Socio-Technical Systems

Socio-technical systems are systems which are developed and operated in a way where human, organizational and process factors merge with the technical aspects of the system. These types of systems cannot be developed and used just by considering its technical requirements and the infrastructure within which it will operate. Problems will arise if this is the case and these problems are caused by a disconnect between socio-technical issues and technical engineering issues. Too often IT professionals focus on technical details and not enough on people and organizational impact.

Let’s first consider Governmental and Environmental factors: There are laws for example which dictate system requirements in terms of health and safety, ergonomics and data protection. Distributors of systems which contravene these laws are liable to prosecution therefore requirements must be mindful of complying with these laws. Environmental factors could also dictate how the system is operated. Cloud providers allow us to outsource the heat and power requirements to large providers with geographically redundant data centres which fall in line with many company efficiency requirements as well as environmental benefits.

Successful organizations are organic structures which evolve to suit business objectives and market trends and the most effective IT systems are those which are aligned to these ever-changing business objectives. To this end socio-technical system must “be aware” of its purpose.  

The importance of the human factor in developing and interacting with socio-technical systems is apparent in the degree of awareness of the system to such human attributes as degree of risk-aversity, ego, creativity, attitude to authority, culture, social background, race and gender. All these factors will determine how successful a socio-technical system is once we deploy it in a live environment with real life users.