Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership: Practical Research from Women Leaders (Women in Engineering and Science) 3031089499, 9783031089497

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Women in Engineering and Science

Alice F. Squires Marilee J. Wheaton Heather J. Feli   Editors

Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership Practical Research from Women Leaders

Women in Engineering and Science Series Editor Jill S. Tietjen, Greenwood Village, CO, USA

The Springer Women in Engineering and Science series highlights women’s accomplishments in these critical fields. The foundational volume in the series provides a broad overview of women’s multi-faceted contributions to engineering over the last century. Each subsequent volume is dedicated to illuminating women’s research and achievements in key, targeted areas of contemporary engineering and science endeavors.The goal for the series is to raise awareness of the pivotal work women are undertaking in areas of keen importance to our global community.

Alice F. Squires  •  Marilee J. Wheaton Heather J. Feli Editors

Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership Practical Research from Women Leaders

Editors Alice F. Squires INCOSE, San Diego, CA, USA

Marilee J. Wheaton INCOSE, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Heather J. Feli INCOSE, Hartford, CT, USA

ISSN 2509-6427     ISSN 2509-6435 (electronic) Women in Engineering and Science ISBN 978-3-031-08949-7    ISBN 978-3-031-08950-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to our spouses, parents, children, family, friends, and colleagues who guide us to be the best that we can be, and honors women in leadership who blaze the path while also reaching back to empower others in their journey.

Foreword

I have been participating and following the evolution of systems engineering for 40 years. I’ve seen how we grew from some basic concepts to a separate discipline of engineering with our own tools, methodologies, and heuristics. Our tools have matured from sketches, diagrams, and flow charts to model-based, computer analytics. We even have our own professional society, INCOSE, and seasoned professionals as both practitioners and educators. The editors of this book are great examples of our numbers. There has been much written about the topic of systems engineering and the shelves are full of books. Software tools and simulations abound. But one aspect of systems engineering that you won’t find much written about is leadership. And yet, my own experience taught me that it is arguably the most important aspect of systems engineering. Without leadership, systems engineering is just a set of tools that may or may not give you the best system or even the right answer. This book tackles that challenging subject and provides a valuable reference for the practitioners of systems engineering. There are few systems engineers that are more qualified to guide us through this subject than the editors of this book. They represent the best from government (Marilee Wheaton), industry (Heather Feli), and academia (Dr. Alice Squires). Ms. Wheaton is a Systems Engineering Fellow at The Aerospace Corporation and has guided the engineering of numerous complex space systems for National Security over her career. She is a Fellow of the Systems Engineering Research Center and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Heather Feli has a wide breadth of industry experience including critical roles in the Space Shuttle program. She frequently speaks and writes on leadership. Dr. Squires has 25 years of practicing engineering experience before becoming a highly respected professor of systems engineering at the Washington State University. Combined, they have nearly 100 years of experience and rank among the top gurus of the systems engineering profession. In addition, the authors of the chapters span the breadth of the profession and represent every aspect of industry, academia, and government service. They clearly have much to share with fellow practitioners of systems engineering whether new to the profession or experienced engineers.

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I started my professional career in 1982 when I entered the Air Force as a First Lieutenant and a recent graduate of a PhD program in chemical engineering. I was well equipped to perform as a systems engineer when it came to the technical aspects of engineering. But it was not long before I realized that the hard part was the leadership aspects of the job. As a young engineer, I found myself often as the most junior person on the team but with the strongest technical skills. Without any authority from my position, I had to garner the support of my superiors and guide the progress of the systems we were developing. One of my first lessons was how to lead from below. In one chapter of this book, Eileen Arnold and Dorothy McKinney explore the topic of leadership from above and below. I wish I’d had the benefit of their perspective before my first job. The value of diversity is a much-discussed topic today, and yet, little is written on how to lead a diverse team to get the best performance. Several of the chapters in the book address themes related to diversity. As a senior program manager in the Air Force, I was often the only woman in the room and observed both effective and ineffective leadership approaches to leveraging the power of team diversity in decision-making and problem-solving. Empowering diversity of thought is essential to successful engineering of complex systems, and yet it is often perceived as counter to good systems engineering rigor and discipline. I witnessed this firsthand in 2012–2013 when as the Space Launch Certifying official, I led the effort to certify SpaceX for their first United States Air Force (USAF) launch. Refereeing the debate between the government engineers, steep in traditional systems engineering practices, and the SpaceX engineers, adopters of the latest agile engineering practices, was one of the most challenging tasks of my career. As the Judge Widney Professor of Systems Architecting and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California, I share these experiences and others with the students to help them understand the importance of leadership skills. I took 36 years to learn how to lead in systems engineering. We can’t afford to wait for the current generation of systems engineering professionals to learn those skills from experience. This book presents an opportunity for you to learn from the experience of others, like the editors and the authors. If you are a new systems engineer, it is a reference guide as you learn on the job and hone your skills. Industry, academia, and government organizations will find it a resource for both education and leadership training. For institutes of higher education, the text serves as a reader for an engineering management course, or women’s studies, or executive leadership programs. Human resource departments in industry and academia will find it useful in developing their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. In short, this book has something for everyone! Ellen M. Pawlikowski General (retired) is an independent consultant providing expertise on strategic planning, program management, logistics, and research and development. She is the Judge Widney Professor at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. She serves on the Boards of Directors for the Raytheon Company, Intelsat SA, Applied Research Associates, and SRI International. Ellen Pawlikowski was the third woman to achieve the rank of General in the US Air Force. In her last assignment, she served as Commander, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The command employs

