INCOSE WMA Newsletter

January / February 2011

Presidents Word
Greetings INCOSE WMA Members,

We are starting what should prove to be an exciting year for the Washington Metro Area chapter! My
goal for this year is simply stated – to be the best INCOSE chapter in the world.

This is as much a goal as it is a systems engineering problem that I’d like your help to define. What can we
do to make your membership more valuable? If your INCOSE membership is already meeting all of your
needs, let us know how so we don’t lose sight of what we’re doing right. If we are not meeting your
needs, then please let us know what we can do to serve you better. We have planned for cutting-edge
tutorials, fascinating dinner meeting speakers, and initiatives to help members achieve and maintain CSEP
status. If it’s been awhile since you have attended a meeting there has not been a better time to become
more active in the chapter.

We are already the largest chapter of INCOSE, and my hope is that we meet your needs as a premiere
professional organization and continue to grow and evolve to bring even more value to your membership.

Sincerely,

Kevin Weinstein
Kevin Weinstein, CSEP-Acq
INCOSE WMA President

Upcoming Events

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

1 Presidents Word & Upcoming Events
March
1 Upcoming Events

2 Your 2011 INCOSE WMA Board

Join us on March 9th @ 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
@ Marco Polo for a presentation by Ken
Laskey, an expert on SOA.

New INCOSE-WMA Awards
Program Starting
by Vice President/President-elect, Laurie Nasta
Some of you might remember an article I
wrote for our October 2010 Newsletter
about implementation of a new INCOSE-
WMA Awards program. The article noted
the first phase would include award of the
Best Monthly Presentation Award which
would be based on a survey/vote on the
2010 Chapter Presentations. Our smaller-
scale January Snowmaggedon and delay of
our January program into February, has
disrupted our implementation schedule
somewhat. As proposed in the October
newsletter, we will release a survey to the
membership soon for a vote on the best
monthly presentation of 2010. The
presenter for the winning presentation will
be awarded a recognition certificate, and
$100 gift card! Don’t worry if you cannot
remember back that far, if you need a
reminder of the presentation content, you
can always visit the website for a refresher
and/or a re-review of the presentation
materials.
This article is intended to remind you of the
remaining award categories so you can
start thinking about them as we move
forward into 2011, especially with our first
tutorial planned for March 2011! They
include:
1. Best Monthly Presentation for
2011: recognition certificate/$100
gift card
- measure: vote by membership at
end of year on all presentations
2. Best Tutorial: recognition
certificate/$100 gift card
2
-measure: cumulative satisfaction scores
across tutorials per surveys taken after
each tutorial
3. INCOSE-WMA SE of the Year: Award
(Trophy $50-100) & $500 gift card
-measure: accept nominations from other
WMA members based on criteria (TBD)
and BOD votes (Criteria could include:
examples of ‘game changing’ work
experience; best paper; adding new ideas
to SE practice)
4. INCOSE WMA Best Mentor: Award
(Trophy $50-100) & $250 gift card
-measure: accept nominations and BOD
will vote on nominees
(INCOSE-WMA members write a
paragraph that describes how nominee
inspired them professionally or as a SE
and/or provided support/assistance
relative to job/career)
You may note that we still have a big TBD for the
criteria for #3 (please see my other article in this
newsletter about VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES);
we need some help here folks!
This new Awards Programs provides real
incentives for our members to share their
knowledge and experience with their peers for
the benefit of the group by either engaging in
the activities which are being judged or in
recognizing their colleagues as nominees.
Finally, see the article by George Mason
University (GMU) INCOSE SE Society Chapter
President Michael Dupuy on a great opportunity
to VOLUNTEER some of your time to mentor our
SE students facing a challenging job market!
Let’s help get them off to a good start in their SE
careers, and who knows you might find yourself
nominated for an INCOSE WMA Best Mentor
award!
 3

Systems Engineering Society (SES) Updates from Mike Dupuy

The Month of February

Engineering Day: February 3, 2011

For Engineering Day, the Systems Engineering Society (SES) set up a booth to inform George Mason
engineering students, as well as local engineering professionals, about the importance of
networking in engineering. Along with recruiting new members, SES also introduced some students
to INCOSE.

The booth also served as a representative of the GMU Systems Engineering and Operations
Research department, informing undeclared students about Systems Engineering and why they
should consider choosing that as their major.

Officer Transition: February 7, 2011

SES had an officer transition this month. The Treasurer, who was elected, last May, was no longer
able to continue working for SES. We now have a new treasurer, Shavon Clanagan, and we plan on
applying for budgets from the Student Involvement Office to be able to host more events this
semester.

Future Plans… The Month of March

Résumé Workshop: March 9, 2011

SES plans on having a drop-in résumé workshop where students can bring in draft résumés and
improve them before the GMU Job Fair, which will take place later this month.

As a public notice,
please update your
contact
information at
www.incose.org
 4

Start 2011 off on a great start: (Laurie Nasta)

VOLUNTEER YOUR TIME!  Programs and Tutorials (the more help
the better!) (Jana Taylor/Rosie Posada)
By Vice President/President-elect, Laurie Nasta  Ambassadors at member’s companies
(Steve Mosier)
So you might be shaking off the cold and the
 Newsletter Staff (Chris Ritter)
snow, and finding yourself with some time
 Meeting Web Conferencing (Steve Dam)
on your hands. Maybe you might be an ASEP
or CSEP and find yourself thinking “just HOW
These are just a few things we can use
am I going to get more PDUs to meet my
IMMEDIATE help with, there will be more
quota for recertification” (120 credits over
and we will continue to ask for your help;
three years!). Or maybe you just WANT to
please walk, run or email the specific Board
be helpful (pay it forward and all that…).
member to identify your willingness to help.
Well, we have a way to help you use your
If you are unsure about what some of these
time wisely and help yourself with the PDU
things are please ask questions too! Also see
dilemma or cosmic karma in one fell swoop!
the article by GMU SE Chapter President
In a word: VOLUNTEER!
Mike Dupuy on their upcoming resume
writing\interviewing workshops for SE
In the Board’s pursuit of ‘continuous
students – another great way to help our
improvement’, being the great Systems
younger SEs enter the exciting wonderful
Engineers we all are, we have lots of great
world of the professional Systems Engineer!
ideas and even more new things we would
like to do this year, but we need YOUR help
Your Board of Directors GREATLY
to make our ideas a reality. Not only does
APPRECIATES any offers of help!
this help with PDUs, but you get great
psychic benefits helping out (gotta watch
that Karma!), AND it also helps those of you
who might be looking for a way to put some
polish on your resume to get that next best
job! You have seen the roster of our new
Board of Directors, but we have a number of
initiatives in the works and some oldies but
goodies where we can use some helping
hands, such as (the Board Member to
contact if you are interested in helping is in
parentheses following the item):

 Our INCOSE WMA Awards Program

For more information on INCOSE WMA, please visit www.incose-wma.org