Using principles as activity drivers in human activity systems

Engineering activity possess robust methods for designing, realizing, and managing complex engineered systems. As engineered systems become more complex, engineering activity's complexity is growing along with it. Current engineering management tools and methods, although they serve well for many engineering activities, begin to fail when the complexity of the engineered systems exceeds a threshold. Part of the problem is that social, organizational, and psychological sciences have been integrated in limited capacity into engineering activity. Further, the methods and tools for managing engineering activities tend to be rigid and often do not adapt well to complex engineering environments. To address these limitations, the author proposes for the use of the purposeful human activity systems framework as a systems perspective on engineering activity. The framework provides a flexible approach to managing engineering activity by enabling the selection and application and effectiveness measurement of the best social, organizational, and psychological methods and tools according to the specific needs of the engineering organization.