Foreword

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some 80,000 people and manages $60 billion annually, providing the Air Force with research and development, life cycle systems management, test and evaluation, installation support, depot maintenance, and supply chain management. She entered the Air Force in 1978 as a distinguished graduate of the ROTC program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ.  She then attended the University of California at Berkeley as a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation fellow and received a Doctorate in chemical engineering in December 1981. General Pawlikowski’s career has spanned a wide variety of technical management, leadership and staff positions. She commanded five times as a general officer, commanding the MILSATCOM Systems Wing, the AF element of the National Reconnaissance Office, AF Research Laboratory, the Space and Missile Systems Center, and Air force Materiel Command. She also served as the program director and program executive officer for several multibillion-dollar military-system acquisitions. General Pawlikowski is nationally recognized for her leadership and technical management acumen. Among her recognitions are the Women in Aerospace Life Time Achievement Award, the NDIA’s Peter B Teets Award, and the Air Force Association Executive Management Award. She is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a Fellow of the Directed Energy Professional Society, and a member of the National Academy of Engineers. Ellen Pawlikowski was born in Bloomfield, NJ, and currently resides in Macon, GA.

Preface

Today’s leaders need to be successful in a changing and complex global environment. One key to this success is the ability of leaders to adapt to changing circumstances while remaining committed to employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, and the community. Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership: Practical Research from Women Leaders offers multiple perspectives for addressing systems engineering leadership in a changing world. The goal of the book is to share experience and research on systems engineering leadership that is both engaging and useful to the reader. The book’s uniqueness is born through the varied experiences and backgrounds of the authors and the reviewers and their diverse experiences, and the engaging and timely topics addressed in the book. Keeping abreast of emerging themes is important in any field. Future leaders need to be successful in a changing and complex global environment. To this end, this book can be used to serve multiple purposes. The book can be used as: • • • •

part of lifelong learning on any of the many topics addressed in the book part of a mentoring program a reference guide for systems engineers or leaders as you hone your skills a textbook in higher education for engineering management, leadership, women’s studies, and other programs and courses in academia • a reference for engineering leadership training programs in industry and consulting organizations • suggested reading for diversity, equity, and inclusion and career development programs conducted by human resource departments across multiple engineering domains in industry, academia, and government. Overall, many different forms of training, educating, or learning can be enhanced by the inclusion of the book as a resource. For classroom training and education, Chap. 1 would be the best place to start for an overview of all of the topics presented in the book. Next, the order of the chapters beginning with the essential (soft) skills is a reasonable order for presentation of the material. Alternatively, training could be rearranged to start with any of the parts:

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technology, or diversity, equity, and inclusion, or a broad philosophy of leadership with systems thinking, ethics, and utilitarianism. Assignments could include: • extended research on each chapter topic assigned to teams or individuals for class presentation and discussion • projects or experiments to test hypotheses related to ideas in chapter or ideas from chapter topics • an assignment to “add” a new chapter to the book—of an emerging trend in systems engineering leadership The goal of this book is to support the development of a more inclusive, human-­ focused, systems-minded next generation of leaders. In short, this book has something for everyone! INCOSE, San Diego, CA, USA INCOSE, Los Angeles, CA, USA INCOSE, Hartford, CT, USA

Alice F. Squires Marilee J. Wheaton Heather J. Feli

Endorsement

“As the systems that modern society depends on get more complicated and complex, we are in the midst of a renaissance with regard to research relating to systems engineering and science. A vast majority of this research is focused on the development of a modern toolkit for systems engineers today and into the future. This takes the form of new and improved methods, models, methodology, processes, and tools. This research is critical but likely insufficient without a focus on the most valuable resource with regard to systems engineering within any organization – the human resource. Therein lies the focus of this textbook. It addresses systems engineering leadership from a variety of perspectives, while also addressing broad aspects relating to mentoring and the necessary evolving competencies that we need to address in today’s workforce. This emphasis makes this book unique. The icing on the cake is that all the chapters in this textbook are written by contemporary women leaders – this provides a necessary and unique perspective on the topic of leadership – that is long overdue! I highly recommend this textbook to all my colleagues in academia, industry, and government.” Dinesh Verma, PhD Professor, Systems Engineering, School of Systems and Enterprises Executive Director, Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030 [email protected] “The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the number of women who are formally recognized in systems engineering technical, management, and leadership positions in all sectors. With industry, academia, professional systems engineering societies, and publishers enabling and illuminating the growing and substantial contributions of women in engineering, women have unprecedented opportunities today to contribute to systems engineering in both leadership and management positions. This volume, a compendium of chapters written by enterprising international women leaders at various stages in their career, addresses diverse topics such as xiii

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leadership, management, empowerment, equity, diversity, inclusion, and mentoring. It is a valuable resource for engineering management courses in academia, systems engineering leadership training in industry, and diversity, equity, and inclusion program development by human resource departments in industry, academia, and government.” Azad M. Madni, PhD, NAE Northrop Grumman Foundation Fred O’Green Chair in Engineering Professor of Astronautics and Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Executive Director, Systems Architecting and Engineering Program University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 “Women’s contributions to systems engineering and leadership in that field have been considerable but may not have had the impact they deserve. Their work has been generally under-evaluated or overlooked, and this book goes a long way in identifying these achievements. From specific aspects of the field, such as building systemic resilience, to gender issues in the systems engineering pipeline, it presents constructive ways to diversify and enrich systems analysis. Most engineering departments and engineering firms would benefit greatly from the observations and analyses that it presents”. Marie-Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, PhD Burton J. and DeeDee McMurtry Professor in the School of Engineering, Professor and Founding Chair (2000–2011) of the Department of Management Science and Engineering Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 This book is an essential read for systems engineering practitioners and leaders. It covers the gambit from soft skills to leading complex technology development and is packed with real-life examples. The book was written “from the heart” by women practicing in the field, who are passionate about sharing their experience and helping grow the next generation of Systems Engineers. Systems engineers just starting in the field will benefit from the lessons and knowledge shared throughout the book. Leaders and managers will benefit from the strategies outlined to address some of the most difficult challenges in leading and inspiring their workforce. Educators can bring real world examples to their classroom and enrich the traditional Systems Engineering curriculum. It is wonderful to see women throughout the world provide research based strategies for taking on the huge spectrum of challenges in Systems Engineering and complex technology development. Claire Leon, PhD Director, Space Systems Integration Office, USSF, Member, National Academy of Engineering

