Quantifying the Complexity of Socio-technical Systems – A Generic, Interdisciplinary Approach

In the last decades, much effort has been invested to explore the phenomenon of complexity, aiming at a better understanding of systems to be able to cope with today's challenges of Systems Engineering. Most of the published approaches and methodologies assume complexity only as a system property and neglect human perception and interaction within the system. Therefore, we combine the Systems Engineering perspective of complexity with results from psychological research and present an interdisciplinary approach to describe and quantify complexity in socio-technical systems. This contribution supports Systems Engineers during the whole system lifecycle by pinpointing the technical and social variables which lead to complexity.