Rapid evolution of all your systems-problem or opportunity?

Abstract

Engineering practices for land, sea, air and spacecraft have been driven by different forces and priorities. These forces and priorities are now converging and alert leaders recognize that engineering practices must converge, as well. Ideally the engineering profession will seek an intelligent convergence; one that preserves the current practices that are future-sufficient while innovating new practices where necessary. All engineers across these industries have much to learn from one another. However, the degree to which we converge the upstream, systems engineering practices will be the major determinant as to whether all other engineering disciplines will collaborate-or collide. Systems engineering practitioners and managers must respond to two kinds of challenges. Firstly, how to model and specify increasingly encompassing "systems of systems" in a way that proactively orchestrates their conjoint evolution? Secondly, how to manage change-profitably-which amounts to executing the classic ECP>ECN>ECO cycle with ten-fold more ramifications in each change while taking only one-tenth the time for change processing and decision. This paper explores the problem, identifies key, future-sufficient practices and describes the concepts, technologies and behaviors that will enable Change Proficiency.