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the vision and leadership of Jill Tietjen, the Founding Editor of the Springer Women in Engineering Series of which this book is a part. Jill has a passion for ensuring the recognition of women’s contributions, especially in the engineering and technology fields.  Her enthusiasm is inspiring, and it is that enthusiasm that encouraged us to propose this Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership book. We are also grateful to Springer for accepting our proposal and for their assistance along our journey. We especially want to recognize and thank those who agreed to review the draft versions of the chapters submitted to the book and provide essential feedback back to the authors over and above that provided by the editorial team. These reviewers include (listed alphabetically by last name): • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Eileen Arnold Ruth Atonge Lindsey Beaubien Robbin Cagle Kena Cline Emmet (Rusty) Eckman Enanga Daisy Fâlé Teresa Froncek Don Gelosh Denise Haskins Grace Kennedy Fredda Lerner Dorothy McKinney Ryan Noguchi Erika Palmer Donna Rhodes Yip Yew Seng Carina Carla Silva Caitlyn A. K. Singam xv

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• • • • • • •

Acknowledgments

Ariela Sofer Sara Stiles Luca Stringhetti Cristina Saiz Valverde Amanda Weissman Andrew Wheeler Lori Zipes

About the Book

This book celebrates the efforts of women in the international systems engineering community. While there are dozens of books that tackle the topic of systems engineering and thousands of books that address leadership, this book is unique. Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership: Practical Research from Women Leaders presents personal, well-researched, hands-on perspectives of emerging trends in systems engineering leadership from industry, government, and academia, covering timely topics applicable across many domains – all under one cover. This book presents material for engineers, scientists, technologists, and others to help them tackle challenges in their everyday work dealing with complex socio-technical systems. The book provides guidance for leaders on shoring up essential (soft) skills to address the increasing demand for professional competencies; addresses diversity, equity, inclusion, and empowering women in the workforce; discusses broader facets of systems engineering leadership including systems thinking, ethics, and utilitarianism; and investigates the impact of emerging technological change on systems resilience and the digital enterprise. This book provides a multi-perspective approach for leaders to navigate a changing world and develop and deliver optimal system solutions to global societal challenges that meet human needs. To this end, the authors extend beyond the solid technical base to encompass the human aspect of system behavior. This book is written by 26 female authors (three of whom also serve as the editors) from around the world at varying career stages who share their research, achievements, perspectives, and successes in emerging areas of systems engineering leadership. Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership: Practical Research from Women Leaders was born from a group brainstorming session of the Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) outreach session at the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Workshop in Torrance, California, in January 2019. The vision of the team was to author a book that was unique, engaging, and focused on emerging leadership trends in fields in and related to systems engineering, in the broadest sense of the term. The team also sought to be true to the vision of EWLSE which is a world where women and men are equally represented as leaders in systems engineering. Many others have xvii

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About the Book

joined the journey along the way. This book is the culmination of the work of three female editors, 26 female authors, and many male and female contributors from around the world to bring this vision to closure. The authors present the emerging trends in systems engineering leadership essential to successfully engineer complex socio-technical systems in a changing world.

Contents

Part I Introduction 1

Introducing Systems Engineering Leadership and Emerging Trends������������������������������������������������������������������������������    3 Alice F. Squires, Marilee J. Wheaton, and Heather J. Feli

Part II Growing Demand for Essential Skills 2

Promoting Yourself into Leadership: Leading from Above, Beside, Below, and Outside ��������������������������������������������������������������������   21 Eileen Arnold and Dorothy McKinney

3

Systems Engineering Leadership Through Influence and Persuasion������������������������������������������������������������������������   59 Anne O’Neil, Kerry Lunney, and Melissa Jovic

4

Improving Competence in the Professional Competencies for Systems Engineers������������������������������������������������������������������������������   89 Heidi Ann Hahn

5

Knowledge Sharing and Mentorship as a Systems Engineering Process: Stories and Methods from Industry Experts ����������������������������������������������������������������������������  145 Rachel Elliott, Lindsey Beaubien, Gabriela Coe, Amanda C. Muller, Christy M. Predaina, Sara Stiles, Lauren P. Toth, and Kena Cline

Part III Focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 6

Gender Diversity in Systems Engineering Product, Project, and Services Life Cycle Leadership: It’s Not Just Counting the Women������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  171 Erika Palmer and Heather J. Feli

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7

A Critical Analysis of the Systems Engineering Leadership Pipeline: Closing the Gender Gap��������������������������������������  195 Caitlyn A. K. Singam

Part IV Broadening Systems Engineering Leadership Facets 8

 Systems Leadership in the Transformation of Higher Education ������  239 Federica Robinson-Bryant and Alice F. Squires

