Contextual Engineering is a vast and growing discipline of engineering, encompassing technical design, technology, and its relation to people and place. It uses contextual principles to understand how entities work together, problem solve, develop, and interact. Depending on the discipline or “flavor”, every contextual engineer approaches engineering design in the same way. The decision making processes and methodologies are the same, whether it is a civil engineer approaching the problem or an electrical engineer. The contextual engineering methodology itself is generalizable and provides a framework for addressing community needs. One strategy, known as the 3-4-5 method, is highly useful to a contextual engineer when approaching a problem. The 3-4-5 method includes the three levels of perception, the four quadrants of context, and the five influences that govern technical appropriateness. Therefore, the 3-4-5 method remains a constant strategy across all flavors of contextual engineering.
However, the specific components of the 3-4-5 method are subject to change if the type of contextual engineer changes. For the four quadrants of context, the engineering design might be about the same for the contextual engineer, but the stakeholders, place basis, and global influence would differ. I would say that the five influences are about the same between each flavor of engineering where educational, cultural, political, mechanical, and economic factors would be assessed in the same way.

Every stakeholder in an international engineering project brings along their own set of perspectives, motivations, and objectives. The concepts that fluctuate between each flavor of contextual engineering would be user population and collaborating stakeholders. Understanding the influence and interest of each stakeholder is important when approaching technical design projects. Contextual engineers of different disciplines may come across different kinds of stakeholders and users when working on a project. Let’s look at a hydraulic fracturing example from the perspective of a petroleum company. The petroleum engineers would view the land as a resource to extract natural gases, whereas the indigenous populations would frown upon the exploitation of their lands. The differences in perspective are what distinguishes the different disciples of contextual engineering. Furthermore, the stakeholders for an industrial project setting would be different from the stakeholders for a humanitarian project, where a mechanical engineer is tackling the industrial project and a civil engineer is handling the humanitarian project. There might be some power dynamics embedded in the stakeholder relationships that could cause issues if the project moves forward in the future. Furthermore, it is important that the user population is heard and incorporated to achieve the desired outcome.

Each flavor of engineering is unique, but the decision making process remains constant. The concepts that fluctuate lie in the advancing perception and the global, local, people, and process aspects of engineering design. The 3-4-5 method is a template that contextual engineers use across all disciples, but the content itself is distinguishable. It is interesting to see how different project scopes span out when a contextual engineer tackles a problem. The different flavors of engineering is a resource that many users can benefit from.