Results for “socio-technical perspective”

NASA NTRS2013

Socio-Technical Perspective on Interdisciplinary Interactions During the Development of Complex Engineered Systems

This study investigates interdisciplinary interactions that take place during the research, development, and early conceptual design phases in the design of large-scale complex engineered systems (LaCES) such as aerospace vehicles. These interactions, that take place throughout a large engineering development organization, become the initial conditions of the systems engineering process that ultimately leads to the development of a viable system. This paper summarizes some of the challenges and opportunities regarding social and organizational issues that emerged from a qualitative study using ethnographic and survey data. The analysis reveals several socio-technical couplings between the engineered system and the organization that creates it. Survey respondents noted the importance of interdisciplinary interactions and their benefits to the engineered system as well as substantial challenges in interdisciplinary interactions. Noted benefits included enhanced knowledge and problem mitigation and noted obstacles centered on organizational and human dynamics. Findings suggest that addressing the social challenges may be a critical need in enabling interdisciplinary interactions

McGowan, Anna-Maria R.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Integrated Display and Environmental Awareness System - System Architecture Definition

The Integrated Display and Environmental Awareness System (IDEAS) is an interdisciplinary team project focusing on the development of a wearable computer and Head Mounted Display (HMD) based on Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components for the specific application and needs of NASA technicians, engineers and astronauts. Wearable computers are on the verge of utilization trials in daily life as well as industrial environments. The first civil and COTS wearable head mounted display systems were introduced just a few years ago and they probed not only technology readiness in terms of performance, endurance, miniaturization, operability and usefulness but also maturity of practice in perspective of a socio-technical context. Although the main technical hurdles such as mass and power were addressed as improvements on the technical side, the usefulness, practicality and social acceptance were often noted on the side of a broad variety of humans' operations. In other words, although the technology made a giant leap, its use and efficiency still looks for the sweet spot. The first IDEAS project started in January 2015 and was concluded in January 2017. The project identified current COTS systems' capability at minimum cost and maximum applicability and brought about important strategic concepts that will serve further IDEAS-like system development.

Wearables↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Operationalizing “Wickedness” as Analytical and Creative Tools to Transform Aviation

As the world grows increasingly networked and complex, so do challenges faced by aviation and technology professionals (e.g., fighting wildfires and increasing access to healthcare). There is a need to develop new methods to tackle complex socio-technical problems relevant to aviation. The concept of “wicked” problems offers new methods and perspectives for framing complex challenges. In this paper, we present two modes of operationalizing “wickedness” used by NASA’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) Project to develop transformative innovations in aviation: as an analytical, evaluative tool and a creative, generative tool. Through project examples, we demonstrate that using wickedness as a creative tool during the design process enables rich problem exploration with diverse stakeholders and reflection on how a problem is formulated, while usage as an analytical tool can provide criteria for project selection if internal agreement on the definitions of such criteria is established. Operationalizing wickedness as a creative tool may also enable organizational development of a generative mindset to better adapt to our rapidly changing future.

Robyn C Richmond↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Operationalizing “Wickedness” as Analytical and Creative Tools to Transform Aviation

As the world grows increasingly networked and complex, so do challenges faced by aviation and technology professionals (e.g., fighting wildfires and increasing access to healthcare). There is a need to develop new methods to tackle complex socio-technical problems relevant to aviation. The concept of “wicked” problems offers new methods and perspectives for framing complex challenges. In this paper, we present two modes of operationalizing “wickedness” used by NASA’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) Project to develop transformative innovations in aviation: as an analytical, evaluative tool and a creative, generative tool. Through project examples, we demonstrate that using wickedness as a creative tool during the design process enables rich problem exploration with diverse stakeholders and reflection on how a problem is formulated, while usage as an analytical tool can provide criteria for project selection if internal agreement on the definitions of such criteria is established. Operationalizing wickedness as a creative tool may also enable organizational development of a generative mindset to better adapt to our rapidly changing future.

Robyn Richmond↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Holistic and Pragmatic Standards Processes Enable Interdisciplinary Science

Open, interdisciplinary science inevitably relies heavily on standards. Standards are those often unseen agreements that we take for granted when systems and processes are working fine. Yet standards work is perpetual, laborious, and sometimes contentious, especially for standards to work across diverse disciplines. Standards development, maintenance, and implementation is a complex, ongoing socio-technical process. NASA has developed a progressively open science policy and strategy that calls for the establishment of a data standards process reaching across the five diverse divisions of the Science Mission Directorate. This is a delicate exercise. We, therefore, seek to apply a holistic yet pragmatic approach to developing and maintaining a standards process. We adopt an ecological philosophy that focuses on the interactions within the data ecosystem and how standards facilitate those interactions. We couple high-level analysis with on the ground experimentation. We began by 1) mapping information ecosystem components (e.g. data centers, missions, services, protocols, users), 2)establishing how the components interact (e.g. sharing (meta)data, funding, personnel exchange), and 3) modelling system dynamics (e.g. creation of products from multiple data centers, redundant processes, shared services). The goal is to apply understanding of the ecosystem to real world applications (e.g. planning a new mission, implementing new policy requirements, improving process efficiency, etc.). We have also conducted studies of historical standardization efforts, documenting lessons learned and cautionary tales. We then contrast this more abstract work with real examples. We reviewed and assessed multiple existing standards development processes both within and external to NASA. We now work to implement an initial test process which can be further optimized. We seek to define a consistent approach for assigning persistent identifiers for research objects, especially for the purposes of citation. The experience from this relatively ‘simple’ test case adds a pragmatic perspective on how researchers and engineers actually work. This presentation will review the details of this methodology, our initial findings, and how they might apply to other interdisciplinary standardization efforts.

Mark A Parsons↗