Building Collaboration Theory Across Education Science and Systems Engineering—The FINDUS Process for Collaboration

ABSTRACT Systems Engineering (SE) relies on industry–academia collaboration for much of its research. Such collaborations are frequently described valuable in practice. At the same time, there is a need to align between partners to maximize the value of collaboration through acknowledging and working with nuances between parties to share and develop knowledge. At its essence, collaborative efforts might not achieve complete partner alignment to drive value if not emphasized, which could be averted with foresight and planning efforts. In the educational sciences there is a rich history of collaboration, and many models and theories for multi‐stakeholder collaboration have emerged over time. In this work, we investigate the potential carry‐over from educational sciences to collaboration between industry and academia in systems engineering, and discuss how an existing model of activity theory could be used to increase value in collaborative efforts between different partners. We formulate a model of activity theory applicable for systems engineering and present the Frame, Investigate, Negotiate, Do, Understand, Share (FINDUS) process to help practitioners apply the model pragmatically. The FINDUS process is presented through a set of questions that can be used as a checklist during collaboration.