INCOSE SFBAC Recognized as Silver Circle Chapter

Musings on Systems Engineering Balancing

Effective systems engineering is a great balancing act – balancing competing stakeholder needs and concerns, balancing technical possibilities and risks, balancing trade-offs between speed of development and exhaustive attention to minute details.  Themes of balance can be found in diverse places in human endeavors; for example:

• Steven Covey writes about the need to balance attention to the urgent with attention to the important in managing your own time
• Work-life balance is an issue for many professionals with demanding jobs
•  Balancing short-term consequences with long-term implications is often a challenge, especially since in so many areas of life and work incentives are focused on short term outcomes

So what contributions can a systems engineer make to improve the ability to balance of their organization and the projects they are assigned to support?  I believe the first, and perhaps most important, contribution a systems engineer can make is by noticing and bringing to the attention of others when choices involve the need for balance.  When we frame a choice in terms of the different interests and concerns which will be affected, decision-makers can consciously choose a course that will provide a balance.  The table below shows a few of the areas where balancing can be helpful, along with some thoughts on the value systems engineers can add.

Balance This	With That	SE Potential Value Add
Communicating technical detail	Communicating the “so what” – insights into what it means to different stakeholders, and what choices they may have as a result	Clarifying needs of different stakeholders for information; providing a bridge between detail and its implications for stakeholders
Optimizing for immediate needs	Providing flexibility to handle future needs	Identifying possible directions in which needs may change in the future; identifying choices in system architecture and design which can increase system flexibility (especially at no or low cost)
Customer-defined requirements	Innovation-based development ”build it and customers will come”)	Providing insight into what difference changes in requirements could make; using agile approaches to get capabilities into the hands of users more quickly
Using readily available technology	Innovating to create new technology	Prototyping systems and products using readily available technology to allow users to gain experience with them, so the economic payoff for investing in new technology becomes much clearer
Quick and low-cost system development	System robustness for supportability over the long term	Advocating agile system architectures, so changes in a system can be made with lower cost and less risk

So the next time that you stop to consider how you can add more value to your organization in your capacity as a systems engineer, think about balance.  How might you be able to help others see the choices they are making in terms of improving the balance between different concerns?

By

Dorothy McKinney

INCOSE Fellow

Outline of INCOSE Website Updates

1. INCOSE International has recently switched to their *new* Site:

a) Check-Out the New INCOSE Format at https://www.incose.org.

b) As indicated in a previous eMail from INCOSE to Active INCOSE Members;

c) to Log-In as a Member, you will *first* have to select Forgot Password.

d) You (INCOSE Members) will be asked for your "Login ID/E-mail Address:".

f) Enter your "FirstName.LastName" as used in your <F.L@incose.org> eMail address.

g) Your new Temp Password (PWD) will be sent to the Forwarding eMail you previously selected.

h) When you then Log-In, as a Member to the *new* INCOSE site, you should update your PWD.

2. Step Two, after updating your PWD, is to *confirm* SF Bay Area is your self-selected Chapter.

a) Many Members, who receive our eMails, do *not* show us as their Chapter.

b) Selecting us will help us keep you informed of your upcoming Membership Renewal, and

c) also provide you additional/expanded access to INCOSE's & our Web Site (see below).

d) If you are Renewing, from an Expired Status, select SF Bay Area during-that-session.

3. SF Bay Area Chapter's Web Site (previously found at incose.org/sfbac).

a) Is now located at http://oldsite.incose.org/sfbac/ during the "Transition".

b) Use this Revised Site Location to keep up-to-date on Chapter Activities for now.

c) Cut-Over to our New Chapter Web & CONNECT Sites is expected to be May 29th.

d) Our New Sites will have a Look-&-Feel that is similar to the New International ones.

4. New INCOSE Web Site Permission Levels.

a) A major addition to the New Sites is the addition of the Following Access Levels:

• Public (non-Member),
• INCOSE (International/General) Member, &
• INCOSE Chapter Member.

b) In order for these to work as indented, Please Select SF Bay Area as your Chapter.

5. Working Groups will be known as Committees under the New Web Site System.

a) For now they will still be be called Working Groups (WG's).

b) The new system, being used as the host, *may* refer to WG's as Committees.

c) After selecting SF Bay Area as your Chapter, you may wish to check your WG Selections.

