Systems Thinking as an Emergent Team Property: Ongoing Research into the Enablers and Barriers to Team-level Systems Thinking

Abstract

This paper describes ongoing research exploring systems thinking at the team level. Termed collaborative systems thinking by the authors, the concept of higher level systems thinking is envisioned as a means both to build workforce competency and to explicitly deal with system complexity at a higher level within an organization. This paper introduces the key research questions, an initial definition of collaborative systems thinking, demographic and technical motivators, and summarizes the research progress to date and plan for completion. The results of this research will inform the design of technical processes and provide empirical knowledge to support workforce development interventions aimed at developing systems thinking within engineering teams. The role of organizational culture is also considered as a factor in enabling collaborative systems thinking.