Socio technical systems (LSCITS EngD)

LSCITS and Socio-technical
Systems
Prof Ian Sommerville

Socio-Technical Systems, York EngD Programme, 2012 Slide 1

Objectives
• To introduce the notion of a socio-technical system
and to discuss the relationships between LSCITSs
and STSs.
• To explain why socio-technical considerations should
influence the design of an LSCITS
• To introduce the notion of LSCITS engineering as a
systems engineering process.


Socio-technical systems
Organisational systems with
automated and manual
processes and components that
evolve to meet organisational
goals or requirements


• Socio-technical systems include IT systems and the
social and organisational environment in which these
systems are used
– Operators – the people who use the system
– Procedures and Processes – ways of working that use the IT
system
– Policies – rules and regulations that govern work and the way that it
is done
– Standards – definitions of how work should be done across the
organisation
– Culture – the ways in which work is done in a local, professional and
national setting



Social and political environment

Laws, regulations, custom & practice

System Business
users Software-intensive system processes

Organisational policies and culture

Organisational strategies and
goals

Socio-technical system
characteristics
• They exhibit emergent properties
– Some of the properties of the system emerge after it has gone into
use and cannot be predicted in advance
– This is true of all systems but is a particular characteristic of STS
because of the complexity of the interactions between parts of the
system

• They are non-deterministic
– They do not always produce the same output when presented with
the same input (or input sequence) because the systems’s
behaviour is partially dependent on human operators, organizational
priorities, etc.

• They are influenced by the organisations culture, rules and
objectives
– STS are inextricably bound up with the organisation using these
sysyems, how it thinks of itself and how it works

Emergent properties
• Properties of the system as a whole rather than properties that
can be derived from the properties of components of a system
• Emergent properties are a consequence of the relationships
between system components and between technical systems
and the socio-technical system in which they are used
• They can therefore only be assessed and measured once the
components have been integrated into a system
• Emergent properties often have unexpected consequences
• Higher rather than lower costs

• More rather than less manual intervention


Types of emergent property
• Functional properties
– These are the designer’s intention and appear when all the
parts of a system have been integrated.
• A burglar alarm system has the property of detecting intruders in a
building.

• Non-functional emergent properties
– These relate to the behaviour of the system in its operational
environment.
• Examples are reliability, performance, safety, and security.


Organisational emergent properties
• These relate to the relationships between technical
systems and the socio-technical system in which they
are embedded or to the relationships between a
socio-technical system and other socio-technical
systems in an organisation
– An accounting system that provides better information on
accounts to budget holders may lead to increases in
expenditure because they now have information about under-
spending on a budget
– A (socio-technical) system that is intended to provide the
public with information about death rates in hospitals leads to
increases in the number of patients who are discharged early
and die at home

Non-determinism
• Non-determinism (in a systems context) means that
the response of a system to a stimulus will not always
be consistent
• STS are non-deterministic because:
– People are not inter-changeable. One system user will
behave in a different way from another. They react differently
because of personal circumstances, workload, etc.
– People react to changes in the environment in which the
system is used. The organisational and operational
environments constantly change and affect the use of the
system and its responses.


Coping with the unexpected
• Technical systems are rigid and are usually unable to
cope with circumstances that have not been
envisaged by their designers
• The non-determinism in STS is (usually) a positive
characteristic as it allows the system to cope with
unexpected change
– It allows graceful degradation of service in times of increased
workload
– People can prioritise tasks according to their perceived
importance
– The processes in the system can be dynamically adapted to
cope with organisational or external changes

LSCITS and Socio-technical
systems

The relationships between LSCITS
and STS


STS and LSCITS
• I find it helpful to distinguish between an LSCITS and a STS,
with the important distinction being that LSCITS are designed
and socio-technical systems evolve.
• However, not all STS include LSCITS – STS do not have to be
large-scale systems. However, all LSCITS are tightly embedded
in STS.
• Socio-technical issues have a profound effect on the
dependability, efficiency and effectiveness of the embedded
LSCITSs
• There is an increasing conviction that focusing on socio-
technical issues in complex systems and understanding how to
use these constructively in system design (LSCITS engineering)
will provide a better return in terms of system improvement than
investments in new technology

Organisations/people/systems
• LSCITS are organisational systems intended to help
deliver some organisational or business goal.
• If you do not understand the organisational
environment where a system is used, the LSCITS is
less likely to meet the real needs of the business and
its users.


