A crude depiction of the notion that, as time goes by, System Engineering practices deal with smaller and smaller pieces of the system…but, eventually, they start stitching things back into bigger chunks.
I have significant issues with the “V” notion as a primary training tool and process descriptor because I don’t think it describes the job very well. It fails to communicate that the System Engineer’s perspective must simultaneously look “up and out” and “down and in” at all times. Therefore (among other failures), it fails to identify the notion of “System Integration” during the design phase: it treats “integration” as a concept of putting the pieces together, ignoring the idea that we proactively, multi-laterally negotiate across lower CI boundaries as the designs are developed. During this process, we revise specifications, negotiate Part I ICD’s, and identify the necessary contents of Part II ICD’s, all of which contribute directly to FCA and PCA. This is a particularly important concept when reacting to the vicissitudes of developmental fortune.