You will see from the report on this years AGM thatthere was a shortage of nominations for INCOSE UK officers. Wehave satisfied most of the major roles because the presentincumbents have agreed to carry on for another term.
There is a wonderful opportunity to volunteer to take part inthe running of the UK Chapter. We need someone to take the roleof Treasurer and a Chairman for the Membership and CommunicationCommittee. Neither involve an enormous amount of work - theM&C has not met for over a year - but we do need peoplewilling to take on these roles.
If you feel that you could spare a little of your time to helpINCOSE UK develop and prosper then please contact John Mead at:
The Rest, 20 Beehive Lane, Binfield, Berks, RG12 8TU. Tel: 01344-422325 Fax: 01344-481035 e-mail:The big news is that INCOSE UK have succeeded in the bid tohost the International Symposium in 1999. Once the initialeuphoria has worn off we will need more volunteers to assist withthe planning of the 1999 International Symposium. We will makethe maximum use of professional conference organisers, but anyonewho has attended an International Symposium will tell you thatthere are many things which need the assistance of the localchapter.
The host chapter traditionally puts on a stand at the previousyears symposium, and the symposium planning committeeshould already be up and running at this point.
We have plenty of warning, but there will be further calls forvolunteers to support this and other activities. It is clear thatthe members appreciate the results of the work done by the INCOSEofficers - please help us if you can.
There are still some who were due to renew their subscriptionsto INCOSE at the AGM (nominally September 1996). If you are oneof them please use the form on the back page of this Newsletter.
If you are not a member, but would like to join, pleasecontact John Mead for details.
Stuart Arnold of the DRA gave us the inside story of theprogress so far on the ISO 15288 standard "SystemEngineering Life Cycles" which is due to be published by theyear 2000+. Stuart has landed the job of Co-Editor in companywith Richard Smith (who was involved in the IEEE P1220 standard).The story that evolved was almost Machiavellian. The presence inthe background of the ISO 12207 software standard, largelyignored by the UK because of the well developed TickIt scheme,trying to steer the 15288 standard to ensure that it does notcontradict 12207. The INCOSE representative on the committee (theinimitable Jerry Lake) being concerned that there is too muchsoftware influence on the standards.
The bit that I found most interesting was that the biggestproblem is interpretation of process diagrams. We have all drawndiagrams of one sort or another to illustrate processes, butthere is no ISO standard for them. Thus the committee is facedwith members from varying backgrounds interpreting diagrams indifferent ways. The point was well illustrated when Stuartpresented some of the ideas that had been discussed in the formof simple diagrams. The number of queries and comments that thesedrew from the relatively small and to some extent homogeneousassembly of Systems Engineers was enormous. I suspect we couldhave discussed this subject all day, and I believe that in duecourse it is essential that we do. Otherwise we may findourselves mandated to use a standard which we do not understandand does not meet our needs.
Allen Fairbairn reported on the events of the past year ofwhich the highlight was the Coventry Symposium in June. Thisevent attracted 104 attendees. He mentioned the importance of theForesight initiative and the fact that INCOSE members wereundertaking important roles. This and initiatives such as the ISOstandard and NVQ discussed earlier in the meeting are greatopportunities for INCOSE if we are mature enough to followthrough.
There have been moves to establish regional centres, andhopefully these should result in regional events being organisedin 1997. All these initiatives require support so we are seekingsupport from members who are able to contribute to the largeamount of work that needs to be done.
The recent "active members" meeting held at GECemphasised the need to deliver a good annual symposium, pursueregional meetings and establish specific interest groups. Thereis also a need to address the major opportunities being presentedincluding Europe.
There is a need to work with US INCOSE, make use of theirdeliverables, contribute to their committees and discussiongroups by e-mail. We need to acknowledge that they do have a leadon us, even if they are following a slightly different course.
Peter Brooke has just been elected as the INCOSE RegionalDirector for Europe and is a main INCOSE board member.
Harry Hughes has taken over as the secretary from JeremyGoulding after Jeremy was transferred to thecolonies. The membership statistics showed a tail off atthe beginning of 1996, but the picture was now improving. JohnMead was taken on to keep up with administrative details for atrial period of 6 months. This period has now finished and herecommended that John continues in this role.
The mail tree approach to contacting members has not workedwell because some of the branches had failed to dotheir bit and forward the material promptly. The system will betried again with some improvements to allow feedback so that itis known when people are not getting the information.
Harry has now picked up the action regarding the conversion ofINCOSE UK to charitable status. This would permit annualsubscriptions to be set against income tax.
John Sole reported that he has prepared copies of the Auditedaccounts for the first two years which have been approved by theboard. There was a £3,500 carry forward in 1995 and £4,900carry forward in 1996 (excluding the final reckoning from thesymposium). The next audited accounts are required in April 1997.
