President's Message

This is the time of year where INCOSE recognizes its members.  As you recall in the last newsletter, our chapter earned the Silver Circle Award for 2015 for the seventh year in a row.  This award recognizes the chapter’s performance in areas which promote systems engineering and the value to members for being a part of the INCOSE organization.

It was my honor to accept the award on behalf of the chapter at the International Symposium which was a recognition of leadership and member contributions to the technical and social programs afforded to members.

Congratulations to Dave Mason upon receiving the INCOSE 2015 Outstanding Service Award.  He and other distinguished INCOSE members were recognized for their volunteer effort to the organization at the International Symposium celebrating INCOSE’s 25th anniversary.

This award recognized Dave’s contributions to the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter and the INCOSE Student Division, as well as his contributions to the discipline of systems engineering.

The June meeting featured a presentation by Laurie Buss on Group Flow: The Genesis of Innovation.  This is an element of the Transformation Caucus.  Ms. Buss presented how a variety of critical thinking skills are needed in a group environment to promote program success.  It was an interactive presentation to provide opportunity to practice some of the skills.  It stimulated some follow-up by one of our members on the impact of deadlines on flow and creativity.  Stay tuned for the paper to be submitted with several others for this fall’s Insight publication.

We are continuing to investigate the potential of offering a workshop on Mastering Agile Requirements, by Agile Learning Labs.  The timeframe had to be moved to this fall as they filled up on requests.  In order to put this on, we do need to have a minimum of 15 participants.  The tentative cost will be $400 to $500 for a one day workshop.  If you are interested, please respond to rollie.olson@incose.org in order for us to proceed with planning.

We are also discussing a workshop on Transformational Systems Engineering by Dr. Scott Workinger. If there are any other topics of interest, please let us know.

In cooperation with the Los Angeles, San Diego, Central and Southern Arizona Chapters, we are working on a mini regional conference to be held 8-9 April 2016 at Loyola Marymount University.  This will provide INCOSE members with low cost learning and networking opportunity who might not be able to attend International Symposium.

The theme planned for the conference is Systems Engineering – One Discipline Providing Global Value:  Fundamentals, Applications, and Innovation.  This conference will consider that systems engineering is a global discipline, and that its concepts and fundamentals can be adapted for many different applications to solve worldwide concerns and create value.

We are looking for volunteers to support the planning and organizing for the conference and the call for papers will be going out shortly.  This is an excellent opportunity for members to get published, share their knowledge with systems engineers, and be recognized.  Please contact rollie.olson@incose.org if you are interested in volunteering for any role.

By Rollie Olson 
INCOSE SFBAC President