SE Definitions and Chapter 1 Flashcards
It’s an observable characteristic or property of the system (or system element).
Attribute
Work product that is produced and used during a project to capture and convey information.
Artifact
The mutual acknowledgment of terms and conditions under which a working relationship is conducted.
Agreement
A term used in human resource management denoting an acquired or natural capacity or talent that enables an individual to perform a particular task successfully.
Ability
An SE process using agile approach.
Agile systems-engineering
An engineering process producing agile systems.
Agile-systems engineering
The stakeholder that acquires or procures a product or service from a supplier.
Acquirer
A set of cohesive tasks of a process.
Activity
An agreed-to description of the attributes of a product at a point in tim e, which serves as a basis for defining change. (EIA-649C, 2019)
Baseline
The way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others. (INCOSE SECF)
Behavior
Represents an external view of the system (attributes). Also referred to as opaque box.
Black box
Development of “to-be” system or system elements in the presence of existing or legacy “as-is” system or system elements. Note : It’s usually used to extend, improve, or replace a system that is in use or to reuse system elements that will not be impacted by the desired changes. The new system architecture must take into account the existing system elements and functions, which impose constraints on the overall system definition.
Brownfield SE
An expression of a system, product , function , or process ability to achieve a specific objective under stated conditions.
Capability
(Of a product line) refers to functional and non-functional characteristics that can be shared with all member products within a product line. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 26550, 2015)
Commonality
The measure of specified ability to do something well. (INCOSE SECF)
Competence
An observable, measurable set of skills, knowledge, abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics an individual needs to successfully perform work roles or occupational functions. They are typically required at different levels of proficiency depending on the specific work role or occupational function. They can help ensure individual and team performance aligns with the organization’s mission and strategic direction. (INCOSE SECF)
Competency
A system, system element, or artifact designated for configuration management.
Configuration item (Cl)
It’s an approval event (may be associated with a review). Entry and exit criteria are established for each; continuation beyond it is contingent on the agreement of decision makers .
Decision gate
The boundary conditions, externally or internally imposed, for the Sol within which the organization must remain when executing the processes during the concept and development stages.
Design constraints
A system designed or adapted to interact with an anticipated operational environment to achieve one or more intended purposes while complying with applicable constraints. (INCOSE Definitions, 2019)
Engineered System
A purposeful combination of interdependent resources that interact with each other to achieve business and operational goals. (Rebovich and White, 2011)
Enterprise
The surroundi ngs (natural or man-made) in which the Sol is utili zed and supported or in which the system is being developed, produced, and retired.
Environment
The physical means or equipment for facilitating the performance of an action, for example, buildings, instruments, and tools.
Facility
The event in which any part of a system or system element does not perform as required by its specification . Note: It may occur at a value in excess of the minimum required in the specification, that is, past design limits or beyond the margin of safety.
Failure
An evaluation to ensure that the product meets baseline functional and performance capabilities. (Adapted from ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
Functional configuration audit (FCA)
Development of a system for a new environment and set of user scenarios and requirements.Note: It’s approach typically has no significant legacy constraints or dependencies within the system boundary. However, it is rare that there are no constraints or dependencies from external interfaces or enabling systems.
Greenfield SE
The systematic application of relevant information about human abilities, characteristics, behavior, motivation, and performance.
Human factors
A shared boundary between two systems or system elements, defined by functional characteristics, common physical interconnection characteristics, signal characteristics, or other characteristics, as appropriate. (Adapted from ISO/IEC 2382,2015)
Interface
Figures in this handbook that provide a high-level view of the process of interest. The diagram summarizes the process activities and their typical inputs and typical outputs from/to other processes or external actors.
IPO diagram
A body of information applied directly to the performance of a function. (INCOSE SECF)
Knowledge
The total cost of a system over its entire life. Note: It includes all costs associated with the system and its use in the concept, development, production, utilization, support, and retirement stages.