9

An Ethical Leadership Approach for Complex Systems Integrated into the Systems Engineering Practice ����������������  261 Anabel Fraga

10 The  Role of Utilitarianism in Systems Engineering Leadership and System Design ��������������������������������������������������������������  281 Enanga Daisy Fâlé Part V Emerging Technological Change 11 Building  Systemic Resilience: The Role of Systems Leaders in Social-Ecological Systems����������������������������������������������������  301 Aakriti Gupta and Stueti Gupta 12 Achieving Value Through Digital Engineering Transformation����������  325 Elena Gallego Palacios and Fredda Lerner Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  355

About the Editors1

Alice  F.  Squires  was born an engineer at heart and remembers buying her first chemistry set which she thought was a great toy at the Toys “R” Us. But she did not know much about being an engineer until her father brought her to work one day to meet with professional women in STEM areas to help her decide what to major in for her college degree. This is when she officially began to pursue engineering in the eyes of the world, and she has never looked back. She has served in professional technical and leadership roles for nearly 40 years and recently served as the Wendell J. Satre Distinguished Professor of the Engineering and Technology Management program at Washington State University. Dr. Squires is Founder of the INCOSE Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) initiative and serves as a director on the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Systems Engineering Division and Corporate Member Council (CMC) boards. Alice was a key contributing member of the ASEE Diversity Committee that awarded the 2016 Women in Engineering Pro-Active Network Strategic Partner Award, and the Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) team awarded the 2012 Product of the Year Award by INCOSE. In the past few years, Alice authored Book 21 Dandelion Wishes: A World Where We Collaborate as Equals for the IEEE-USA Women in Engineering series. She co-authored “Chapter 5: Merging Literature and Voices from the Field: Women in Industrial and Systems Engineering Reflect on Choice, Persistence and Outlook in Engineering” published by CRC Press as part of Emerging Frontiers in Industrial and Systems Engineering: Success Through Collaboration. She served as theme coeditor for the inaugural INCOSE Insight edition of “Diversity in Systems Engineering” which was awarded Outstanding Theme Editor award by INCOSE. Marilee J. Wheaton  was encouraged to pursue an engineering degree and career from a chance conversation with a professor during a Semester at Sea around the

 Each of the editor’s bios includes a short story of how they found STEM, why they have stayed, and accomplishments that they are particularly proud of. The three editors also served as authors of one or more chapters in the book. 1

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world program.  That experience confirmed for Marilee the importance of mentoring which she has pursued with a passion in her own career. Marilee is currently a Systems Engineering Fellow at The Aerospace Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) headquartered in El Segundo, California. In this role, she is responsible for providing technical leadership and building capability across the corporation to include enterprise systems engineering, digital engineering, systems architecting, and model-based systems engineering. Her previous assignment was as the executive director and general manager of The Aerospace Institute which coordinated all education, training, and staff development activities at the corporation. Wheaton has held several executive level technical leadership positions at Aerospace, including general manager of the Systems Engineering Division (SED) and general manager of the Computer Systems Division. From 1999 to 2002, Wheaton was a director with TRW Systems providing leadership for cost estimation, metrics, and quantitative management goals. Wheaton holds a B.A. in mathematics and a B.A. in Spanish from California Lutheran University both magna cum laude. She earned an MS in systems engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) and is a graduate of the UCLA Anderson School Executive Program in Management. Wheaton is currently a Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) Fellow, completing her PhD at USC in the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program. A member of INCOSE since 2002, she was selected as an INCOSE Fellow in 2009 for her contributions as a practitioner and to engineering education and received one of the INCOSE Outstanding Service Awards in 2018. Wheaton also received the INCOSE Foundation Kossiakoff Award for best systems engineering research in 2018. Serving as the current President for INCOSE, she is also one of the leaders in the Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) working group.  She has held leadership roles for the Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER) to include the Technical Program Committee and Conference Management. Wheaton was a co-editor of the CSER proceedings volume entitled Disciplinary Convergence in Systems Engineering Research which was published by Springer in 2018, and is the co-editor for the 2020 CSER volume which is also being published by Springer.  She is the co-author of a book chapter in the Springer 2010 publication of Holistic Engineering Education: Beyond Technology. Wheaton is also a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and is an active member of the organization’s technical committees on economics and systems engineering. A Fellow and Life Member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and a past President of the Los Angeles Chapter, Wheaton has taken on high-profile leadership positions for SWE both locally and nationally. She is also a Senior Member of IEEE and an active member of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society. She is the recipient of several awards for her contributions to these Societies including Distinguished New Engineer, Distinguished Service, and Advocating for Women in Engineering national awards from SWE. Wheaton currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the California State University Northridge (CSUN) Bonita J.  Campbell Endowment for Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and on the CSUN College of Engineering and Computer

