Systems Thinking and Product Lifecycle Flashcards
The main point of systems thinking
Looking at the big picture: considering all the external systems and organizations that your system will need to rely on
Need to consider every phase of the lifecycle
AND you need to consider all of the systems upon which your system must rely in each phase of that lifecycle
System Scope
Defines what is actually included in the hardware
- It is more than just the hardware you are building. It includes all the external systems on which that hardware depends to actually meet the need
“Atomic Parts”
The lowest useful level of decomposition of your system
Phases of Critical Thinking on Systems Engineering Projects
1) Purpose
2) Problem
3) Assumptions
4) View
5) Data
6) Concepts
7) Conclusions
8) Implications
9) Iterate
“Purpose” phase in systems thinking
Answers “so what”/”Why are we here” questions
Often involves outlining and refining objectives
*It is important to revisit this step to make sure that you are actually moving in the right direction (it’s easy to get bogged down in a particular
“Problem” phase in Systems Thinking
Involves identifying all of the technical challenges involved in your problem space and your solution space
Common Examples: Material challenges, Control Challenges, Design Challenges
“Assumptions” phase in Systems Thinking
- Clearly identify assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable
- Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view
- Carefully enumerate explicit and implicit assumptions
*This is VERY closely related to RISK
Risk in Systems Thinking
Explicit Assumptions
Implicit Assumptions
“View” phase in Systems Thinking
- Need to establish your point of view
- Then you should look at it from the POV of each of your customers (What are their interests/objectives/agendas?)
- Need to look at alternative points of view
- Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each point of view
-Stive to be fair minded when evaluating these different points of view
“Data” phase in Systems Thinking
- Restricts you claims to those that are supported by the data you have
- Actively search for information that OPPOSES your position
- Make sure that all information is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at hand
*Put that data into context when/how/where was it collected
- Opinions that are informed by data are the only opinions that matter
Systems thinking perspective on rejecting outliers
Need to at least try to come up with an explanation for your outlier before you remove it from your dataset.
- Sometimes the outliers can be indicative of a problem (or that a risk is more probable than you anticipated)
Don’t just reject data, you need to understand why you are rejecting that data
- Only reject data if you can do so based on agreed upon concepts.
- Define the criteria for deleting data early in your process (before you collect the data)
You MUST be able to justify why you are deleting/rejecting your data
Do you have a documented rationale?
Is that rationale based in fact or opinion?
“Concepts” phase in Systems Thinking
Concepts and data go hand-in-hand (your concepts provide the basis on which )
Concepts are evaluated similarly to viewpoints:
1) Identify the key concepts and explain them clearly
2) Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions to concepts
3) Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision (don’t be afraid to re-evaluate the concepts you are using if you find evidence or a highly credible opinion that contradicts your results)
“Implications” phase in Systems Thinking
Helps tie your results to the “Purpose”
Are the implications of your results consistent with the objectives
Any inconsistencies between the potential implications and the objectives may indicate risks that you might not have considered
“Iterating” phase in Systems Thinking
System Thinking of “Opinions”
No one cares about your opinion
People care about two things:
1) What you can prove
2) Highly credible opinions, result of expert level education and/or extensive experience/accomplishments
Resolving conflict between extraordinary evidence and highly credible opinions
The very conflict implies that you need to revisit the CONCEPTS and ASSUMPTIONS that you used to analyze the data
Product lifecycle
- Every system in existence falls somewhere in this sequence of steps
- A good systems engineer plans for each of these lifecycle stages
“System Context”
“Supporting Environment”
“Operational Environment”
“Operational Environment” v. “Supporting Environment”
Operating Environment
“Operational Environment” v. “Operating Environment”
System of Interest (SOI)
The actual hardware you are building
It must interact with “Enabling Systems” (other pieces of hardware outside the SOI) in order to accomplish the mission.
Enabling Systems
Systems outside the SOI. The SOI must interface with them in order to accomplish the mission.
