The late Dr. Brian W. Mar used to say that System Engineering is a practical implementation of the Scientific Method, and I remain in agreement with his position on that subject. I think that we should look to the rationale for that method to express a more useful motivation for using SE techniques. Although it is not my normal bent to make prescriptive or authoritative assertions, this site walks right up to that edge and cranes a bit beyond: it treats SE as a collection of practices to mitigate cognitive bias during development, rather than as a strict progression from requirement through design to verification. It can seem like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, nerdy wordy stuff1, but if that motivational perspective is maintained, it all hangs together.
Aside
Justifications for System Engineering (SE) proliferate in the literature and on the web. Most are based on the avoidance of cost2. Unfortunately, it is difficult to show that System Engineering techniques will save money, particularly when it is observed that they add significant rigor and documentation. Objective proof3 of cost avoidance would require double-blind experimentation: repeated developmental projects in the same technological environment, with the same set of skills and inputs, with and without SE techniques, where no personnel were shared between the two (or more) implementations. It isn’t possible to control all of the variables to execute that process to successful completion. Neither is it affordable. It is reasonable to note that this conundrum is present with almost all cost avoidance. No such assertion is made here, so no such verification is necessary.
The site is organized into three mechanisms of publication:
– Exegeses: discussion for selected4 System Engineering concepts and practices in the best detail I can muster. These are essays exploring concepts and practices, and concrete examples thereof. Being exegetical rather the prescriptive, not all of them are “definitive” in nature.
– Things I Think I Know: relatively terse definitions and descriptions related to System Engineering5. This is a lexicon of words, phrases, and concepts under a career-long compilation that is (I think!) not yet quite complete.
– Release Notes : organized as a blog, wherein I promulgate pages and other stuff6.
In parallel with the three publication approaches, most pages in the site are tagged with topical categories. Any given page can touch on more than a single topic; the list of topics for each page is located in the margin. A drop-down index of topics is found nearby.
The “help” menu also leads to a list of foundational concept pages. The foundation pages can be used as points of entry into some of the major topics; the reader will probably note that those threads quickly begin to intertwine as they’re pulled.
Finally, because it is my particular take on the subject, all content and usages in this site is the responsibility of the author alone.
Footnotes- No, I don’t think that got away from me. But I don’t recommend blinking.[↩]
- Actually, many use the term “cost reduction“, but they always mean “cost avoidance“. [↩]
- That is, to verify the assertion.[↩]
- Selected by whom? By me, of course![↩]
- Most of the entries are serious, but there are a few of the other thing.[↩]
- Including, but not limited to, excuses for not working faster.[↩]