Empowering Engineers in a Digital Engineering Transition: Applying organizational psychology and systems thinking approaches to define the problem and to develop recommended actions

Abstract

AbstractAs an organization implements an enterprise organizational change: transition from Traditional Document‐based Systems Engineering (TDSE) to Digital Engineering (DE), engineers are critical in accepting and implementing the change. The DE transition impacts established engineering tools, processes, and practices in which the engineers have confidence and know well. Engineers have spent their careers developing a level of competence in TDSE. Uncertainty associated with this organizational change increases stress, decreases job satisfaction, and impacts commitment among engineers. The engineering culture reflects attitudes of resistance and uncertainty.This paper analyzes the DE transition from organizational psychology and systems thinking approaches. The combination of these two approaches enables the identification of an intervention and recommended actions to empower engineers in the DE transition. With consideration of the research findings in the organizational psychology literature search and applying systems thinking tools, three actions of the intervention are proposed focusing on knowledge transfer, training, and communication.