Motivating System Engineers

Although the importance of the practice of System Engineering (SE) is widely recognized, its effectiveness remains an elusive goal. Striving for effective SE implementation drives numerous process improvements initiatives largely focused on controlling process variability, and continually assessing SE process capability levels. Benchmarking surveys seem to indicate a positive correlation between higher SE process capability and project success, thus implying higher SE effectiveness. However, in practice there are several failed projects from executing organizations with highly rated SE process capability, and with high organizational maturity levels. Although a more capable SE process remains a necessary condition, we suggest it is not sufficient. Several other hard-to-quantify factors may be even far more critical in determining the SE effectiveness. Early industrial psychologists researched the conditions under which work performance could be more effective. Various theories have been developed by studying why and how human beings are motivated and how motivation impacts work performance. In this paper the motivation of system engineers and its impact on work performance are analyzed with respect to the three seminal motivational theories. Management roles enabling the effective SE are also analyzed to understand their impact on motivation within the organizational context. An integrated motivational framework is presented for improving the SE implementation and its effectiveness.