socio-technical systems (STS). We teach our students to structure design activities by considering what we call the TIP aspects: Technical systems, Institutions, and decision-making Processes. Students find TIP design difficult, not only because STS design is complex (this difficulty can be overcome with time and practice), but also because the I and P concepts seem difficult to grasp. Our students struggle with the notion of institution, the lack of a general framework for institutional design, and the fluidity and ambiguity of the concept of a decision-making process in the context of STS design. The objective of this paper is to clarify the TIP elements and to refine the TIP way of thinking. In clarifying the elements, we make a distinction between structure and process. Our premise is that an engineered artifact is a structure that, together with the context in which it is implemented, produces a process that performs the intended function. Our distinction between structure and process shows why the acronym TIP design is somewhat misleading. The T and I refer to structures, while the P refers to processes. This paper adds to the TIP design way of thinking by showing the analogies between technical and institutional structures. We argue that systems thinking/systems design applies to any artifact, be it technical or institutional. The structure-process distinction also allows us to better understand the system life cycle and clarify the concept of a decision-making process. Decision-making processes are important processes in all phases of a system life cycle, and they are themselves shaped by institutional structures which are placed in a context.