6. We will keep you updated as New Site "features" are added.

Submitted by <William.Sanders@incose.org>, as the new SF Bay Area WebMaster.

<Danny.Hahn@incose.org> continues to be WebMaster of oldsite.incose.org/sfbac.

Contact SF-Bay-Area Board Members Bill Sanders, or <Dean.White@incose.org>

for assistance with your <@incose.Org> eMail address to Log-In or Re-Register.

By William Sanders

INCOSE SFBAC Director

Upcoming Membership Meetings: June

The INCOSE SFBAC will have their June 8, 2015 Membership Meetings at San Jose State University. Laurie Buss will present "Group Flow: the Genesis of Innovation." Laurie is the Founder of C-Suite Creative and an Advisor, Program Management and Systems Engineering for Stellar Solutions.

July 13 - July 16, 2015 the 25th Annual International Symposium will be held in Seattle, WA.

Meeting Update: May 11 Meeting Cancelled

The May 11th INCOSE SFBAC meeting has been cancelled.  We apologize for the inconvenience. 

Please look out for an email from us in the next few weeks about our June meeting, featuring "Group Flow: the Genesis of Innovation" presented by Laurie Buss.  We look forward to seeing you there.

President's Message

The Los Angeles Chapter contacted us last year about the possibility of working with them on a regional conference.  There was more discussion at the International Workshop in January at which we learned something about what is involved in planning and organizing such an event.  At the board of directors meeting there was some uncertainty whether the chapter can muster the membership to support the endeavor but it was viewed as an excellent learning opportunity.

The Los Angeles Chapter has experience putting together conferences and is leading the initial planning.  Currently, the San Diego, Central and Southern Arizona Chapters are also engaging in supporting this regional conference.  Bill Sanders, Dave Mason and I are representing our chapter.  We are learning about the logistics involved in putting on a conference:  finding keynote speaker(s), finding a venue, advertising the event, setting up registration, defining technical program, call for papers and review/selection.  The latter is most important to ensure that participants find the investment of time and money to attend is rewarding.

The original plan was to try and have the conference in the fall of this year.  But that did not afford sufficient time to organize the technical program.  The team has agreed that we should delay it until spring of next year.  This will provide the time to gather and review potential papers in order to promote a quality event.

The objective of the regional conference is to offer local INCOSE members who may not have the resources to attend the International Symposium in July the opportunity to discuss and learn about innovative applications of systems engineering to new domains and challenges and network with other professionals.

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.

The details of what technical tracks will be offered are still being defined.  The proposed tracks that are being considered are:

• Value of SE in Bio, Trans, etc.

• Agile

• Entertainment SE

• MBSE

• SE Processes / Tools

• Biomedical

• Cybersecurity / Data Analytics

• Autonomous Systems and Vehicles 

You are invited to submit a paper for consideration on any of these topics or other topics that are germane.  There is an opportunity to present the papers planned for the Transformation Caucus series to be submitted this fall to Insight.  This is an excellent opportunity for members to get published, share their knowledge with systems engineers, and be recognized.  If interested, please prepare an extended abstract, a page or two, that describes your work in enough detail for a good review.   Authoring guidelines will be provided later.  Please submit your abstract to rollieolsonjr@gmail.com.

By Rollie Olson

INCOSE SFBAC President

George Vlay Announcement

It saddens me to announce the passing of George Vlay. George was a member of INCOSE in 1991 and was a motivational force behind the forming of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter in 1992. George was an active member of the chapter, sharing his vast experience as a presenter and last year engaging the board on ways to improve members involvement and appreciation for the organization. This past year he represented the chapter at the Silicon Valley Engineering Society. George was an inspiration and will be sorely missed.

Full Obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/mercurynews/obituary.aspx?pid=174373980

Respectfully,
Rollie Olson
INCOSE SFBAC President

INCOSE Website Update

The new INCOSE web site, incose.org, including the membership system, Store and Connect has launched!

All public INCOSE resources are available to you here on the new site, and as a member of INCOSE you can also use the Store and Connect once you log in. Your old INCOSE login format is no longer the way to access Connect, and so click the Member Login button at the top right corner and you will see instructions to get started, with your email address as your Username. 