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Science Industrial Advisory Board. Wheaton received a 2016 Volunteer Service Award from CSUN. Wheaton also served as adjunct faculty for over a decade in the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program at USC Viterbi. Heather J. Feli  came to engineering to shape the world and make the world a better place. These continue to be the driving forces behind her career today. Heather is the Product Engineering Leader in Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense’s Electronics Center of Excellence. Her career spans 19 years in the aerospace and defense industry working in a variety of roles: Propellant Design Engineer on the Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motors, Systems Engineer, Project Engineer, Program Manager, Senior Development Engineer, and now in operations leading Electronics Manufacturing Engineers. Heather’s speaking engagements include panel moderator for INCOSE International Symposium (2020) “Everything You Want to Know About Technical Leadership but Are Afraid to Ask”; STEMfems (2019) teaching hands-on rocket science and positive female role modeling for middle school girls; panelist at the 2016 INCOSE International Symposium on Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering; and teaching Rocket Science for Sixth Graders (2016) Mr. Hall’s 6th grade class at Reed Intermediate School. In 2008 her “outstanding contributions to the Nation in advancing space science and technology for the benefit of humankind” were recognized for her work on the Space Shuttle Booster Separation Motors (BSMs) with a Rotary Stellar Award nomination. In 2009 she received a Program Manager’s Flight Commendation for her dedicated support of the successful Ares I-X flight. In 2016 her outstanding leadership working on the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) was recognized by Lockheed Martin with an opportunity to visit White Sands Missile Test Range to witness a Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile test. Heather was inducted into the INCOSE’s Technical Leadership Institute (TLI) in 2020. She is a co-author of an INCOSE International Symposium 2020 paper titled “Experiments in Leading Through Influence: Reflections from a Group of Emerging Technical Leaders.” Heather leads Ensign-Bickford’s campus engagement team for her alma mater Clarkson University. She is co-creator of Clarkson University’s annual oktoBAJAfest, a unique exhibition race for mini baja vehicles.

Abbreviations

AI Artificial Intelligence ASEP Associate Systems Engineering Professional ASOT Authoritative Source of Truth ASTS Areas of Systems Thinking Skills BRCS Brief Resilience Coping Scale BRS Brief Resilience Scale CAS Complex Adaptive System CDC Center for Disease Control and Prevention CSEP Certified Systems Engineering Professional CSWG Complex Systems Working Group DE Digital Engineering DEE Digital Engineering Ecosystem, Digital Engineering Environment Demo Demonstration DESA Department of Economic and Social Affairs DET Digital Engineering Transformation DISC Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness DoD Department of Defense DoDAF Department of Defense Architecture Framework DoE Department of Education DOORS Dynamic Object-Oriented Requirements System DMAIC Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control DT Digital Transformation EI Emotional Intelligence EIF European Interoperability Framework ELRA European Land Registry Association EMD Engineering and Manufacturing Development ESEP Expert Systems Engineering Professional ESN Erasmus Student Network EWLSE Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering EU European Union FOC Final Operating Configuration xxv

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Abbreviations

GUI Graphical User Interface HEI Higher Education Institution HPD Harvard Professional Development I-KOS IMOLA Knowledge Organization System I&T Integration and Test IAU International Association of Universities ICD Interface Control Document ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IMOLA Interoperability Model for Land Registers INCOSE International Council on Systems Engineering Incr Increment IOC Initial Operating Configuration IRT Integrated Review Team ISCED International Standard Classification of Education IT Information Technology IVVQ Integration, Verification, Validation and Qualification KSA Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities LCO Life Cycle Objective LGBTQ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer LRI Land Registry Interconnection LR Land Register M&S Modeling and Simulation MBSE Model-Based Systems Engineering MOE Ministry of Education MSA Materiel Solution Analysis NAAS National Academy of Agricultural Sciences NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NODE New Oxford Dictionary of English NSF National Science Foundation NSPE National Society of Professional Engineers O&S Operations and Support OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer OMG Object Management Group P&D Production & Deployment PLM Product Lifecycle Management PPU-B Point Park University Business Department PPU-PR&A Point Park University Public Relations and Advertising Department R&D Research and Development RE Requirements Engineering ROI Return on Investment SE Systems Engineering SAFE Students, Administrators/administration, Faculty, and Employers/ community SARAS South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability

Abbreviations

SE&I SEBoK SEP SES SIPOC SME SoS SoSE SPLIT SSESC SSOT STEM TRIZ ToT TRW UIS UNESCO UNSD US WBCSD WHO WRT

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Systems Engineering and Integration [The Guide to the] Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge Systems Engineering Professional Social-Ecological System Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers Subject Matter Expert System of Systems System of Systems Engineering Structure, Process, Language, Identity, and Technology Software and Systems Engineering Standards Committee Single Source of Truth Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving” (Russian acronym) Team of Teams Thompson Ramo Wooldridge UNESCO Institute for Statistics United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United Nations Statistics Division United States World Business Council for Sustainable Development World Health Organization With Regard To

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introducing Systems Engineering Leadership and Emerging Trends Alice F. Squires

, Marilee J. Wheaton

, and Heather J. Feli

Abstract  This first chapter of the book defines systems engineering leadership, provides an overview of the four areas of emerging systems engineering leadership trends, and highlights the themes and primary topics addressed by the remaining book chapters. The emerging trends are grouped by (1) the growing demand for certain essential skills (historically called soft skills); (2) the increased recognition of an integral need for diversity, equity, and inclusion; (3) the broadening of systems engineering leadership facets to emphasize systems thinking, ethics, and utilitarianism; and (4) the rate of technological change and its impacts with relation to systems resilience and the digital enterprise. Twenty-six female authors apply practical experience, related research, and applicable case studies to explore these emerging trends in the eleven chapters that follow. The chapter concludes with a call to action for a systems approach to global leadership.

