Towards Agile Worth-Oriented Systems Engineering for Future (AWOSE 4F) – Considering Sustainability Goals and Issues in Development Processes

Abstract: The Agile Worth-Oriented Systems Engineering (AWOSE) approach is a flexibly applicable methodology to identify and assess potential ethical issues with respect to a (socio-)technical system and systematically incorporate them in a corresponding agile development process. Originally, AWOSE used the model for the ethical evaluation of socio-technical arrangements (MEESTAR), which refers to ethical dimensions exclusively focused on the direct needs of human stakeholders, and fuzzily demanded to extend these with environment- and nature-related aspects. This part of the methodology was meant to merely safeguard against potential harm, whereas an independent set of “worth elements” describing the intended positive outcomes of the system’s usage was pursued as the primary goals of development. Both potential ethical issues and intended worth were then integrated into so-called Worth Maps and explicitly connected to associated system features and components. The Worth Maps then facilitated appropriate design decisions during agile development of the system.As a proposed advancement and tentative successor, AWOSE for Future (AWOSE 4F) strives to concretize the consideration of non-human life and emphasize its interdependence with human requirements based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations.Previous research on sustainability in the context of software and other information and communication technology-based system development commonly distinguished between “green IT” or “software sustainability”, i.e., making technical systems themselves greener, and “green by IT” or “sustainability by software”, i.e., using technical systems as tools to encourage sustainable action. AWOSE 4F can potentially address both of these, depending on the placement of SDGs within Worth Maps. Using SDGs to extend or replace the "ethical dimensions" of MEESTAR should ensure that the system itself is made sufficiently sustainable, whereas establishing SDGs as “intended worth" would foster encouragement of sustainable actions or decisions through the system. In principle, AWOSE 4F could be used in the research and development of a broad range of different upcoming technical systems. Setting SDGs as intended worth appears especially promising for the creation of future cognitive assistance systems that shall help human users select and execute sustainable (micro) actions in daily life, as well as for making appropriate long-term strategic decisions.

Keywords: Human Factors, Ethics, MEESTAR, Worth, Agile Development, Sustainable Development Goals

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004252

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