Designing Cognitive Viability in Complex Service Systems: Attention as a Systemic Constraint

ABSTRACT

Contemporary service systems increasingly rely on human cognition as their primary regulatory mechanism, yet organisational designs continue to treat attention as an elastic and expendable resource. This paper advances a systems‐based reframing of cognitive sustainability by conceptualising human attention as a systemic constraint in complex, time‐bounded service systems. Drawing on cybernetics, the Theory of Constraints, and cognitive and behavioural science, the paper introduces the Attention–Execution Nexus (AEN), a minimal model linking regulatory capacity (attention) to system throughput, service quality and viability. The framework identifies three recurrent forms of cognitive waste—context switching waste, goal ambiguity waste and incomplete kit waste—that function as variety amplifiers, overwhelming the regulator and triggering reinforcing feedback loops of inefficiency and depletion. To operationalise these dynamics, the paper proposes Wasted Organiser Attention Time (WOAT) as a heuristic construct for making cognitive waste visible as a system variable rather than an individual deficit. Using event delivery systems as an illustrative context, the paper demonstrates how cognitive overload emerges from socio‐technical architecture rather than workload volume alone. The study contributes to systems research by integrating behavioural evidence with systemic design principles and by offering actionable insights for enhancing cognitive viability, resilience and purposeful control in human‐centred service systems.