1.1 Introduction Systems engineering and leadership go hand in hand. It is commonly recognized that systems engineers have both broad and deep knowledge and skills. That is, systems engineers are deep experts in one or more domains but also have broad knowledge across many different disciplines, as needed to “connect the dots” across A. F. Squires (*) INCOSE, San Diego, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. J. Wheaton INCOSE, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] H. J. Feli INCOSE, Hartford, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_1

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the system. On the one hand, the systems engineering team is accountable to define, develop, and deliver an affordable optimal total solution to the right problem considering unintended consequences across the system life cycle. On the other hand, the systems engineering team must bring the team together and inspire the team members to collaborate across system elements, life cycle phases, and applicable domains to accomplish the above. Ultimately, systems engineering leadership – a combination of strong technical and leadership skills, a systems thinking approach to decision making and problem solving, and knowledge and skills that go beyond the technical – is essential to realizing successful systems. The following sections explore the book chapters grouped by four areas of emerging trends in systems engineering leadership: (1) the growing demand for certain essential skills (historically called soft skills); (2) the increased recognition of an integral need for diversity, equity, and inclusion; (3) the broadening of systems engineering leadership facets to emphasize systems thinking, ethics, and utilitarianism; and (4) the rate of technological change and its impacts with relation to systems resilience and the digital enterprise.

1.2 Growing Demand for Essential Skills Professional skills that support people and human relationships, historically also termed “soft skills,” are being recognized as essential skills for all forms of effective leadership in our changing world, including systems engineering leadership. While the term “soft skills” refers to flexible or adaptable skills, it is often viewed as the opposite of “hard skills” thereby implying technical skills are “hard skills” and soft skills are “easy skills.” Nothing could be further from reality. Historically, “soft skills” have been both underused and undervalued. Hence, we use the term “essential skills” to represent the growing demand for these skills; those who work with other people need to exercise these essential skills, especially leaders. Chapters 2 through 5, summarized in the remaining parts of this section, discuss the value of these essential skills in the context of exercising systems engineering leadership. Chapter 4 specifically addresses the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (INCOSE 2018) published through the International Council on System Engineering (INCOSE) and related historical efforts and publications in systems engineering that cover these essential skills.

1.2.1 Chapter 2: Promoting Yourself into Leadership: Leading from Above, Beside, Below, and Outside In Promoting Yourself into Leadership: Leading from Above, Beside, Below and Outside, Arnold and McKinney provide tried and true methods for promoting oneself into a leadership role in your current organization whether by leading from

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above, beside, below, or outside, based on the practical experience these two authors gained over a sum of two lifetime careers where they became successful respected leaders in their organizations. Essential skills specifically addressed for promoting oneself include thinking critically and making decisions, influencing, leveraging opportunity, communicating, self-leading, and coordinating. Themes within this chapter include: • How to intentionally pursue leadership opportunities by problem solving to identify unmet needs of the organization and fulfill those needs. • The need to overperform in areas where there are potential hurdles to overcome such as stereotyping. • The importance of mentorship and lifelong learning in maturing leadership competencies. • How the use of a transdisciplinary approach provides opportunities for informal leadership. • How being recognized as a leader by your peers can translate to organizational recognition. • By focusing on building expertise in specific competencies, one can successfully promote oneself into leadership opportunities. • There are pitfalls, limitations, and risks to consider when promoting oneself into leadership. The authors provide six tables of actions to build on six relevant competencies – the six essential skills of: 1. Think critically and make decisions 2. Influence 3. Leverage opportunity 4. Communicate 5. Self-lead 6. Coordinate where these skills are essential to promote oneself into leadership above, beside, below, or outside. The chapter also discusses pitfalls, limitations, and risks to promoting oneself into leadership. The authors include a discussion of the implications of promoting yourself into the organization and the role that emerging trends in systems engineering play in the process. Related case studies are interspersed throughout the chapter showcasing concepts from the chapter. Overall, the authors provide guidance to navigate obstacles to being recognized as and becoming a leader in various types of organizational environments, cultures, and situations.

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1.2.2 Chapter 3: Systems Engineering Leadership Through Influence and Persuasion In Systems Engineering Leadership Through Influence and Persuasion, O’Neil, Lunney, and Jovic leverage their aggregate 90 years of systems engineering leadership experience working on projects around the world to provide practical strategies for mastering the art of influence and persuasion. Themes within this chapter include: • Given increasing interconnectedness in the world, to deliver effective systems today requires a team effort across multiple disciplines that may not in the past have been as pivotal to the success of the solution. • Recognizing the criticality of interoperability, interdependencies, vulnerability, ownership, deployability, safety, obsolescence, technology rate of change, and other architectural and realization considerations correspondingly requires systems engineering (SE) leaders to be highly informed, flexible, and adaptable. • With access to new technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence and autonomy), coupled with the increasing prominence of sociotechnical challenges, the SE leader now has greater dependency on directing outcomes through team collaborations. This chapter explores the various factors that shape the influence and persuasion strategies SE leaders adopt and adapt to their varied circumstances, factors including: • • • • • • •

Preserving the “strategic thread” Organizational attributes Diverse audiences and leadership roles Culturally diverse teams Industry and domain characteristics New technology adoption Considerations for temporal constraints and the perceived value of the SE leader

The authors also provide guidance for measuring the success of the collective strategies employed by the SE leader. Rarely the ultimate decision-maker or policymaker, SE leaders undertake a role to enable informed decision-making and guide a project or organizational initiative’s outcomes to align with overarching strategic objectives. Overall, this chapter demonstrates why influence and persuasion skills are a fundamental necessity for SE leaders to acquire and hone.

