Engineering decision making and design requires collaboration between groups from different disciplines, each with different tools, vocabulary, and concerns. Traditional engineering decision‐making tools are generally based on understanding the decision makers’ values, modeling uncertainty with probability, and selecting the alternative that maximizes utility. This rational approach to decision making may not be well understood or used by many stakeholders involved in the engineering design process. Constructing narratives, a basic means of human communication, may aid in engineering communication and comprehension and help with decision making. Narratives represent events by means of a story and usually include characters or agents who cause events and to whom events happen. This paper recommends three methods for how the use of narrative can be applied to the area of engineering decision making. These methods include connecting the decision maker to the analysis, creating narrative simulations for training decision makers, and fostering consensus in problems with multiple stakeholders. An illustrative example of designing a better cookstove for the developing world demonstrates the role that understanding narratives of various stakeholders can play for accomplishing complex systems engineering.
MacKenzie, Cameron A., et al. "Integrating narratives into decision making for complex systems engineering design issues." Systems Engineering, vol. 23, no. 1, Sep. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21507
MacKenzie, Cameron A., Bryden, Kristy A., & Prisacari, Anna A. (2019). Integrating narratives into decision making for complex systems engineering design issues. Systems Engineering, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21507
MacKenzie, Cameron A., Bryden, Kristy A., and Prisacari, Anna A., "Integrating narratives into decision making for complex systems engineering design issues," Systems Engineering 23, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1002/sys.21507
@article{osti_1560760,
author = {MacKenzie, Cameron A. and Bryden, Kristy A. and Prisacari, Anna A.},
title = {Integrating narratives into decision making for complex systems engineering design issues},
annote = {Abstract Engineering decision making and design requires collaboration between groups from different disciplines, each with different tools, vocabulary, and concerns. Traditional engineering decision‐making tools are generally based on understanding the decision makers’ values, modeling uncertainty with probability, and selecting the alternative that maximizes utility. This rational approach to decision making may not be well understood or used by many stakeholders involved in the engineering design process. Constructing narratives, a basic means of human communication, may aid in engineering communication and comprehension and help with decision making. Narratives represent events by means of a story and usually include characters or agents who cause events and to whom events happen. This paper recommends three methods for how the use of narrative can be applied to the area of engineering decision making. These methods include connecting the decision maker to the analysis, creating narrative simulations for training decision makers, and fostering consensus in problems with multiple stakeholders. An illustrative example of designing a better cookstove for the developing world demonstrates the role that understanding narratives of various stakeholders can play for accomplishing complex systems engineering.},
doi = {10.1002/sys.21507},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1560760},
journal = {Systems Engineering},
issn = {ISSN 1098-1241},
number = {1},
volume = {23},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)},
year = {2019},
month = {09}}
Miller, Simon W.; Simpson, Timothy W.; Yukish, Michael A.
ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Volume 3A: 39th Design Automation Conferencehttps://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2013-13098
ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Volume 3A: 39th Design Automation Conferencehttps://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2013-13629