Reference:Principles of STS Analysis and Design/Epilogue
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Some Principles of Sociotechnical Systems Analysis and Design was originally published in 1992 by the Dr. Eli Berniker for the School of Business Administration, Pacific Lutheran University and is copyright Dr. Eli Berniker. Reproduced here with permission.
| Cover page | Introduction | Philosophical Premises and Values | Design Process | Structuring Work Groups | Work Design | Continuity | Epilogue | References |
Social Teams or Self-Regulating Work Groups?
It should be clear to the reader that these principles do not constitute a 'recipe' or method for designing effective work teams. They are guides to critical evaluation of design alternatives making clear some of the differences between the sociotechnical systems approach and traditional job design. The need for principles is demonstrated by an issue that has emerged among work design practitioners in recent years. If the outcome of a sociotechnical systems analysis and design is going to be a self-regulating work group, why not simply organize teams and train workers for team work? Why execute complex analyses and test designs against lists of principles? The counter-question is: How will you design the work of a work team? An effective and productive team is not simply a better functioning social system. If the core problems of a work system were only organizational, we could automate and eliminate people. Significant and meaningful change in the workplace that can achieve the dual goals of improved Quality of Working Life and improved performance requires an understanding of technical system contingencies. The primary activity within the work group is work, not social interaction. The analysis and design process are necessary to create work roles that integrate social and psychological needs with technical opportunities. The principles of sociotechnical systems design outline an invention process that assures the integrity of the design with respect to its values, its technological challenges, and the productive purposes of the organization.
Principles and Design
Principles do not constitute a design process. Design as a craft involves exploration, experiment, elaboration and elimination, trial and error, all with the intention of making the most coherent and expressive use of an opportunity framed by a set of outcome goals and constraints. Principles give direction to the process, suggest innovative premises and provide an anchor for what is necessarily a creative sensemaking process. A design team enacts the organization-to-be as a vision of the future, an initial set of reasonable organizational prescriptions and specifications for a technical system to be built. The principles of sociotechnical systems design are intended to provide an intelligible basis for such a process of workplace innovation.
