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Improvements to Information Management Systems Through Socio-Technical Systems Design Principles

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Submitted By moroccomole2004
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Pages 6
Socio-technical systems are organizational systems that are intended to help deliver some organizational or business goal. The emergence of Information Systems (IS) technology has added a new dynamic to socio-technical systems which requires additional planning considerations to meet these organizational or business goals. Applying proven design principles will lead to better integration and management of information technology. “Socio-technical systems include one or more technical systems but, crucially, also include knowledge of how the system should be used to achieve some broader objective. This means that these systems have defined operational processes, include people (the operators) as inherent parts of the system, are governed by organizational policies and rules and may be affected by external constraints such as national laws and regulatory policies.” (Sommerville, 2003) There are three primary factors when utilizing socio-technical systems designing principals in developing information systems, the social or human element, the technology systems factor and the processes, both input and output. “Principles do not constitute a design process. Design as a craft involves exploration, experiment, elaboration and elimination, trial and error, all with the intention of making the most coherent and expressive use of an opportunity framed by a set of outcome goals and constraints.” (Berniker, 1992)
In theory the implementation of technology should improve a socio-technical systems but it is technology which proves to be difficult to design around socio-technical system. “In the middle of the 20th century some of the optimistic predictions of the impact of technology on business efficiency and productivity were being confounded. There were many examples of the introduction of technology being associated with implementation problems often linked to

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