Value from socio-technical
analysis
• Effectiveness
– Deployed systems are more effective in supporting business
processes
– In many cases, value from new systems is not realised because
these are not used at all or part of their functionality is not exploited
• Dependability
– Reduced probability of usage errors
– More effective error recovery
• User satisfaction
– Better user acceptance of new systems
• Faster ‘time to value’
– Shorter assimiliation period for new systems. Fewer mismatches
between system and work

Issues and questions
• Process changes
– Does the system require changes to the work processes in the
environment?

• Job changes
– Does the system de-skill the users in an environment or cause
them to change the way they work?

• Organisational changes
– Does the system change the political power structure in an
organisation?


LSCITS processes

Organisational Environment

LSCITS


Organisational processes
• The processes of systems engineering overlap and
interact with organisational procurement processes.
• Operational processes are the processes involved in
using the system for its intended purpose. For new
systems, these have to be defined as part of the
system design.
• Operational processes should be designed to be
flexible and should not force operations to be done in
a particular way. It is important that human operators
can use their initiative if problems arise.


Procurement
• Acquiring a system for an organization to meet some
perceived need
• Some system specification and architectural design is
usually necessary before procurement
– You need a specification to let a contract for system
development
– The specification may allow you to buy a commercial off-the-
shelf (COTS) system. Almost always cheaper than
developing a system from scratch
• LSCITS usually consist of a mix of off the shelf and
specially designed systems. The procurement
processes for these different types of system are
usually different.

Procurement issues
• The choice of what system to buy is a socio-technical rather
than simply a technical decision
– Centralisation vs autonomy
– Compliance
– Response to external circumstances
– Organisational authority structure

• Requirements may have to be modified to match the capabilities
of off-the-shelf components.
• There is usually a contract negotiation period to agree changes
after the contractor to build a system has been selected. During
this process, significant changes to the requirements may be
negotiated


LSCITS engineering
• Specifying, designing, implementing, validating, deplo
ying and maintaining large-scale complex IT systems.
• Concerned with the services provided by the
system, constraints on its construction and operation
and the ways in which it is used.
• LSCITS engineering is a systems rather than a
software engineering process
• LSCITS engineering is particularly concerned with the
early stages of the systems engineering process –
requirements engineering and architectural design


Engineering issues
• LSCITS engineering takes place in a ‘systems rich’
environment and the LSCITS being developed may
include, make use of and co-exist with a range of
systems.
• Owners and users of these systems have vested
interests that may be challenged by the requirements
and operation of the new system
– For example, to make a new system work, existing systems
may have to be changed. This may be resisted because
these changes pose risks for existing system use and may
require additional work
– System requirements may be influenced by existing
organisational structures, division of labour and power and
authority structures.

Development processes
• LSCITS engineering processes are not
rational, technical processes but are deeply
influenced by socio-technical considerations
• Often LSCITS development involves several
organisations and different disciplines
• Development teams are influenced by local
organisational priorities, cultures, practice and
vocabulary
• Different disciplines may attempt to influence design
decisions to increase their overall influence on the
system
•
Socio-Technical Systems, York EngD Programme, 2012
Within an organisation, engineering is profoundly Slide 23

Operational processes
• Operational processes are those processes that
reflect the use of the LSCITS
• They are a subset of wider business processes which
are processes developed to achieve some broader
business or organisational goal
• As LSCITS are usually developed to support a range
of stakeholders/business processes then there is
inevitably
– Diversity in operational processes depending on the
background, culture and objectives of the system users
– Process dynamism as the context of use of the system
evolves, users gain experience and system requirements
change.

Operational issues
• The influence of the system on the ways that work is
done
– Systems may profoundly change work practices that have
evolved over many years. These systems may therefore,
sometimes with good reason, be rejected by users

• The use of the system by different classes of operator
– Different classes of operator may use the system in different
ways and so may respond differently to proposed system
changes
– The organisational influence of one group may dominate
system design decisions

• The ability of the system to cope with unexpected
circumstances

Key points
• LSCITS are tightly integrated with socio-technical systems
• Socio-technical systems are systems whose boundaries include
the business processes that these systems are intended to
support and the system operators. They are influenced by a
wide range of regulatory, cultural and organisational factors.
• To develop LSCITS, we should extend traditional systems
engineering with socio-technical analyses to consider how
organisational factors should influence the overall STS design
• Socio-technical issues affect all LSCITS processes –
procurement, development and operation.


Socio technical systems (LSCITS EngD)

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