Mapping Causes and Consequences of Decision-Making Challenges with Systems Engineering Experts

In high-tech systems design there is tension between the aim for short time to market and high performance. Systems engineers therefore have to ensure high quality decision-making in the design process. In previous work we showed that systems engineering experts from the industrial partner in our research project saw pre-decision alignment as one of the most important factors for decision quality. Alignment was at the same time also seen as challenging. To work towards better quality decision-making in a systems engineering context, we developed a DRM impact model in this work for a consistent picture, together with our industrial partner. We use this model to identify root causes for alignment challenges and give a possible solution direction. Our model shows how the effort required for alignment for design decisions is increased by the large number of stakeholders and knowledge fragmentation resulting from the size and complexity of an organization. The consequences of this extra required effort is a longer time to market for new products and potentially lower decision quality, which lead to lower value for the customers and lower profitability of the organization. The model shows how a potential support can impact the effort required for alignment and thereby lead to better decision-making. We end with a concept description of a support that will be further developed in our project.