Explore the issues involved in implementing Systems Engineering in an “organization” that is associated with engineered products and wants to or could gain value from the application of Systems Engineering.
The mission of the working group is to produce guidance for members of INCOSE on how to embed Systems Engineering into an organization.
The Working group will look at organizations and produce guidance to help ensure that Systems Engineering is done appropriately, in terms of toles, processes, tools and interfaces with other disciplines in order that the value from a systems approach can be achieved. Will need to recognize that given the diverse range of domains, solutions produced and organization types (and the wide potential applications of Systems Engineering) there cannot be any single recommended organizational solution.
Richard Beasley
Jo Vassallo
Sarah Sheard
The scope of the Working Group is organizations and how best to set them up to do Systems Engineering. This will rely on and use existing descriptions of how Systems Engineering is done or what Systems Engineering is.
The range of organizations in the scope of consideration of the working group covers
The scope covers how Systems Engineering is done inside the organization and so is not limited to just Systems Engineering activities or simply the role of those called “Systems Engineers” – it will consider how the systems approach is a part of the whole, and so consider the integration with the whole organization, including activities that are often not to be considered engineering activities.
Enterprises are not excluded from the scope - but it was felt organization was a broader term.
The term “embed” is taken to mean making Systems Engineering part of the way the organization works and so not be dependent on a particular individual advocate or expert.
The goal of the working group is to thoroughly understand the issue of Embedding Systems Engineering into an organization, and how to tailor both the approach and the organizational implementation to suit. This will involve exploring:
The WG aims to fill a gap in guidance INCOSE provides. Most of the current material is aimed at the specifics of "Systems Engineering". The goal of this working group is to go beyond that and provide guidance (to a Systems Engineering advocate / capability owner) on how to achieve the right / most appropriate environment in the organization so that the value of Systems Engineering can be realized.
The final product of the WG is expected to be an interactive guide that allows a systems advocate in any organization
This final outcome will take some time to research and then produce – and so the Working Group intends to produce a number of interim reports helping illustrate the issues associated with embedding Systems Engineering. These will include:
In 2025 the planned activities and outputs are:
The survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ESEIO) takes about 25 minutes to complete, and all responses will be kept strictly confidential. Only non-identifiable data may be published by the working group. By participating, you'll contribute to developing guidance that could benefit your organization and the wider systems engineering community.
Please feel free to redistribute to colleagues and others in your organization. All responses are due April 1, 2025.
5. Gather and recommend best ways to use various descriptions and explanations of Systems Engineering to different organization
Progress made identifying the problem themes encountered when embedding Systems Engineering.
Three WG sessions at IW 25
A survey will be launched to gather more data on the experience across industries of embedding Systems Engineering into different organizations.
Watch this space for progress reports
The planned work products from the working group are a series of interim reports:
It is intended to produce these products as stand-alone reports, and then communicate / disseminate them by a range of methods – website, webinars, technical papers, articles for SEBoK etc.
These will lead (eventually) to a final outcome which is an integrate portal that will guide the systems advocate / capability manager wanting to embed Systems Engineering.
Yammer is INCOSE's social media platform for members. Use your INCOSE-issued Microsoft credential to login and join the conversation. INCOSE credentials are in the form of [email protected] or [email protected].