Submarine Systems Development as a Lens for CSE Progress: Pushing the Envelope of CSE Methods

Abstract

Assessing what progress has been made in cognitive systems engineering since Woods & Roth's 1988 book chapter on the topic is a huge challenge. This paper uses ongoing submarine domain cognitive systems engineering (CSE) work to highlight critical issues raised by Woods & Roth in 1988, particularly with respect to contributions being made towards addressing these issues. Three areas where methods continue to evolve to push the state of the art in CSE are described here. The first area is integration of methods and results gained from cognitive work analysis and cognitive task analysis together to address mismatches in how systems support cognitive work. Assessing how well systems support cognitive work and methods for eliciting team sensemaking knowledge, are elaborated as well. Due to constraints on publication of data, we focus on methods and processes that stretch the current envelope of CSE, as opposed to outcome or results.