The chapter also illustrated how the conceptual architecture described in Section 3.3.1 can be readily instantiated as a tool to identify incidental and emerging risk. Results indicated promise that sociotechnical risks can be identified early on in the development effort and dealt with. The case study presented illustrated the possible positive effects of employing this approach.
The quest to find more effective methodologies for system development efforts continues to be a research challenge across numerous industries. While improving digital representation can result in faster, more accurate system development, it still does not address the most frequent reason for project failures, the misalignment between stakeholders’ beliefs and expectations. In addition to the obvious challenge of mismatched expectations, misalignment can have a more insidious risk. When belief structures are misaligned, noncomplementary actions, and even actions that are cross‐purposes, can be taken. Quantitative sociotechnical modeling and risk analysis have the potential to significantly improve successful development by explicitly monitoring and analyzing belief structures and making proactive predictions of emerging risks. Mature sociotechnical modeling as part of the SE capability development is the realization of the promise of Epoch 4.
The authors’ affiliation with The MITRE Corporation is provided for identification purposes only and is not intended to convey or imply MITRE’s concurrence with, or support for, the positions, opinions, or viewpoints expressed by the author. This paper has been approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited; Case Number 20‐1208.
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