Abstract
As further background for this Special Issue, this paper introduces a sampling of the findings of a National Research Council Committee on Human-Systems Design Support for Changing Technology. The paper introduces the Incremental Commitment Model of system development that was designed to accommodate the needs of the human-system integration (HSI) community. The committee viewed effective integration of human-system issues as requiring (a) stakeholder satisficing—solutions that meet acceptability criteria of all stakeholders; (b) incremental growth of system definition and stakeholder commitment; (c) iterative and concurrent system definition and development; (d) HSI risk analysis and risk management in concert with that of the other engineering disciplines involved in a project; and (e) HSI outcomes or deliverables designed specifically to be shared and understood by the other stakeholders. As the committee members looked to the future, they envisioned a point when it would be possible to develop a fully integrated HSI development methodology. They also foresaw a time when HSI might become an independently recognized discipline and more HSI specialists would be qualified to lead project teams, placing the discipline in a more commanding role in the system development process.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.