Posts in After Action Report
2021-05-19: There is No (Real) Systems Engineering Without Systems Thinking (Scott)

Mr. Zane Scott explains that there must be good, sound engineering paired with solid, intentional systems thinking for us to have a solid foundation for what we do as Systems Engineers. Too many times we take systems engineering to be a process - a checklist of activities we can do that will aggregate to “systems engineering.” Throw in “models” and we get “model-based systems engineering.” Without the understanding and application of fundamental first principles we can walk through the steps of the Systems Engineering processes and miss the real rewards. Mr. Scott explores the first principles of the systems thinking leg of systems engineering.


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2021-03-19: Negotiation, Persuasion and Conflict for Systems Engineers (Scott)

Mr. Scott's tutorial covered an important soft skill set that many technical professionals often neglect, but its soft skills that often are the determinant between an undistinguished and a distinguished performing professional. The ability to not just communicate, but to do it well, is often a pivotal factor for career advancement.

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2021-03-17: Digital Engineering Implementation Progress (Zimmerman)

Ms Zimmerman discusses the DoD's Digital Engineering Strategy and its implementation as seen by the OUSD(R&E) and explains its challenges and how this concept has added value. The DoD's Digital Engineering Strategy is to promote the use of digital representations of systems and components and the use of digital artifacts as a technical means of communication across a diverse set of stakeholders. The strategy addresses a range of disciplines involved in the acquisition and procurement of national defense systems, and it encourages innovation in the way we build, test, field, and sustain our national defense systems and how we train and shape the workforce to use these practices.

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2021-02-26: Lean Startup Method and Agile for Initial Project Planning (Pafford)

The INCOSE Chesapeake Chapter recently hosted member Mike Pafford, Past Chesapeake Chapter President, to provide a live tutorial covering the topic of using Lean Startup and Agile Methods in performing Initial Project Planning activities. He also provided to attendees a plethora of reference materials to include, references to detailed literature on the topic, open source tool-sets for use, an array of initial planning templates, and other materials. Attendees left the tutorial well armed to attack their own projects.

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2021-02-17: Interface Management – the Neglected Orphan of Systems Engineering (Davies)

Every interface is an opportunity to lose information, time, control and / or money through contention between stakeholders at either end. There are many issues surrounding Interface management and Paul Davies explores some of the characteristics of this missing material, and strings together some of the key concepts in best practice.

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2021 INCOSE International Workshop (IW) After Action Report

Mark Kaczmarek, ASEP, our very own INCOSE Chesapeake Chapter Membership Director, and Dave Alldredge, ESEP, went to the INCOSE International Workshop for 2021 and reports out on their experience. Out of the 689 attendees -- 27 were from the Chesapeake Chapter. If you went and would like to provide us a report, we’ll add it to this post. Send your experience to communications@incose-cc.org.

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2021-01-20: Lessons Learned from Fifty Years of Systems Engineering Experience

Dr. Eisner shared a system's engineer's retrospection of lessons to be shared with a future generation. Dr. Eisner has spent a lifetime of practice in the field of systems engineering. This lecture provided a "look back" over his 50-year career with his advice offered to the future generation of Systems Engineers.

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2020 INCOSE Chesapeake Chapter Annual Awards & Recognition Ceremony

The INCOSE Chesapeake Chapter Board of Directors wishes to thank our corporate sponsors, industry partners, lecturers, and volunteers for supporting the Chapter throughout the year. This Annual Awards & Recognition Ceremony is a culmination of another wonderful year of great events and services for the local Systems Engineering community.

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2020-11-18: Systems Engineering Evidence in Commercial Kitchens (Armstrong)

Jim Armstrong, ESEP, takes us on a visit to the kitchen at the Inn at Little Washington in order to discuss how and why it was so different from other commercial kitchens. The resulting analysis of how systems engineering has significant relationship to the design of a wide variety of commercial kitchens is provided in this presentation.

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2020-10-21: A New and Sparse Method of System Architecting (Eisner)

Dr. Eisner presented his new method for architecting systems based on his new Book "Systems Architecting Methods and Examples." The four-step method: (1) functional decomposition, (2) synthesis, includes a classic cost-effectiveness analysis (3) analysis, (4) preferred architecture selection. Ground-rules for the overall procedure include simplification, weighted evaluation criteria, and considerations on tradeoff and interoperability.

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2020-09-16: Systems Engineering the Conditions of the Possibility (Willett)

Dr. Keith D. Willett discusses the now and future discipline of systems engineering (SE v2.0) requiring tools to transcend this cause-effect approach and effectively embrace the nondeterministic, the openly defined, the blurred-boundary, the highly combinatorial if not infinite, and the adaptable. Systems engineers must design solutions to adapt to predictable and unpredictable change in order for the system to remain viable in the face of adversity (loss-driven) and relevant in the face of obsolescence (opportunity-driven). This After Action Report includes the briefing slides, screen-shots from the event and a link to the HD Video

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