What Makes the Systems Engineer Successful? Various Surveys Suggest An Answer

Howard Eisner

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000331622
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Industrial Design

This book offers a survey of successful attributes of the systems engineer. It focuses on the key positive attributes of what today's systems engineer should be and puts a model in place for achievement and behavior for future systems engineers.

The book, in survey form, provides a description of how and why systems engineers can be, and have been, successful. It offers successful attributes, focuses on the key positive qualities, and drills down to the success features to aim for and the failure characteristics to avoid. The ending result is that it sets a model for achievement and behavior for future systems engineers to follow a successful path.

This book will be helpful to systems engineers, industrial engineers, mechanical engineers, general engineers, and those in technical management.

Systems Engineering: No Room at the Top

1

This is a book about superior abilities and performance – not just better than average or passing a few tests that define a level of achievement. It is about seriously being the best as an engineer. We define “the best” by using real people as models, where the number one model is the ubiquitous da Vinci. There is essentially no person that will wish to argue that point, namely, that Leonardo is not the best. So what about just simply starting with him. Various comments will support the notion that this is a different time and a different place. These are “context” arguments that will not be neglected. So perhaps, to make the point we start with a definitive statement (which is not provable, but we accept in good faith):

Leonardo = Best systems engineer that ever lived

Rounding out the top are two other systems engineers, both of whom have some defects as super-systems engineers, namely, Newton and Einstein. What’s the basis for his type of criticism for these two? Roughly speaking, it has to do with the limitations in scope of what they did, as we shall see later in this treatise. It certainly was not a limitation in brainpower. But, as we shall see, this is a complex story and is not all that easy to tell. But we have plenty of time and space.

So the overall perspective of this book is simply that we explore the set of (super) systems engineers and find out what they had in common as basic skills. This then becomes our answer: what is it that likely defines the success factors for this population of people? What are the success attributes in terms of conceiving of and building systems in the very best way. And how do we know what skills are employed by these super-systems engineers? That one is easy – they tell us, generally in the form of books and papers that they’ve written. That way we’ve got it in “black and white”. And if they don’t tell us directly, we may be fortunate enough to have a biographer. Much of the data is out there; it just needs to be collected and interpreted.

Leonardo

Perhaps the most penetrating study of da Vinci is that provided by Gelb [1]. His investigation is complete and respectful, and winds up summarizing with the following seven points with respect to da Vinci’s main attributes:

1. An Insatiable Curiosity. They all start with this; it provides the essential juices for discovery.
2. Inclination to Test Knowledge with Experience. If one’s experience doesn’t correlate with the theory, guess what?
3. Enhance Senses, Especially Sight. Makes elemental sense; seeing is believing.
4. Accept Ambiguity and Uncertainty. It’s like being suspended in space, but he learned how to do it.
5. Cultivation of Fitness and Grace. Here’s where the body comes into play directly.
6. Develop Balance between Art and Science. Some people call it having the right and left brains in balance, working to support each other.
7. Systems Thinking. This needs to be part of the overall approach to problem-solving, and it takes some explanation and practice.

Leonardo gives both himself and us this set of guidelines that can be followed. Each of us can look at this list of seven items and inquire –

• Can I look at this list and systematically improve each of the items?

In effect, we can then accept this list as his advice as how to become a better systems engineer.

We proceed here with three short anecdotes regarding da Vinci.

There came to be a time (1482 in particular) when Leonardo was applying for a job with the Regent of Milan. His letter was expansive, covering some 14 points and subjects such as his abilities in bridge-making, handling sieges, attacking fortresses, making cannons, catapults, and sculptures. I suppose it’s not irrelevant to say; he got the job. And by the way, he also added an item that addressed the matter of making peace, just in case the Regent got the impression that he was some type of warmonger.

From 1495 to 1498, he was working on “The Last Supper”, capturing the scene in which Christ declares that “one of you will betray me”. This is a singular moment from a singular artist. The anecdotal part of this incredible piece of art is the fact (prediction) that he knew he would be betrayed and also perhaps knew who would betray him.

If we look carefully at the seven da Vinci principles, as cited above, we see his broad skills and thinking, summed up, if you will, by “systems” thinking. It is not a far leap of faith to see that da Vinci was actually the originator of this type of thinking, important today to the systems engineer.

