Toward an Interdisciplinary Engineering and Management of Complex IT-Intensive Organizational Systems

TLDR

Rapid advances in information technology have driven the widespread deployment of complex IT‑intensive organizational systems (CITOS) in large and midsized organizations, but the resulting engineering, management, and research complexity has increased dramatically, creating new technical and organizational challenges. This article aims to review the engineering, management, and research complexity issues surrounding CITOS and to develop the rationale for two propositions: that an interdisciplinary engineering and management body of knowledge can address these challenges, and that this can be achieved by integrating systems engineering and software engineering foundations, principles, methods, tools, and best practices. The authors employ a conceptual research method to examine CITOS complexity and to formulate the propositions, drawing on systems and software engineering disciplines. The discussion presents initial benefits, critical barriers, and effectiveness measures for implementing the proposed interdisciplinary approach.

Abstract

An accelerated scientific, engineering, and industrial progress in information technologies has fostered the deployment of Complex Information Technology (highly dependent) Organizational Systems (CITOS). The benefits have been so strong that CITOS have proliferated in a variety of large and midsized organizations to support various generic intra-organizational processes and inter-organizational activities. But their systems engineering, management, and research complexity have been substantially raised in the last decade, and the CITOS realization is presenting new technical, organizational, management, and research challenges. In this article, we use a conceptual research method to review the engineering, management, and research complexity issues raised for CITOS, and develop the rationality of the following propositions: P1: a plausible response to cope with CITOS is an interdisciplinary engineering and management body of knowledge; and P2: such a realization is plausible through the incorporation of foundations, principles, methods, tools, and best practices from the systems approach by way of systems engineering and software engineering disciplines. Discussion of first benefits, critical barriers, and effectiveness measures to reach this academic proposal are presented.