Life cycle cost (LCC)
A framework of processes and activities concerned with the life cycle, which also acts as a common reference for communication and understanding. (ISO/IEC/ IEEE 15288, 2023)
Life cycle model
Variable to which a value is assigned as the result of measurement. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15939,2017)
Measure
Set of operations having the object of determining a value of a measure. (ISO/IEC/ IEEE 15939, 2017)
Measurement
Measures that define the acquirer’s key indicators of achieving the mission needs for performance, suitability, and affordability across the life cycle.
Measures of effectiveness (MOEs)
Measures to assess whether the system meets design or performance requirements and has the capability to achieve operational objectives.
Measures of performance (MOPs)
Graphical representation used to define the internal operational relationships or external interfaces of the Sol.
N2 diagrams
The result of a formal transformation of one or more life cycle concepts into an agreed-to expectation for an entity to perform some function or possess some quality. (INCOSE GtWR, 2022)
Need statement
Person, or a group of people, and facilities with an arrangement of responsibilities , authorities, and relationships. (Adapted from ISO 9001, 2015)
Organization
A quantitative measure characterizing a physical or functional attribute relating to the execution of a process, function, activity, or task; their attributes include quantity (how many or how much), quality (how well), timeliness (how responsive, how frequent), and readiness (when, under which circumstances).
Performance
An evaluation to ensure that the operational system conforms to the operational and configuration documentation . (Adapted from ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
Physical configuration audit (PCA)
A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transforms inputs into outputs. (Adapted from ISO 9001, 2015)
Process
Group of products or services sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy specific needs of a selected market or mission. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765, 2017)
Product Line
An endeavor with defined start and finish criteria undertaken to create a product or service in accordance with specified resources and requirements. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288,2023)
Project
A realization of an idea or technology to demonstrate its feasibility.
Proof of concept
Inherent characteristic of a product, process, or system related to a requirement. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
Quality Characteristics
The result of a formal transformation of one or more needs or parent requirements into an agreed-to obligation for an entity to perform some function or possess some quality . (INCOSE GtWR, 2022)
Requirement statement
An asset that is utilized or consumed during the execution of a process. (ISO/IEC/ IEEE 15288, 2023)
Resource
Ratio of revenue from output (product or service) to development and production costs , which determines whether an organization benefits from performing an action to produce something. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765, 2017)
Return on investment
The use of an asset in the solution of different problems. (IEEE 1517, 2010)
Reuse
An observable competence to perform a learned psychomotor act.
Skills
A period within the life cycle of an entity that relates to the state of its description or realization . Note: Typical life cycle ones include concept, development, production, utilization, support , and retirement.
Stage
A party having a right, share, or claim in a system or in its possession of characteristics that meet that party’s needs and expectations.
Stakeholder
An organization or an individual that enters into an agreement with an acquirer for the supply of a product or service. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
Supplier
An arrangement of parts or elements that together exhibit behavior or meaning that the individual constituents do not. (INCOSE Definitions, 2019)
System
The person, team, or organiz ation responsible for a system’s architecture, for coordinating engineering effort towards devising solutions to complex problems, and overseeing their implementations.
System architect
The fundamental concepts or properties of an entity in its environment and governing principles for the realization and evolution of this entity and its related life cycle processes. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 42020, 2019)
System architecture
Member of a set of elements that constitutes a system. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
System element
The evolution with time of a Sol from conception to retirement.
System life cycle
The system whose life cycle is under consideration. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
System of interest (Sol)
A Sol whose system elements are themselves systems; typically, these entail large? scale interdisciplinary problems with multiple, heterogeneous, distributed systems.
System of systems
A transdisciplinary and integrative approach to enable the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems, using systems principles and concepts, and scientific, technological, and management methods. (INCOSE Definitions, 2019)
Systems engineering
The manner in which any selected issue is addressed in a particular project. It may be applied to various aspects of the project, including project documentation, processes , and activities performed in each life cycle stage, the time and scope of reviews, analysis, and decision making consistent with all applicable statutory requirements.
