In this article, the author describes his PhD thesis, titled "An examination of the social systems of engineering projects," which was transdisciplinary in that it drew from bodies of knowledge in domains of engineering, management, sociology, education and philosophy. The thesis drew together threads of the representation of real-world entities as systems, the life-cycle of groups of people, the nature of problem-solving and related issues associated the learning processes in the development and application of new knowledge in a group. These threads were consolidated in a Social Systems Evaluation Framework (SSEF) that was based on the forms of capital concepts of Bourdieu, namely embodied, social, institutionalised, economic and objectified capital. The SSEF can facilitate the evaluation of the social system of an engineering project at any stage from initiation to disbandment and provides guidance on the encouragement of high performing teams or on the need for early intervention in a dysfunctional team by management. Furthermore, the author describes two areas of further research he did since the completion of the research for the thesis.