Based on the ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor, 1911, scientific management is a strictly Modernist approach that decomposes each work task down to its elemental actions, analyzes the dimensions of those actions (e.g. speed, duration, strength, cost), and recomposes a new workflow based on this dimensional analysis of elemental actions. The new workflow is then controlled through heavy regulation to ensure that the labour meets the expected dimensional constraints. The traditional regulating force was a supervising manager (social control), but as Braverman, 1974 argues, the contemporary preference is increasingly shifting towards embedding workflow decisions into the technology the labour must use. In this way, the technology can then control the labour. Kraft, 1977 argues that software is the most idealized technology method of control.

Winograd, Flores, 1986 suggest this rationalistic tradition comprises of the following set of practices (as qtd. in Greenbaum and Kyng, 1991a, p.7):

1. Characterize the situation in terms of identifiable objects with well-defined properties.
2. Find general rules that apply to situations in terms of those objects and properties.
3. Apply the rules logically to the situation of concern, drawing conclusions about what should be done. (p.15)

This tradition has its roots in Cartesian philosophy. Problems are solved through divide and conquer by breaking problems down into subproblems, and then breaking down the subproblems, into problems small enough to solve. The global solution is constructed by recomposing and integrating the solutions to these smallest problems. Furthermore, this process is done objectively, through impartial observation of the world rather than direct participation. The Cartesian scientist or designer constructs his or her model of the world away from the world itself; or as Ehn, Kyng, 1989 say, he or she "goes home to find the truth" (p.52). And often it seems that, much like Des Cartes' Vortices, systems designers fail to validate their bogus model before unleashing it on the world.

Because of the management-centric approach, systems designers in the scientific management approach tend to view the application from the top of the organization, view the organization as a formally described structure, see workflows as algorithmic procedures, and view labour as (information) processing systems that simply enact the algorithms assigned to them Ehn, Kyng, 1984.

Given a definition of labour as cogs in the machine, labour becomes reduced to dimensional analysis on the same level as a machine part. The name of this field of analysis is ergonomics. Ergonomics studies how to more efficiently meld the human to the operation of the machine. In contemporary design, where workers use and are used by software, this field has been specialized to human factors analysis.