Reflective practice in engineering design

摘要

In the construction industry, we need to be outward looking and realistic about all the issues that influence the success of our work. Realizing needs and understanding the behaviour of people is at the root of success or failure. Of course vast resources are applied to such issues under headings like: marketing, politics, sociology, psychology, human factors, and so on. The analysis of reflective practice makes explicit that which has always been a fundamental basis for engineering decision. In so doing it introduces a systematic framework and some tools to link more clearly the behaviour of people to the normal systematic processes we apply to engineering, such as planning and performance analysis. That this is needed is illustrated by the following brief illustrative example.