2021-06-16: System's Thinking as it applies to Systems Engineering (Kasser)
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2021
by George Anderson
Approximately 50 INCOSE members tuned in to hear Dr. Kasser’s presentation. More significantly, 125 registered for the Zoom event indicating strong interest in his work. He needs no introduction to the older generation of INCOSE members as his publications, awards and papers have been widely circulated.
Speaker: Dr Joseph E. Kasser
He warns us in the introduction of this presentation that we may be offended but that his objective is to get us to think. Getting systems engineers to think objectively and constructively about his ideas is an honorable challenge given the volume of other competing sources promising minimum energy paths to success. We heard about frameworks, architecture tools, standards, academic courseware and how we as systems engineers could do a better job in all these areas. Dr. Kasser is not alone in his criticisms, but he has a polished and articulate approach to instruction that greatly enhances the messages. These diverse subjects are further treated in his many published books, papers, and YouTube videos.
INCOSE International figured in some of his criticism and hopefully the significance was not lost on the newer SE professionals. He pointed out that INCOSE SE training and handbooks were lacking in consistency. Most of the senior members of INCOSE are already aware of the organization’s many challenges and he is not alone in focusing on inconsistencies. Another member wrote a paper criticizing the much earlier version of ISO 15288, the International Systems Engineering Standard which is the basis for the INCOSE Handbook.
Many can admire his broad approach taken to describe the SE “elephant in the room” and some would have to think a bit to appreciate the reasons for his dissonant feelings about bubble diagrams, V diagrams, MBSE and DoDaf. Also important is the indictment of SE education and the inconsistent, incomplete, and disordered state of SE standards and textbooks. There is plenty to think about in these areas and very appropriate to alert everyone to the confusion, and lack of consensus on the academic front. [Perhaps not so new since Galileo and Newton had their critics.]
For those that did not take notes I would like to mention two reinforcing concepts mentioned to support his ideas. Master’s Hammer and Miller’s law. The first is better known as the saying: “To a hammer every problem looks like a nail.” and is used to illustrate the over emphasis on tools in SE practice. Miller’s law is applied to the complexity of bubble diagrams to invoke a rule-of-thumb theory that the mind can store only 7 plus or minus 2 items at a time. Had there been more time perhaps Moore’s, Metcalf’s and Conway’s laws would have appeared in support of the complexity, architecture, and human bias discussions. Invoking these laws has been effective in recent discussions concerning systems thinking.
I found that the best discussion was on the INCOSE promotion of MBSE. DoD, and thus much of industry, now appear to be moving to digital engineering with little thanks to INCOSE or systems engineers. Perhaps digital engineering combined with AGILE software processes will be the next education priority.
Thank you Dr. Kasser for stimulating our systems thinking neurons.