If you need help, please look at the Help resources on Connect, or if you have difficulty getting connected email helpdesk@incose.org.

Note: if you have previously accessed the beta.incose.org site and logged in there, that login continues to be your new incose.org login.

Mastering Agile Requirements Workshop

The chapter is looking into a training opportunity for members. Agile engineering development has become standard practice for software but there is applicability to systems engineering, as well. A local company provides workshops on agile methods, Agile Learning Labs, and has a workshop on Mastering Agile Requirements we are working with them to offer a Saturday workshop to our members. The date, May timeframe, and location are still tentative as is the cost, somewhere between $400-$500 depending on the venue. There is a minimum of 15 participants. If you are interested, please respond to rollie.olson@incose.org in order for us to proceed with planning.

Upcoming Membership Meetings: April & May

The INCOSE SFBAC will have their April and May 2015 Membership Meetings at San Jose State University. 

April 13, 2015, Yang-Yang Zhao, Associate Professor, Norwegian Institute of Systems Engineering (NISE), Norway and Visiting Associate Professor, Center for Design Research (CDR), Stanford, USA will give a talk called "Human-Centered Development of Systems Engineering in Norwegian Engineering Industries."

May 11, 2015, Andrew Webster, Agile Coach, PayPal will give a talk called, "The Seven Wastes: Could You Be A Little Leaner?"

New Member Spotlight: Shawn Mazzeo

Shawn Mazzeo is a project manager for Project Management Advisors (PMA)  specializing in managing the engineering design, construction and commissioning process for bio-pharma projects. Shawn has over six years’ experience as a project engineer working on the design and construction of power generation, pharmaceutical, chemical and life science R&D laboratories. Shawn graduated from Clarkson University with a B.S. in Engineering and is currently finishing his M.S. in Systems Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

New Member Spotlight: Daren Heidgerken

Daren Heidgerken is the Technical Collaboration Lead for Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, and Integration, Test and evaluation. In this role he facilitates communication and collaboration in these key technical disciplines across Lockheed Martin, the world’s leading aerospace and global security company. In addition he connects individuals with subject matter experts across the company to help solve their technical challenges. Prior to this role, he held engineering and leadership positions in guidance, navigation and control engineering and systems engineering primarily on missiles and reentry systems. Throughout his career he has mentored both entry level engineers and technical experts. Last month he celebrated his 15^th anniversary with Lockheed Martin and as a California resident.

Daren grew up along the banks of the Mississippi River in Iowa and graduated with an aerospace engineering degree from Iowa State University. He also holds a MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. He is married with  3 young children. He is a member the AIAA and IEEE engineering societies, SGT aerospace honor society and is a classroom volunteer and advisory board vice president at his children’s elementary school.

President's Message

INCOSE is celebrating its Silver Anniversary but until I engaged in evaluating our chapter’s accomplishments for chapter awards, I was not aware that the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter was chartered in June 1995.  I became a member later that year and my participation in the chapter has varied greatly over the past 20 years for a variety of reasons:  work/volunteer/life balance; doubt in value; conflicting schedules; etc.  A few years ago, I became more engaged when I found myself in transition and my personal objective was to show potential employers that I was maintaining my skills.  I acknowledge that my current position is a result of connections within the chapter.  My current objective is to give back to the chapter, to reinvigorate chapter operations, and to promote the practice of systems engineering.

A measure that the Board of Directors was striving to improve is engagement of members.  In retrospect, for 2014 there was a consistent level of attendance at monthly chapter meetings.  This despite the challenge faced with our change in venue from Carnegie Mellon University where an increase in classes restricted availability and our move to HackerDojo.  We continue to work on improving the experience for participation at HackerDojo, for remote participation, and to solicit feedback from members on their personal experiences.  We are considering the possibility of moving which day of the second week of the month on which to have the chapter meeting and are soliciting member feedback.  

I want to recognize the efforts of Amanda Foo who as Program Coordinator for much of the year found topics and speakers which enticed members to join the monthly meeting.  An area that we want to improve is identifying topics and speakers several months in advance so that active members and potential members can prioritize their schedules and utilizing the new INCOSE website to publish these events.