Finally, yet another “saying” is attributable to da Vinci: one that will find special resonance in this treatise. This saying may be loosely translated as “every obstacle that I find in front of me will yield to stern resolve”.

Newton

Born in 1643 in the UK, he became the time’s preeminent physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and theologian. He is possibly best known for his equations of motion as well as his formula for the gravitational force. He also contributed in a fundamental way to the fields of calculus and optics. He was much more than a theoretician and academic, having invented the reflecting and Newtonian telescopes. Here are a few well-known sayings that are attributed in the literature to Newton [2,3]:

1. “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.
2. “We build too many walls and not enough bridges”.
3. “If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought”.
4. “To every action there is always an opposed equal reaction”.
5. “I now demonstrate the frame of the system of the world”. (“Principia Mathematica”).

We follow this with three anecdotal stories about Newton. The first is simply refuting the “apple” story. Many think that Newton came upon his theories of gravitation by observing an apple falling from a tree. According to a background treatise [2], this apple story is not true.

A second anecdotal area is that Newton held the position of Master of the Royal Mint. He worked on that position with skill and fervor, leading to the conviction of many as counterfeiters. The penalty he argued for was being hanged, which he obtained in many cases. One guesses that he received no small measure of satisfaction from getting a good count on the hangings.

Newton was a vindictive as well as unrelenting man, which he demonstrated in his Mint position as well as an intense set of arguments with the likes of Hooke and Leibniz. In other words, he seemed to love a fight. According to a biography [2], he was not inclined to back up or give up when a controversy was at hand. His tendency toward perseverance carries over to our benefit – namely, we still use Newton’s genius today to solve certain gravitational problems. Thank you, Sir Isaac! And keep in mind that there is yet another piece of work from Sir Isaac that transcends just about any and all treatises written to that day. And that is Newton’s Principia [4].

Einstein

Along with da Vinci and Newton at the top of the profession is Albert Einstein [5], who was actually a rather playful individual, with a deep regard for humor and humility. He formulated the breakthrough special and general theories of relativity, visualizing a space-time continuum. He set forth the well-known e = mc² relating mass and energy. He believed that the use of one’s imagination was more important and useful than pure knowledge and facts. He set forth a two-stage combinatorial play process that helped him in his problem-solving. He also used gedanken experiments to work his way through difficult sequences of logic and complex behaviors.

Einstein had a multi-faceted life, starting if you will as a patent reviewer in Berne, Switzerland. He was modest in his early day achievements and did not appear to be the shooting star of physics that he eventually became. Perhaps a turning point was the solar eclipse of 1919 when his relativity theory was, in part, demonstrated. This had to do with the bending of starlight by the sun, by some 1.4 arcseconds (he had predicted 1.7 arcseconds). Apparently, the world was also watching, and they had found their physics genius; he had arrived with that one measurement. He had persevered.

According to this author, he deserves the right to be acclaimed as a super-systems engineer, even though he did little by way of running a huge organization. But his influences were manifold, which we all took notice of, year by year. He was even offered a serious leadership position in Israel (which he turned down), operating as a world-wide purveyor of wisdom and good will.

Various approaches and thoughts of significance in relation to this subject and Einstein can be paraphrased as follows:

• Prepare, from time to time, to break all the rules.
• I have often been seen as one who has contempt for authority.
• All of what we call science is simply the application of good sense.
• I prefer visualization to trying to think in thoughts.
• My curiosity is like a little plant that is in need of freedom.

Following the approach with Messrs. Da Vinci and Newton, here are three very short stories about Einstein. That completes this introduction regarding our very best systems engineers – da Vinci, Newton, and Einstein. We move on down to more modern people and times in the following chapter.

One of the more curious stories about Einstein by way of an anecdote is his tendency to not wear socks. After a while, that just became his way of being, so he didn’t notice that it was not the norm. Other people did, of course.

A second area of some note with respect to Einstein is the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Author
• Other Books by the Author
• 1 Systems Engineering: No Room at the Top
• 2 Selected Best Systems Engineers
• 3 Synthesizer
• 4 Listener
• 5 Curious/Systems Thinker
• 6 Manager/Leader
• 7 Expert/ESEP
• 8 Expert/Domain Knowledge
• 9 Perseverer
• 10 Recapitulation
• Appendix A – INCOSE Fellow Inputs
• Appendix B – Across the Board Articles
• Index