When Models and Metaphors are Dangerous

I just finished watching the documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" by Adam Curtis. The entire series of three 1 hour shows is a real challenge. I say this because of the way Mr. Curtis makes such seemly tenuous connections between people and the flow of their ideas across modern history. His assertion is that these ideas together have forged our present day perception of reality. False perception is more like it.

SEs as Creative Leaders

Image from NY Times by Margaret Riegel

John Thomas has just begun his reign as the President of all of INCOSE at the IW2012. He's posted several Position Papers on Systems Engineering that are well worth the read.   I briefly talked to John after the CAB panel during the IW2012 and mentioned the concept that was put forth a few years back, "The MFA is the new MBA".  (This was in light of his remarks on SEs taking a greater role in leadership.)   I found an article from the NY Times and one from the Harvard Business Review that discuss this notion. However, the main point I wanted to highlight was the incredible need that organizations and businesses have for creative leaders. And SEs should answer this call. It's time for SEs to embrace their creativity and lead organizations to greater heights of technical glory.

Solving Systems Engineering problems on the Back of a Napkin

Paul Martin's artifact from a Dan Roam seminar,
a napkin depicting the "visual thinking codex"

The other day I was able to go to a lecture by Dan Roam, the author of the wildly popular book, "The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures."  His topic was, "What to do when words don't work" and his seemingly outrageous claim the, "You can solve our problem with pictures." What problems? Any problem. And what pictures? Well you need just a few.

Predicting or Creating the Future?

In the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of THE FUTURIST is Thomas Frey's "Eight Grand Challenges for Human Advancement." He proposes several very science fictiony things. All the challenges push past beyond our knowledge of physics. That's a good thing because I don't believe we're even close to understanding how the universe works. But what if they did come to pass? They would have some very far reaching consequences.

Can Systems Engineering account for a corrupt heart?

I was reading a Washington Post editorial a few weeks back, dealing with the tragic events around the July 23rd train accident in China.  What got me was the line:

"the government was forced to admit that a design flaw was partly to blame for the accident, and not only a lightning strike"

Looking into this further I found another article which details more issues:

"workers on duty were inadequately trained and had failed to notice or fix the malfunction."

What concerns me is the idea that these design flaws and training failures could be caused by "corruption accusations against high-ranking railway officials."

Style vs Substance?

Where's the fight?

Every now and then I get an invitation in the mail to partake in a one day seminar for Edward Tufte's “Presentation Data & Information.” I've never been able to go but the invitation I receive has a wonderful reproduction of an 1869 information map by Charles Joseph Minard. On one graphic, Minard depicts multiple variables: size of the Napoleon's army, temperature, location, time in months and direction of army’s movement on a map. It really is a well thought out graphic and it inspires me to create better and more informative graphics.

Emergence: The Mystery of Systems Engineering

It’s a well know cartoon. Two scientists are gazing at an eminence blackboard filled from top to bottom with a complicated formula filled with mathematical equations and process jargon and symbols. One of the scientists points to an area of the blackboard where the process states, “Then a Miracle Occurs.” He explains to his partner, “I think we need to be more explicit here in step 29.” I can’t but laugh every time and yet it’s so profoundly true it makes me shudder.

Our whole Systems Engineering profession is build around decomposition, implementation, integration and verification. And so this mystery (or miracle) of emergence is just assumed or taken for granted. I teach this stuff at the graduate level and even I am unsure how to explain why properties and/or capabilities will emerge when you put together components of a system. Even though these various individual pieces have none of the properties and/or capabilities of the larger system. It just happens.

My interest in emergence came about when I was exploring the phenomenon of "Unintended Consequences." I wanted to know if there was a way we could plan and manage these unexpected results of our system development efforts. “Unintended Consequences” are basically unwanted emergent properties. And just like the senseless task of looking for an “unknown, unknown” risk, how can you predict the unpredictable?

You can’t, but you can at least appreciate the mystery unfolding before your very eyes.

There is an excellent book appropriately called, Emergence, by Steven Johnson which explores this topic in detail from a more societal point of view.

By the way, another really great exploration of Emergence was also done by one of my favorite radio show and podcast, “Radio Lab.” It's well worth a listen.