Tailoring
Measures to assess design progress, compliance to performance requirements, or technical risks and provide visibility into the status of important project technical parameters to enable effective management, thus enhancing the likelihood of achieving the technical objectives of the project.
Technical performance measures (TPMs)
Decision-making actions that selects from various alternatives on the basis of net benefit to the stakeholders.
Trade-off
An individual who, or an organization that, contributes to the functionality of a system and draws on knowledge, skills, and procedures to contribute to the function. Individual who or group that benefits from a system during its utilization.
User
Confirmation, through the provision of objective evidence, that the requirements for a specific intended use or application have been fulfilled. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
Validation
A measure of worth (e.g., benefit divided by cost) of a specific product or service by a customer , and potentially other stakeholders. (McManus , 2005)
Value
(Of a product line) refers to characteristics that may differ among members of the product line. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 26550, 2015)
Variability
Confirmation, through the provision of objective evidence, that specified requirements have been fulfilled. (ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, 2023)
Verification
Work that adds no value to the product or service in the eyes of the customer. (Womack and Jones, 1996)
Waste
It represents an internal view of the system (attributes and structure of the elements). Also referred to as transparent box.
White box
The goal of all SE activities is to __________________.
manage risk
Systems can be either ___________ or __________, or a combination of both
physical , conceptual
“Engineered systems” may be composed of any or all of the following elements: people, products, services, ___________, _________, and/or ______________.
information, processes, natural elements
TRW (now a part of Northrop Grumman) claims to have invented SE in the late _____ to support work with _____________
1950s, ballistic missiles
______ and _____ (1957) authored the first book on SE in 1957
Goode and Machol
In ____, a professional society for SE, the National Council on Systems Engineering (NCOSE), was founded by representatives from several US corporations and organizations
year 1990
NCOSE was was changed to the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) in _____
year 1995
Two common SE Standards, _______ and ______.
ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765
SE has only been formalized as an engineering discipline beginning in the early to _______________.
middle of the twentieth century
Hall (1962) asserts that the first attempt to teach SE as we know it today came in 1950 at ____ by ______, Director of Systems Engineering at Bell.
MIT, Mr Gillman
The Qumose of SE is to conceive, develop, produce, utilize, support, and retire the right product or service within ___________ and _________ constraints
budget, schedule
Over the years between 1880 and 2000, average __% market penetration has been reduced by more than a factor of ____
25, 4
A 2013 study was completed at the University of ___________ to quantify the return on investment (ROI) of SE activities on overall project cost and schedule
South Australia
Acceleration of design to market life cycle has prompted development of more __________ design methods and tools
automated
The rapid evolution and introduction of _____________ and _______________ into SE further increases complexity of verifiability, safety, and trust of self-learning and evolving systems.
Artificial Intelligence (Al), Machine Learning (ML)
Study data shows that SE effort had a significant, quantifiable effect on project success, with correlation factors as high as ___%. Results show that the optimum level of SE effort for a normalized range of ____% to ___% of the total project cost.
80%, 10-14%
A joint 2012 study by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), surveyed 148 development projects and found clear and significant relationships between the application of SE activities and the _________ of those projects.
performance
A 1993 Defense Acquisition University (DAU) statistical analysis on US Department of Defense (DoD) projects examined spent and committed life cycle cost (LCC) over time (DAU, 1993). an important result from this study is that by the time approximately ____% of the actual costs have been accrued, over ___% of the total LCC has already typically been committed.