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1.2.3 Chapter 4: Improving Competence in the Professional Competencies for Systems Engineers In Improving Competence in the Professional Competencies for Systems Engineers, Hahn shares her research and experience in developing (as part of an extended team) and implementing (in various applications in industry and academia) the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (INCOSE 2018), with specific focus on the professional competencies within the framework. The professional competencies are defined as competencies that reflect behaviors established in the human resources domain. The professional competencies discussed in this chapter are: • • • • • • • •

Communications Ethics and professionalism Technical leadership Negotiation Team dynamics Facilitation Emotional intelligence Coaching and mentoring

Professional competencies represent one of five different categories of competencies in the framework. The other four categories include core competencies for engineering and systems engineering; technical competencies that align with the systems life cycle phases; systems engineering management competencies that address managing and controlling systems engineering; and integrating competencies which apply across multiple related disciplines. Hahn begins her chapter by reviewing how the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (INCOSE 2018) applies proficiency levels of awareness, supervised practitioner, practitioner, lead practitioner, and expert to measure maturity in systems engineering competencies across various systems engineering roles within the system life cycle. Themes within this chapter related to the professional competencies include: • A thorough set of definitions for each of the professional competencies • A review of applicable findings reported through literature research for each competency • How one can advance proficiency in each professional competency based on research (with additional references provided) and personal experience, including optimal approaches that may vary based on gender and culture The chapter also discusses potential areas for further research.

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1.2.4 Chapter 5: Knowledge Sharing and Mentorship as a Systems Engineering Process: Stories and Methods from Industry Experts In Knowledge Sharing and Mentorship as a Systems Engineering Process: Stories and Methods from Industry Experts, a team of 8 INCOSE certified systems engineering professionals at Northrop Grumman, Elliot et al. report out on their analysis of the findings after interviewing 24 female experts currently working in industry. The goal of the interviews is to ascertain key enablers for leading systems engineering projects to a successful conclusion. As reported in the chapter: “The interviewees and the author team collectively represent several hundred years of systems engineering experience across a wide range of education, and domain backgrounds.” Themes within this chapter include: • Why and how the leaders’ awareness and influence of the team dynamics is a driving factor of project success. • How applying a systems engineering approach, communicating effectively, becoming a mentor, and sharing knowledge enables effective team dynamics and empowers the team. • How to use trade studies as a conflict resolution tool. In this context, when team challenges are viewed as systems engineering challenges rather than interpersonal challenges, this removes interpersonal conflicts and emotions and focuses the team on the broader goals of the project. The result is improved engineering outcomes. • How to communicate effectively by maintaining a communication rhythm, using a variety of communication approaches, and tailoring leadership communications based on varying factors such as the type of team: dedicated, disengaged, or obstinate. The chapter provides examples of systems engineering leadership roles based on Tuckman’s (1965) stages for weathering the team’s formation storm (forming, storming, norming, and performing) using the following leadership roles: • • • • •

Facilitator – building the right team during the forming stage Confidant – building trust during the storming phase Negotiator – resolving conflicts during the storming phase Mediator – maintaining open discussions during the norming phase Advocate – acknowledging a job well done during the performing phase

The authors round out the chapter with a discussion on experiential knowledge transfer – learning through experience by having a safe space to fail. The chapter is true to this ideal by providing many examples, through the stories of the women interviewed, of experience that resulted in gained knowledge to be used to improve team dynamics moving forward.

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1.3 Focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion One trend in systems engineering leadership that has been long overdue but has gained momentum across engineering, science, and many other disciplines and domains is a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion as integral to successful system solutions. One of the first formal INCOSE publications specifically focused on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in systems-related fields across industry, government, and academia is the INCOSE INSIGHT publication Diversity in Systems Engineering (Miller 2019). The articles in this Fall 2019 edition of the magazine addressed topics on the importance and value of diversity in enabling, promoting, and advancing systems engineering and systems approaches to address complex societal and technical challenges for a better world. As summarized in the special feature edition introduction: As master integrators, systems engineers are accountable for delivering optimal affordable system solutions to complex problems. To do so requires more than an understanding of technology. It requires an understanding of people and social systems  – culture and the impact of cultural barriers, the cost of gender inequity, the need for cognitive and idea diversity, and a path to achieve inclusivity by design to name just a few areas. These represent a sample of the topics addressed in this special edition, where authors share their past experiences and forward thinking on the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in developing systems and global systems engineering leadership. (Hoverman et al. 2019, p. 8)

In this same edition, the Towards a More Diverse INCOSE article “makes the case that systems engineering and INCOSE should be at the forefront of diversity and inclusion in engineering” (Harding and Pickard 2019, p. 20). Another publication that is stewarded by INCOSE as well as several other professional societies, The Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge  – available for public access on the Internet (see http://www.sebokwiki.org) – includes a diversity, equity, and inclusion knowledge area where Harding and Squires (2019) discuss the pivotal role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in systems engineering and how failure to welcome a diverse set of talent, to take deliberate action to ensure equity, and to engage in inclusive engineering can result in failure to meet the ultimate goal of providing a total optimal system solution. Chapters 6 and 7, summarized in the remaining parts of this section, address aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion with a focus on gender diversity.