It is important that we maintain a surplus because the fundsunderwrite the annual symposium. We only just managed to fund theCoventry Symposium. The commitment for the European Conference ismuch greater and hence we must consider partnership with acommercial organisation for this event.
Mike Prince expanded on four current themes:
The 1997 Symposium is to be on the theme "SystemsEngineering in Practice". He is planning a rounded programmeand is still looking for papers. Members are encouraged to submitpapers for a subject which should be broad enough for anyone tocontribute.
The 96 Symposium paper "A manifesto for SystemsEngineering" is the basis for a document which willhighlight the reasons why Systems Engineering is an importantdiscipline.
There are plans for regional and international activities.Volunteers are needed to assist with these.
Foresight, ISO 15288, NVQ and the manifesto document all needwork. We need new members to volunteer.
Allen Fairbairn stated that he was still chairman and thatsomebody else was needed to take over. The Committee has not metsince January 1996 but the activities of Jonathon Moffett on ourweb site and Howard Nicholls on promotional goodies continued.The committee needs more members so all volunteers would bewelcome.
Due to a lack of nominations it was proposed to retain theexisting board as follows
| President | Dr W S Bardo |
| President Elect | Allen Fairbairn |
| Past President | Professor Derek Hitchins |
| Board Member | Mr Ian McFarlane |
The treasurer John Sole had asked to step down after servingfor 2 years. Ian McFarlane volunteered to stand in until areplacement could be found.
Harry Hughes being Secretary Elect had recently taken overfrom Jeremy Goulding. A new Secretary Elect is needed..
Mike Prince was accepted as the Chairman of Development andPractices Committee, and is therefore an ex-officio Board Member.The post of Chairman of the Membership and CommunicationCommittee remains to be filled.
The above decisions were agreed by a show of hands.
Notes from Peter Brook the Regional Director for UK and Europeon the 1997 INCOSE Winter Conference, Las Vegas 27-30th January.(Edited from an e-mail message.)
It has been a very busy and rewarding week, in which I havebeen able to get `inside the skin' of the INCOSE Board ofDirectors, see the operation at first hand, and make many of thepoints I am sure UK members would have wished me to make as oneof the first two non-US citizens to joint their ranks (the otheris Robert Halliwell from Australia).
The really big news is that we have secured the maininternational symposium for 1999, our suggested venue being theBrighton Metropole in June. The bidding process was relativelystraightforward, especially due to the excellent brief whichPeter Robson prepared (and we discussed at the UK Board on 16thJan), spruced up by Nick Lusty with fancy graphics, maps etc.
We were pitched against the North Star Chapter, who wereexpecting 1999, and the Australians who have been pencilling in2000, possibly back to back with the Olympics. In the event, theBoard went for a three year package: Brighton 99, Minneapolis2000, Cairns (Aus) 2001.
There's much more to be said on this topic and I don't supposewe know quite what we have taken on, but for now it's a bigreason to cheer.
Eric Honour took over as President of and it is quite clearthat he will be different from Ginny Lentz. He gave a veryrousing keynote speech on the subject of INCOSE being at acrossroads and the need for thinking the organisation afresh.This was followed by a whole-day workshop for the Board,facilitated by a management consultant (Bill Ewold), who will beattached to us for the next year or so.
INCOSE needs to pay attention to the quality of its products.This doesn't of course mean that everything is internationaljournal standard (if quality is conformance to requirements,there is scope for a whole range of different types), but atpresent the perception is of a lot of loosely-coupled activitiesof variable utility. There is a strong feeling that the Journalshould be INCOSE's flagship product. A joint IEEE/AESS/INCOSEissue will be out in April 97, the plan thereafter is forINCOSE's own journal to be resurrected on a regular basis.
The editor is to be Andy Sage (). Irecommend that anyone keen to contribute should contact Andy Sagedirectly.
It was also agreed that there should be non-US members of theJournal Tech Board. There is a new Tech Board Chair, Dr DonnaRhodes (), who is charged with taking stockof the current set of activities.
I truly believe that the INCOSE board are waking up to theissues of going international, although it will not be simple.The decision to go to Brighton is for them `jumping off a cliff'(Eric Honour's term), but a clear recognition to start engagingseriously with the outside world. Brian McCay (Director at Large)will play an important part. Some of us met him as he passedthrough London last Autumn, and few could doubt his energy andenthusiasm.
He and I will co-ordinate closely on new contacts, especiallyon new/emerging chapters. The Hague 97 European conference willmake an excellent opportunity to assist those about to form, withinformation packs and advice. We should certainly plan sessiontime for this. Eric has made it very clear that he wants toattend the Hague event, as a way of getting to know people andunderstand off-shore perceptions.
