Heuristic methods have provided, to differing degrees of success, the means to design and manage the human activity systems that support the realization of engineered systems. However, as the complexity of engineering systems has increased, the effectiveness of the heuristic methods to design and manage the realization of the system has decreased. Furthermore, the constrains that heuristic methods inherently possess limit their evolution and the ability of systems and engineering managers to understand how emergence in human activity systems rises and how can it be managed. Von Bertalanffy argued that deriving a theory of universal principles applying to systems in general is imperative. Considering that human activity systems are notional systems, which express purposeful human activities and can be used to study possible changes in complex real-world situations, then a team is defined as the elemental form of a human activity system. In this case, a team is an emergent result of individuals joining into human activity systems. In this research, the authors propose to study teams using systems principles Rousseau proposed. Gaining understanding of the principles that drive the emergence of the capabilities of teams and human activity systems will assist systems and engineering managers efficiently design and manage complex human activity systems.