20%, 80%
A 1993 Defense Acquisition University (DAU) statistical analysis on US Department of Defense (DoD) projects also shows that it is less costly to fix or address issues if they are identified _____.
early
Part of the system concept are the system’s _____ and ______ which are fundamental system behavior characteristics important to SE
modes, states
It’s a “line of demarcation” between the system under consideration, called the system of interest (Sol), and its greater context. It defines what belongs to the system and what does not.
system boundary
When a system is considered as an integrated combination of interacting elements, the _________ of the system derives not just from the interactions of individual elements with the environmental elements but also from how these interactions are influenced by the organization (interrelations) of the system elements.
functionality
A system is in a _____ when the values assigned to its attributes remain constant or steady for a
meaningful period of time (Kaposi and Myers, 2001).
state
_______ behavior of a system is the time evolution of the system state.
dynamic
________ behavior is a behavior of the system that cannot be understood exclusively in terms of the behavior of the individual system elements.
emergent
________ describes the phenomenon that whole entities exhibit properties which are meaningful only when attributed to the whole, not to its elements. It’s a fundamental property of all systems.
emergence
According to Rousseau et al. (2018), emergence derives from the systems science concept of “________ the system has but the ________ by themselves do not.”
properties, elements
System elements interact between themselves and can create desirable or undesirable phenomena called ________ _________ such as inhibition, interference, resonance, or reinforcement of any property. They can also result from the interaction between the system and its environment. For example, _________ (Leveson, 1995) and __________ (Rasoulkahni, 2018) are examples of emergent properties of engineered systems (see Sections 3.1.11 and 3.1.9, respectively).
emergent properties, system safety, resiliance
__________ systems are systems beyond (or outside of) the Sol boundary
external
__________ systems are external systems that share an interface (e.g., physical, material, energy, data/information) with the Sol
interfacing
___________ systems are interfacing systems that interface with the Sol in its operational environment to perform a common function that supports the Sol’s primary purpose
interoperating
___________ systems are external systems that facilitate the life cycle activities of the Sol but are not a direct element of the operational environment
enabling
Typical pitfalls include assuming that a new enabling system will come online _______ to support the development of the Sol or that an existing enabling system will be __________ for the duration of the life cycle of the Sol.
in time, available
Over single, and eventually multiple life cycles, engineered system innovation may be viewed as a form of group learning by “ecosystems” composed of individuals, teams, enterprises, _________, ________, and _________.
supply chains, markets, and societies
Effective innovation requires effective learning and adaptation at a group level across these ecosystems and brings related challenges. To represent, plan, analyze, and improve such performance, the neutral descriptive ________ _________ _______ ________ has been found to be useful
System Innovation Ecosystem Pattern
three top-level system boundaries are: System 1 - The Engineered System, System 2 - The Life Cycle Project Management System, and ______________________________________.
System 3-The Enterprise Process and Innovation System
A ___________ is a discrete part of a system that can be implemented to fulfil specified requirements.
System element
A system element that needs only a black box (also known as opaque box) representation (i.e., external view) to capture its requirements and confidently specify its real-world solution definition can be regarded as ________.
atomic
One approach to defining the elements of a system and their interrelations is to identify a complete set of distinct system elements with regard only to their relation to the whole (system) by suppressing details of their interactions and interrelations. These considerations lead to the concept of _________ within a system.
hierarchy
These considerations lead to the concept of hierarchy within a system. This is referred to as a partitioning of the system and the end result is called a _________ __________ _____________.
Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)
Urwick (1956) suggested a possible heuristic for span of control, recommending that decomposition of any object in a hierarchy be limited to no more than ________ subordinate elements, plus or minus _____.
seven, two
A level of design with too _____ subordinate elements is unlikely to have a distinct design activity
few
In case of too _____ subordinate elements, it may be difficult to manage all the interfaces between the subordinate elements.
many
_______ and ______ are two related concepts that are used for defining and modeling system functional architectures and for modeling and managing system behaviors.
states, modes
From the perspective of MBSE (see Section 4.2.1), “The state of the system is the most concise description of its past ______.”
history
“A state often directly reflects an operating condition or ______ on structural elements of the system (operational, failed, degraded, absent, etc.).
status
_____ are snapshots of a set of variables or measurements needed to describe fully the system’s capabilities to perform the system’s functions.
states
_____________ are the multidimensional list of variables that determine the state of the system.
state variables
______ are part of the system functional architecture and can be derived by affinity analysis of system use cases (Wasson, 2016).
