An Engineering Discipline

Systems Engineering is a discipline whose practitioners design things that are complex and useful. The complex and useful things that we design are usually manufactured objects such as space probes, aircraft or medical devices. But we can also apply our skills to the design of social systems.

To do our work, we master many tools and techniques. The nature of our job requires us to coordinate our efforts with many other people. We have a professional organization: the International Council for Systems Engineering (INCOSE).

Systems engineering is a young discipline. It came about in the aerospace and defense industries during the Cold War. It has gradually spread into the transportation and medical device industry. It has the potential to be useful in many other areas.

The Systems Engineering Mindset

People who enjoy systems engineering and are good at it share a certain mindset.

We look at the big picture. We want to understand the context in which the thing we are designing will be used. We identify all the different kinds of people that will use what we are designing or will be affected by it. We try to see what we are designing from their perspectives. We are impatient with siloed thinking.

We start with human needs. We identify the human needs that we are trying to meet with what we are designing and base our design on those needs. Many other design disciplines are seduced by other goals. Software engineers add clever features that are not useful. Architects design buildings that are works of art but give low priority to the mundane needs of their inhabitants. Urban planners adopt designs that are out of sync with the needs of the citizens.

We think long term. We consider the entire lifetime of what we are designing. We design for creation, maintenance, changes and disposal.

We understand many points of view. We see many different ways of doing things and analyze what is good and what is bad about each way. This mindset entails a certain amount of empathy. It also entails a certain amount of comfort with ambiguity, inconsistency, conflict and compromise.

We think about what might go wrong. We know that nothing always works as planned and consider ways to mitigate any problems.

Systems Engineering Soft Skills

Systems engineers must master many technical skills. But there are also several crucial soft skills that we must cultivate to be truly effective.

Empathy. To truly understand user needs, we must be able to see the world from other people’s point of view. And to understand this point of view even when it isn’t explained very well. To make explicit the implicit assumptions inherent in any view. To be able to understand people that aren’t like us. To see what people have in common and what might be a basis for agreement.

Ability to Organize Ideas. Good systems engineers are able to create a mental framework for organizing ideas.

Spatial Thinking. Spatial thinking is the ability to map concepts or ideas into a two dimensional model such as an outline, graph or chart.

Ability to Synthesize. To create a good design requires synthesizing an enormous number of potential solutions to a large number of needs of several types of users. Good systems engineers can analyze, rearrange and recombine all this information into a satisfactory design. This is very difficult to do well. It is a skill that is acquired by learning from the example of people who have mastered the skill and from lots of practice.

Comfort Working with Many Different Kinds of People. Systems Engineering requires working with many people: users, customers, engineers, marketing people, program managers, regulatory authorities. People of different cultures and countries. People who know nothing about engineering, but a lot about the field of the intended product. People who love technology and people who hate it. Young people and old people. Extroverts and introverts. But all of these people have something to contribute to the success of the design, and a good systems engineer must ensure that all of these voices are heard.

Benefits of Systems Engineering

An organization that uses systems engineering to design a product is likely to see many benefits.

1. Customers will be more likely to buy a product designed by engineers who understand their needs. They may even pay more for it.
2. The product will be easier to manufacture because manufacturing experts helped design it.
3. The product will be easier to maintain because service experts helped design it.
4. The integration phase of product development will be quicker and smoother because the parts to be integrated have been designed to work together as a system. The company will save money on development costs and get the product to market more quickly.

Systems Engineering in the World

Given its many benefits, why hasn’t the use of systems engineering expanded much beyond areas where poor design will lead to catastrophic failures and loss of life?

Large organizations move slowly. And it generally takes a large organization to create the complex devices or systems that benefit the most from systems engineering.

The return on investment is hard to measure. Many of the benefits of using systems engineering are hard to measure. A company can’t run an experiment developing the same product twice – once using systems engineering and once not using systems engineering – so it can’t compare costs directly.

The return on investment is long term. Systems Engineering requires spending money up front for benefits that may not be realized for years. Many organizations have difficulty thinking ahead more than a year or two.

Systems engineering not widely known. Many organizations that could benefit from it don’t even know about it. And if they do know about it, they may have trouble finding people with the training, experience, mindset and soft skills to be effective in the job.

Who are Systems Engineers

The profession appeals to people all over the world. It seems to be somewhat more hospitable to women than other engineering disciplines. It is also more hospitable to older people than many other professions – perhaps because some of the mindsets and skills required to be a good systems engineer take decades to cultivate.