INCOSE Embedding System Engineering in Organizations Survey

This survey takes about 25 minutes to complete, and your responses will be kept strictly confidential. Only non-identifiable data may be published by the working group. By participating, you'll contribute to developing guidance that could benefit your organization and the wider systems engineering community. All questions are optional, but it will help us the most if you try to answer all of them.

“Systems Engineering” may not be a dedicated department or group in an organization. More broadly, it is the perspective that integrates all disciplines, with the primary objective of delivering a cohesive System or Product that meets the client's expectations across its entire lifecycle. Systems Engineering activities are diverse and can be performed by various individuals or groups throughout a project's lifecycle.

Systems engineering is a methodical approach that applies principles, concepts, and management methods to enable the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems. It employs a holistic perspective and systems thinking to integrate various disciplines into a cohesive effort. Systems engineering takes a life cycle approach, encompassing all phases from conception to disposal or retirement, aiming to identify, prioritize, and satisfy the needs of stakeholders. The overarching goal is to manage risk and deliver solutions that meet the intended purpose in real-world operation while minimizing unintended consequences.

Examples include (but are not limited to):

• Business analysts defining problems and capturing business needs
• Product owners documenting stakeholder and technical requirements
• Software architects designing new products
• System architects designing broad engineering solutions
• Test engineers evaluating built solutions
• Chief engineers critically examining design features for necessity and feasibility within project constraints

The primary goals of this initial ESEIO survey are:

• Inform the ESEIO working group as to the needs of the community relative to embedding SE into their organizations, to help us prioritize our work and the work products;
• Understand community awareness of the need for embedding SE in organizations;
• Identify enablers and barriers to embedding;
• Identify opportunities and pitfalls in the embedding process;
• Identify successful and unsuccessful approaches;
• Ensure a broad and representative response by a wide cross-section of the community;
• Collect the relevant information that can be synthesized to support the development of tailored guidance to organizations on embedding systems engineering into their organization.