modes
Mode transitions are often based on triggering events that meet specified _____ and ______
criteria (Wasson, 2016).
entry, exit
A _________ system has elements, the relationship between the states of which are weaved together so that they are not fully comprehended, leading to insufficient certainty between cause and effect.
complex
A ________ system has elements, the relationship between the states of which, once observed, are readily comprehended.
simple
A ________ system has elements, the relationship between the states of which can be unfolded and
comprehended, leading to sufficient certainty between cause and effect.
complicated
A “reductionist approach” does or does not work well for complicated problems.
does
A “reductionist approach” does or does not work well for complex problems.
does not
SE for complex systems requires a balance of [linear or non-linear], procedural methods for sorting through complicated and intricate tasks (e.g., systematic activity) and holistic, [linear or non-linear] iterative methods for harnessing complexity (e.g., systemsthinking).
linear, non-linear
In SE, _________ uncertainty is due to our lack of knowledge about the potential demand for a new system and how a technology, system, or process will perform in the future, for example, the knowledge gap about key value attribute or about the acquirer’s preferences.
epistemic
_____________ uncertainty is uncertainty due to randomness. If a technology, system, or process can perform a function, there will be always some inherent randomness in every performance measurement.
Aleatory
Which type of uncertainty [epistemic or aleatory] can never completely reduce in our development or operational measurement of system performance.
aleatory
_______ ________ are mental errors in judgment under uncertainty caused by our simplified information processing strategies (sometimes called heuristics) and are consistent and predictable (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974).
Cognitive biases
The most effective methods are _______ _______ _______. For example, NASA (2003) recommends the Independent Technical Authority (ITA) to warn decision makers of the potential for failure. The ITA must be both financially and organizationally independent of the project manager. Another method, adopted by the aviation industry, is called the Crew Resource Management (CRM) method.
external group methods
SE principles are a form of guidance proposition that can be classified by their sources, e.g., _______ (derived from practical experience as discussed in Section 1.4.4), ____________ (derived from social agreements), _________ (derived from cultural perspectives), and _________ (based on theoretical mechanisms).
heuristics, conventions, values, models
System principles address the behavior and properties of all kinds of systems, looking at the scientific basis for a system and characterizing this basis in a system context via specialized instances of a general set of system principles. [SE or systems] principles build on [SE or systems] principles that are general for all kinds of systems
SE, systems
____________ usually take the form of short expressions in natural language. These can be memorable phrases encapsulating shortcuts, “rules of thumb,” or “words of the wise,”. At their best, they can act as aids to decision making, value judgments, and assessments.
heuristics
Since then, engineering and applied sciences have co-evolved: with [engineering or science] providing the ability to predict and explain performance of engineered artefacts with greater assurance and [engineering or science] developing new and more complex systems, requiring new scientific explanations and driving research agendas.
science , engineering
Maier and Rechtin (2009), observed that it was in many cases better to apply heuristics than attempt _______ ________. The reason for this is the number of variables involved and the complexity of the interactions between stakeholders, internal dynamics of system solutions, and the organizations responsible for their realization.
detailed analysis
Systems _______ enables us to recognize systems patterns across different phenomena, problem contexts, and disciplines.
thinking
Systems ________ can be defined as a transdisciplinary approach interested in understanding all aspects of systems with the goals of (1) identifying, exploring, and understanding patterns of behavior crossing disciplinary fields and areas of application, and (2) establishing a general theory applicable to all types of systems whether physical, natural, engineered, or social.
science
_______ ________ is a field characterized by a baffling array of methods and approaches. We posit that underlying all, however, are four universal rules called DSRP (distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives). We make distinctions between and among things and ideas, each implying the existence of another. We identify systems, which are composed of parts and wholes. We recognize relationships composed of actions and reactions. We take perspectives consisting of a point (from which we see) and a view (that which is seen). (Cabrera, et al., 2015)
Systems thinking