Further ahead, it is hard to predict how it might evolve. Iwrote a short piece (with Brian McCay and Robert Halliwell) ongoing towards a federated structure of regions, one director pereach, elected locally, with a readjustment of duties between thecentre and regions and a transition plan. This was politelyreceived and will probably go into the strategy. I believe itwill catch on as a `goal architecture' probably for 2/3 yearshence, depending on the rate of international growth.
Not very much has emerged (yet) beyond an intention to engagemore with the outside world. We have already gone further in theUK than others, but in truth it's a huge leap if we embrace itfully. Sessions on this subject are getting into future symposia,and there is an Emerging Applications Working Group whichreported at Boston.
Brian Ewold will be preparing a report as a result of sittingin on and leading strategy sessions. I expect his firstconclusions relating to the organisations norms, standards,procedures, etc to be in the strategy document, which appear indraft later this year. Be prepared for recommendations aboutChapters as well as INCOSE central.
We are going to set up a structure for co-ordinating ourinterfaces to bodies such as IEEE, AIAA (American Institute forAeronautics and Astronautics) and the like. The are clearparallels with our debate in UK with IEE and RAeSoc. Exchange ofmodel agreements is one of the sensible activities mentioned. I'mon a team looking at how we do this.
As part of the strategy formulation, INCOSE is trying toharmonise ideas on academic research curricula, and a group isbeing set up, co-ordinated by Elliot Axelband of University ofSouthern California () who incidentallyspoke very good sense throughout the meeting, especially on thesubject of maintaining high professional standards for INCOSE. Heis trying to set up a network of contacts, and I have suggestedJohn Boardman (De Montfort Univ, UK) who has been developing theresearch agenda for Foresight, and Heinz Stoewer (Univ of Delft).Others are welcome to contact Elliot.
While I was involved with end to end board meetings, StuartArnold was engaged in deep debate with the main US protagonistsin the Systems Engineering standards saga. If you heard hispresentation at Swindon you will recall that the US EIA documentis now nearing final review before widespread circulation. TheINCOSE community are hanging a lot on the outcome; for example,they see the Capability Maturity Models being aligned in duecourse.
They also seem to be assuming a relatively short step fromtheir output to an ISO standard. Which is where Stuart comes in,since there is increasing evidence that the internationalcommunity at large have been more content with the scope of themodel which Stuart has been developing, with the help of KenJackson & Richard Stevens from REL and colleagues in theDERA. The final outcome is currently uncertain, but is bound tobe interesting once Stuart's work goes on the Web.
Finally, how was Las Vegas, I hear you ask. Seriously tacky,especially as we were stuck in a rather down-market hotel/casinoat the edge of town. Board members, particularly, were kept at itfrom early to late, and what with jet lag did not venture intothe bright lights. Perhaps I'm protesting too much.
Peter BrookThanks to all of you who returned the questionnaire on the UKSymposium from the last Newsletter. Around 20 people replied, andI must apologise to them for having lost the document walletcontaining the questions as the result of an office move. Icannot therefore award the promised INCOSE UK mug as I am unableto draw a winner.
I read all the responses as they arrived so I am able toconfirm that the Symposium was given an overwhelming thumbsup. I cannot recall anyone not wanting to attend the nextone. Those who didnt manage to get to Coventry had avariety of reasons, usually to do with the pressure of work,location or difficulties in obtaining funding from theircompanies. On respondent was hoping that we organise the 1997symposium when his boss is on holiday, since only one of them cango and his boss is also keen on the event.
The results seemed to confirm that the symposium formula isworking well - unlike my filing system!!
Peter ListerThe third annual symposium will be held at the Chiltern Hotel,Luton. The theme is Systems Engineering in Practice.The aim is to provide a forum for the sharing of insights intosystems engineering as a discipline with widely applicablebenefits; and experiences of specific instances of or aids to itsapplication.
This will provide opportunities for existing practitioners tohone their skills and for individuals and companies who feel thatthe systems approach may bring benefits to their work to find outmore about it and the support that INCOSE can provide.
The previous two symposia have been characterised as beingthought-provoking, wide-ranging, stimulating and goodvalue-for-money. We intend that this one should continue in thatvein. To provide a balanced programme there will be a mixture ofoffered and invited papers from authors working in academia andindustry, covering topics including: requirements, specification,rationale, modelling, structure, project management,supportability, capability maturity and process support. Thereshould be something new for everyone!
The event is co-sponsored by the IEE, the Institution ofElectrical Engineers, who will be arranging one session of theSymposium. This special session will consider how SystemsEngineering in its broad application can be best promoted withinthe professional Institutions which generally cater for a widerange of engineering and management disciplines.
A detailed programme for the two day event and a registrationform will be circulated in early April and/or may be obtainedfrom:
John Mead, The Rest, 20 Beehive Lane, Binfield, Berks RG12 8TU. Tel: 01344 422325 Fax: 01344 481035 e-mail
Last Updated: 23 January, 2000