Design Change Propagation in Complex Systems: Industry Processes and Perceptions

Unpredicted change propagation remains a large issue for industries dealing with complex system design despite the numerous tools and processes developed by academics and professionals to help mitigate its effects. All changes, and change propagations, are not necessarily undesirable since change is instrumental to innovation, but left unchecked, unpredicted change propagations in particular can snowball—creating significant cost increases, time delays, and quality downgrades. This study presents the findings stemming from interviews with 32 experienced technical professionals, all of whom are accustomed to working on design in complex systems. There was no standardized formal approach to these problems that had been adopted by a majority of organizations within this study, but several themes were consistently present. Informal communication between people on teams was the backbone to collaboration on these types of projects, even when formal change management structures were put in place. Consequently, the state of the relationships between people working on the same project could have an impact on the project’s outcome. Furthermore, the culture surrounding change at the organization can also have an impact, as it shaped how design change management activities were seen and the effect they could have on people’s careers. Time constraints added pressure to every situation they were a part of, and could prevent “best practices” or new processes and tools from being enacted. This study introduces (1) several potential Change Propagation Risk Factors to help shed light on which types of project circumstances have the highest influence on how much of an issue unpredicted change propagation is for that workplace, and (2) the Project Management Pyramid, a new visualization of ties between project resources based on the Project Management Triangle, but with the added dimension of professional relationships. This area of research would benefit from future works that gather a higher number of data points than the interview format supports, apply objective forms of measurement to confirm consequences and situations described by industry professionals, or develop a reliable metric for individual contributions to system level successes.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Willis, Robin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Yang, Maria C.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151854

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/151854