A socio-technical system is a collection of people, projects, processes and products that engage in an exchange relationship with one another:
People translate, transform and communicate within the system, and between the system and its environment
Projects and Processes discover, interpret, constrain or transform aspects of the system (e.g. software, physical surroundings, laws, regulations, standards, and quality management systems)
Products result from projects and processes, and provide a snapshot of the state of understanding at a particular time (e.g. documents, artifacts, software, hardware, and data)
People clearly provide the “social” part of the socio-technical system. Projects, processes and products are the mechanisms that people use to construct material objects and promote progress in general. As a result, they form the “technical” part of the socio-technical system.