Engineering Change: Introducing Systems Thinking as an Engineering Leadership Skill

Emily Moore; Lisa Romkey; Amin Azad

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Special Session: Engineering Leadership—The Courage to Change
Tagged Division: Engineering Leadership Development Division (LEAD)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47273

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Paper Authors

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Emily Moore University of Toronto

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Emily Moore is the Director of the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (Troost ILead) at the University of Toronto. Emily spent 20 years as a professional engineer, first as an R&D engineer in a Fortune 500 company, and then leading

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Lisa Romkey University of Toronto orcid.org/0009-0006-0570-2732

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Lisa Romkey serves as Associate Professor, Teaching and Associate Director, ISTEP (Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice) at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the development of sociotechnical thinking and lifelong learning skills in engineering.

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Amin Azad University of Toronto

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Amin is a doctoral student at the University of Toronto’s Department of Chemical Engineering, pursuing a collaborative specialization in Engineering Education. Amin focuses on applying Systems Thinking Principles to Engineering Education and assessing its learning outcomes when solving wicked problems, especially in the field of Entrepreneurship. Amin obtained his MASc. and BASc from the University of Toronto, both in Industrial Engineering, and has worked as a consultant and researcher in tech companies.

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Abstract

As engineering leadership educators, we must constantly ask ourselves what skills, attitudes and perspectives students need to gain from our programs. If leadership is “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2010), we have to think about equipping students with the skills not only to influence others, but also to identify the goal; in engineering terms, to define the problem to be solved.

The problems that we face as a society are becoming more open, complex, dynamic, and networked: they cannot be solved by individual people in siloed disciplines, but rather will require an interdisciplinary approach. However, most engineering education does not give students the chance to explore complex problems. In a study of curricula for eight North American undergraduate engineering programs found that over 95% of engineering courses used well-structured problems (Schuelke-Leech, 2020); no courses engaged students on wicked problems – problems with multiple stakeholders and competing demands, which often contain ethical, social, political, or environmental dimensions.

Systems thinking has been described as a perspective, a language, and a set of tools (Monat and Gannon, 2015). System mapping is a methodology to help groups collaboratively build shared visualizations of the mental models of the systems they are trying to change, gaining insights into the complexities of a given issue (Johnson et al., 2019).

In a recently developed engineering leadership elective at the University of Toronto, engineering students from multiple disciplines are given an opportunity to investigate a wicked problem of their choice and to develop their systems thinking skills. Examples of problems explored include responsible mining in Chile, or improving transit access to underserved communities. Over the course of a semester, students work in teams to develop system maps that incorporate both the technical and the social aspects of their challenges; the visualizations enable them to identify leverage points in the system that might yield significant changes (Meadows, 1999). These leverage points can then be used to define the area of intervention, which may or may not require technical interventions at all.

This practice paper is aligned to the Inform strategic priority of the LEAD division. The paper will share observations from the first two offerings of the course, based on instructor reflections, student deliverables and semi-structured interviews conducted with students. Students were able to demonstrate significant engagement with wicked problems and achieve new insights, with students reporting that their engagement with systems thinking methodologies gave them new perspectives on the selected problems, augmented their decision making and enabled effective expression. The paper will offer concepts for bringing systems thinking to other engineering courses and for understanding systems thinking as a leadership skill.

Citation
Format

Moore, E., & Romkey, L., & Azad, A. (2024, June), Engineering Change: Introducing Systems Thinking as an Engineering Leadership Skill Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47273

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - As engineering leadership educators, we must constantly ask ourselves what skills, attitudes and perspectives students need to gain from our programs. If leadership is “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2010), we have to think about equipping students with the skills not only to influence others, but also to identify the goal; in engineering terms, to define the problem to be solved. 

The problems that we face as a society are becoming more open, complex, dynamic, and networked: they cannot be solved by individual people in siloed disciplines, but rather will require an interdisciplinary approach. However, most engineering education does not give students the chance to explore complex problems. In a study of curricula for eight North American undergraduate engineering programs found that over 95% of engineering courses used well-structured problems (Schuelke-Leech, 2020); no courses engaged students on wicked problems – problems with multiple stakeholders and competing demands, which often contain ethical, social, political, or environmental dimensions.

Systems thinking has been described as a perspective, a language, and a set of tools (Monat and Gannon, 2015). System mapping is a methodology to help groups collaboratively build shared visualizations of the mental models of the systems they are trying to change, gaining insights into the complexities of a given issue (Johnson et al., 2019).

In a recently developed engineering leadership elective at the University of Toronto, engineering students from multiple disciplines are given an opportunity to investigate a wicked problem of their choice and to develop their systems thinking skills. Examples of problems explored include responsible mining in Chile, or improving transit access to underserved communities. Over the course of a semester, students work in teams to develop system maps that incorporate both the technical and the social aspects of their challenges; the visualizations enable them to identify leverage points in the system that might yield significant changes (Meadows, 1999). These leverage points can then be used to define the area of intervention, which may or may not require technical interventions at all. 

This practice paper is aligned to the Inform strategic priority of the LEAD division. The paper will share observations from the first two offerings of the course, based on instructor reflections, student deliverables and semi-structured interviews conducted with students. Students were able to demonstrate significant engagement with wicked problems and achieve new insights, with students reporting that their engagement with systems thinking methodologies gave them new perspectives on the selected problems, augmented their decision making and enabled effective expression. The paper will offer concepts for bringing systems thinking to other engineering courses and for understanding systems thinking as a leadership skill. 



AU  - Emily Moore
AU  - Lisa Romkey
AU  - Amin Azad
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engineering Change: Introducing Systems Thinking as an Engineering Leadership Skill
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/47273
ER  -