I am encouraged that 2015 is poised to achieve higher expectations.  Our first monthly meeting was presented by Bradley Banks on “Engineering the California High Speed Railway". This month’s presentation is by Robin Reil, our secretary, on “Model Based Systems Engineering and Requirements Traceability”.  The Transformation Caucus is preparing several papers for publication in the autumn issue of INCOSE Insight.

The Board of Directors wants to address the feedback from the survey conducted during the elections to provide workshops on topics of interest to you.  We will be forming committees to support planning and execution of these workshops and solicit anyone who is interested in volunteering to help.  

The INCOSE International Workshop and Symposium are training opportunities for directors to develop skills and gain knowledge to be more effective leaders.  The Board of Directors approved supporting the directors’ attendance to these events.

There are several opportunities for members to share your knowledge and network with your peers.  I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities at the monthly chapter meetings and to share your comments through the newsletter blog.

By Rollie Olson

INCOSE SFBAC President 

Rollie Olson's Bio

SVEC 2015 Engineers Week Banquet 2/19 (Inductees: Gray, Qayoumi)

The Silicon Valley Engineering Council (SVEC) proudly presents its 2015 Silicon Valley Engineers Week Banquet on Thursday, February 19, 2015. The SVEC will honor several outstanding individuals for their contributions by welcoming them into its Hall of Fame and feature a distinguished keynote speaker and several scholarships. They welcome companies and engineering organizations to sponsor or have display tables at the reception which is a great networking event for engineers!

Register Here (No Ticket Sales at the Door)
Date/Time: Thursday, February 19, 2015, 5:30pm
Location: 2050 Gateway Place, San Jose, CA 95110
Event Agenda:
5:30 PM    Reception and No-Host Bar
6:30 PM    SVEC President’s Welcome
6:45 PM    Dinner with Friends

Keynote Speaker

Mark Pasquale, Engineering VP, Lockheed Martin

        2015 Hall of Fame Inductees

Dr. Paul R. Gray, UC Berkeley Dept of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Dr. Mohammed Humayon Qayoumi, President, San Jose State University

2015 Chapter Board of Directors

Nominations for Board of Directors to the Chapter were solicited in November 2014 and elections were conducted in December 2014. The Chapter's past and current Presidents are in succession. The 2015 Board of Directors are:

Scott Workinger, Past President

Rollie Olson, President

Dean White, President Elect

Clark Ince, Treasurer

Robin Reil, Secretary

David Mason, Director

Dorothy McKinney, Director

Cassi Janakos, Director (Communications)

William Sanders, Director (Webmaster)

Scott Miller, Director

Carol Graham, Director

Due to work and health issues, Carol Graham has had to withdraw as a director.

Upcoming Membership Meeting: February

Our next Membership Meeting will take place on February 9, 2015 at the Hacker Dojo located at 599 Fairchild Drive, Mountain View, California 94043. The meeting topic is Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) vs the "traditional" Document-Based Systems Engineering (DBSE) by Robin Reil. 

New Member Spotlight: Bradley Banks

Bradley Banks is a senior communications and systems engineer with over 14 years of experience in the specification, design and integration of communications products and systems.  While at Motorola, Mr. Banks performed software and hardware design, integrated circuit verification and validation and system integration for a Digital Intermediate Frequency radio receiver and co-developed two patented innovations for advanced digital signal processing.  During his time at Parsons Brinckerhoff, Mr. Banks designed and led the design of communications systems and consulted for private industry and public transportation authorities, including the California High Speed Rail Authority, New York City Transit, Caltrans, MTA Maryland, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Chicago Metra, MTA Maryland and New Jersey Transit.  

Bradley is a member of INCOSE and the Building Industry Consulting Service International (BICSI) organizations and holds Professional Engineer licenses in several states.  He has achieved the BICSI Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) certification and the INCOSE Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) certification.  He has Masters of Science and Bachelors of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Communications from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).  Bradley brings to his design and consulting work a dedication to the formalized Systems Engineering process whereby requirements are defined, derived, managed and are used to drive design, interfaces, implementation and verification / validation to deliver projects within budget and schedule constraints.