Our Challenge

In this course we will holistically assess complex system behaviors by examining their various complexities, including technical, human, political, resource, and environmental processes. Thereby, we aim to understand how changes and various design solution alternatives impact the extended life of systems and organizations. Exploring how to manage changes in the design, development, and deployment of systems requires individuals to conceptualize and understand the inherent complexities. It also requires ongoing planning and implementing organizational, team, or individual change within the working environment. In this course you will increase your knowledge of and skills in the change making process which has many different layers: cognitive, behavioral, and affective. You will also learn to assess system behaviors by examining the various complexities of engineering systems, including technical, human, political, resource, and environmental processes. The world is filled with messy, complex, ‘wicked’ problems. These issues are multi-layered, circular, and systemic in nature. Yet, many engineers, managers, and analysts attempt to simplify these systems into linear models with simple relationships. The consequence of this approach is that adopted interventions tend to only work for the short term, if they work at all, or have significant unintended consequences.