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INCOSE WMA Newsletter
March 2010
I
NSIDE
T
HIS
I
SSUE
1
Presidents Word
1
Upcoming Events
2
Bringing along the NextGen INCOSE SE
3
INCOSE TechOps
4
Welcome to the new INCOSE Ambassador
4
Call for Presentations and Tutorials
Presidents Word
At the last monthly WMA Chapter meeting, webegan a series of experiments in response to thesurvey we took last year. In the survey, we foundout that most members did not participate in morethan a few meeting a year. Therefore, we havebegun trying different venues, topics, themes, etc.to help increase membership attendance. In theMarch meeting we had our first attempt to holdthe session at a restaurant in the Tyson Cornersarea (one of the two areas of greatestconcentration
–
the others beingReston/
Herdon/Chantilly). The “Brio” trial
gainedhigh marks for the food and social networkingopportunities. However, the restaurant had madea mistake and double-booked their banquet roomby accident
–
something we didn’t find out about
until the day before. As such, the speaker, JimArmstrong, did his best, but you had to be close tohim to hear. I hop
e Jim’s throat has recovered by
now. We have resolved the proble
m for April’s
meeting by having the session in the banquet roomand using a portable speaker system to improvethe sound quality. Hopefully that will give us abetter data point on the use of non-corporatefacilities. Please come and try this out. In addition,we are trying something different with theupcoming tutorial. We are holding it on a weekdayand making it shorter.Lunch at Brio is included in the price. We hope
Upcoming Events
April
April 13th: Monthly Meeting @ Brio
Join Dr. Paul Montgomery for a presentation
on “Why Great Architectures Fail and A
dequate
Architectures Succeed”
6:00 p.m.
–
8:00 p.m. @ the Brio Tuscan GrilleBanquet Room, 7854L Tysons Corner CenterMcLean, VA.
April 21st: Weekday Tutorial @ Brio
Join Dr. Steven H. Dam for a tutorial on “Building
Your Concept of Operations (CONOPS)”
11:30 a.m.
–
4:30 p.m. @ the Brio Tuscan GrilleBanquet Room, 7854L Tysons Corner CenterMcLean, VA.
continued on page 2
2
people can take time out of their busy scheduleand join us for a topic of current interest
–
BuildingConcepts of Operations (CONOPS). Please feel freeto invite friends and customers to attend. At theend of every meeting and tutorial, we are askingfor feedback. We are compiling that feedback andpresenting it at the board of directors meeting tosee where to go next in this quest to improveattendance at the sessions. Please continue toparticipate
in the surveys and sessions. We’r
elooking forward to making WMA not only thelargest INCOSE chapter, but also the best.Sincerely,Steven H. DamINCOSE WMA President
Bringing along the NextGen INCOSESystems Engineers
Author: L. Nasta, INCOSE-WMA Director
On 2 March 2010, INCOSE-WMA director LaurieNasta attended the George Mason UniversityINCOSE Student Chapter meeting to deliver abrief on the INCOSE Systems EngineeringCertification Program. Despite mid-terms beingscheduled for the next day, a rain-snow mixfalling, and short advertising notice, the chaptermanaged to have a really good turnout of about20+ students, and their faculty adviser, Ms.Kathryn Laskey (Associate Professor, SystemsEngineering and Operations Research [SEOR]).Ms. Nasta presented the standard INCOSEcertification deck, focusing heavilyon the Associate Systems EngineeringProfessional (ASEP) certification asbeing the most appropriate for the graduatingUndergraduate or Masters student candidate.She advised them how to best positionthemselves for taking the CSEP five years later,noting how important it was to get a mix of experience in multiple SE domain areas not justlock themselves into one special area. Shenoted the importance of:
staying in touch with leaders who could bequalified references for their CSEPapplications;
that experienced professionals within herown firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, hadnoted the difficulty involved in going backto track down managers from former jobs;
and that if they had known how importantkeeping in touch was forsupporting the CSEP application processthey would have done betterShe spent time discussing the different domainswith Systems Engineering that INCOSE tests on.This was an interesting discussion because bothsides learned that the GMU curriculum probably isdeficient in some areas, like Quality Assurance,and Logistics and other Speciality Engineeringdomains like System Safety.She also covered the newest certification -the CSEP-Acquisition - which is still growing forthose in the group who might be interestedin the DOD environment or being AcquisitionEngineers or Program Managers. This was a verynew topic for most of the crowd who were mostlyunfamiliar with the Defense Acquisition University(DAU) and the DAWIA certification for governmentmanagers.She encouraged all the attendees to be activein the WMA chapter as a stepping stone for futureemployment, and to remain involved to supportacquisition of Professional Development Units(PDUs) needed to sustain any SE certification.
3
INCOSE Technical Operations (TechOps)
Author: Kenneth M. Zemrowski, INCOSE Assistant Director for Standards
People who join professional associations are attracted forseveral reasons, including chapter activities, publications,symposia, and special interest groups. In the case of INCOSE, the last three areas are supported directly byTechnical Operations, which provides technical informationby means of technical events, technical products, technicalinteractions among stakeholders, and technical informationrepositories.
Many of INCOSE’s 37 working groups met in February 2010
in Mesa, Arizona, at the INCOSE International Workshop.These WGs, which are generally domain specific (e.g.,Industry, academia, government) are chartered to developspecific INCOSE products and help advance systemsengineering knowledge. The WGs are organized into eightareas, with an assistant director for each:
Knowledge
o
Architecture
o
Complex Systems
o
Intelligent Enterprises
o
Knowledge Management
o
Process Improvement
o
Research
o
Resilient Systems
Processes
o
Cost Engineering
o
Human Systems Integration
o
In-Service Systems
o
Lean Systems Engineering
o
Life Cycle Management
o
Measurement
o
Requirements
o
Risk Management
o
System Safety Integration
o
Systems Security Engineering
o
Verification & Validation
Technology
o
Autonomous System Test & Validation
o
Model-driven System Design
o
Tools Database
o
Tools Integration & Interoperability
Industry
o
Biomedical
o
Information Systems
o
Infrastructure
o
Net-centric Operations
o
Systems Engineering in the CommercialWorld
o
Very Small Small & Medium Enterprises
Academia
o
Accreditation
o
Motor Sports
o
SE Graduate Curriculum
Government
o
Anti-terrorism International
o
Defense Systems
o
Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)
o
Intelligent Transport & Transit Systems
o
Power and Energy Systems
o
Space Systems
One might wonder why Motor Sports is within Academia.The focus is not on the varied systems engineeringpractices embodied in motor sports, but on the outreachpotential for introducing systems engineering to studentsby using a popular recreational activity.Besides the working groups, there are two INCOSEinitiatives: Model Based Systems Engineering andStandards. Although INCOSE does not develop its ownstandards, we have established liaisons with a number of international standards organizations.
In future articles, I will briefly describe the activities of eachset of working groups as well as the two initiative areas. Iwill also describe the TechOps role in producing INCOSEInsight and organizing events such as the InternationalSymposium.
Additional information about TechOps, including anorganization chart, is available on the INCOSE public website at: http://www.incose.org/about/organization/ti.aspx.
Through INCOSE Connect(https://connect.incose.org/default.aspx), INCOSE
members have access to SharePoint® pages for each of theworking groups and information on our standardsactivities.
Ken Zemrowski. For moreinformation on Ken, continueto page 4.
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