1.3.1 Chapter 6: Gender Diversity in Systems Engineering Product, Project, and Services Life Cycle Leadership: It’s Not Just Counting the Women In Gender Diversity in Systems Engineering Product, Project, and Services Life Cycle Leadership: It’s not Just Counting the Women, Palmer and Feli, both inductees into the INCOSE Technical Leadership Institute and leaders in their respective

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institutions, explain that gender diversity is not explicitly defined by increasing the number of women on the team; rather, gender diversity is also inherent to the system development life cycle. That is, women must not only be part of team to add diverse world views and perspectives, but also women must be considered as active stakeholders and users of the systems under development. The chapter authors also point out that a systems engineering leadership focus on gender diversity in developing products and services will inevitably save lives. Themes within this chapter include: • How an understanding of social science concepts and the polycontextural nature of modern society serves as a foundation for how to improve upon gender diversity. This perspective addresses gender diversity as an outcome of the interaction of gender systems, organizational systems, and technical systems (among other interacting systems). • Why feminist engineering ethics is important for creating safer (for women) systems using case studies related to motor vehicle safety, artificial intelligence biases, and public policy simulators. • How gender as its own complex system is also part of a complex sociotechnical system of systems and as a complex system is subject to oversimplification and missing the root of the problem. The chapter provides an analysis of gender as a complex system using guidance from the INCOSE Complexity Primer (2016). The primer’s guidance suggests identifying the complexities present and applying the set of guiding principles provided to evaluate those complexities while evolving the methods on an ongoing basis (INCOSE 2016). Overall, the chapter provides a solid basis for the systemic inclusion of gender systems in the engineering product life cycle as a fundamental aspect of the term “gender diversity.”

1.3.2 Chapter 7: A Critical Analysis of the Systems Engineering Leadership Pipeline: Closing the Gender Gap In A Critical Analysis of the Systems Engineering Leadership Pipeline: Closing the Gender Gap, Singam, leveraging her deep knowledge and experience across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas, aptly performs a rigorous evaluation of the systems engineering leadership pipeline system. She analyzes the system’s quality and effectiveness (performance) in the context of the gender of leaders produced by the system. Themes within this chapter include: • Why a high-quality fully functioning systems engineering leadership pipeline system should produce leaders by gender in percentages similar to the global population. • What a review of the gender composition of selected systems engineering development and professional society teams, certified systems engineers, and

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employed systems engineers implies about opportunities for women to be recognized as systems engineer leaders. • How a shortfall of recognizing women in systems engineering leadership positions serves to disadvantage the overall systems engineering community, both male and female. • How to apply the define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) Six Sigma methodology to improve the performance of the systems engineering leadership pipeline system. Singam’s DMAIC approach to evaluating the systems engineering leadership pipeline includes the development of a set of system requirements, an identification of failure modes with the system’s operation, a research-based set of factors driving more negative (hostile) work environments experienced by women versus men, and a set of recommendations for improving the system’s overall performance.

1.4 Broadening Systems Engineering Leadership Facets As discussed in the introduction to this chapter, systems engineering leadership has evolved to more than a traditional blending of expert level technical and leadership skills  – rather, systems engineering leadership includes essential skills (Chaps. 2 through 5), diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations (Chaps. 6 and 7) as well as systems thinking approaches (Chap. 8), ethics (Chap. 9), and utilitarianism (Chap. 10). Systems thinkers think and reflect based on systems principles and act in terms of system behaviors. Systems engineers apply a systems approach to engineer complex systems. From a leadership perspective, systems thinkers understand the interrelationships and interdependencies between society, technology, economics, and many other factors. Systems leaders also understand the importance of collaborative leadership to address global challenges. Chapter 8 addresses systems thinking and systems leadership in the transformation of higher education. Systems engineering ethics aligns with ethics in general and engineering ethics more specifically. That is, the same ethics codes that guide us in general also guide systems engineers, in terms of doing good, doing no harm, and, furthermore, doing the right thing even when no one is looking, even when you have been granted the right to do something different. However, as leaders in the engineering of complex systems, proactively pursuing ethical concerns is paramount especially given the uncertainties associated with emergence, complexity, unintended consequences, and other associated complex system attributes. Chapter 9 addresses leaderships and ethics for complex systems as an inherent part of systems engineering practice. Systems engineering utilitarianism, inherently related to systems engineering ethics, similarly aligns with utilitarianism in general, in seeking to bring the greatest good and least harm to the most people who in the case of systems engineering are comprised of the system stakeholders – all who have a vested interest in the system. As such, systems engineering utilitarianism and systems engineering ethics are

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interrelated factors in the system engineer’s pursuit of an optimal system where “optimal” includes supporting the greatest good. Chapter 10 discusses utilitarianism in the context of system design and systems engineering leadership. These broader systems engineering leadership facets are addressed in the Chaps. 8, 9, and 10 reviews in the remaining parts of this section.

1.4.1 Chapter 8: Systems Leadership in the Transformation of Higher Education In Systems Leadership in the Transformation of Higher Education, Robinson-­ Bryant and Squires, with many decades of combined experience across industry, government, and academia, provide systems thinking focused guidance for transforming higher education through turbulent times. The authors use the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to demonstrate the concepts and principles of applying systems thinking to higher education transformation. Themes within this chapter include: • The value and impact of a multifaceted systems thinking approach to leadership when dealing with complex systems in dynamic environments. • How to perform a rigorous analysis of leadership decision-making by exploring the impact of potential decision alternatives to each stakeholder community including students, administrators/administration, faculty, and employers/community (SAFE) stakeholders. • An application of 14 areas of systems thinking skills (ASTS) to guide system leadership in the global higher education enterprise. • An analysis using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study for demonstrating the concepts and principles of applying systems leadership to higher education transformation. Decisions areas analyzed as part of the case study include (1) closing physical access to higher education globally, (2) removing operations or offerings or moving services to remote mediums, and (3) changing near-term and strategic growth priorities. The chapter concludes by providing an updated balanced scorecard architecture where the perspectives from each of the SAFE stakeholders drives the strategic planning and execution of a higher education transformation. The result is an educational system framework for developing an implementable transformational strategy that supports the institution’s mission, vision, and strategic objectives while balancing SAFE stakeholder, learning and growth, internal process, and financial needs.

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1.4.2 Chapter 9: An Ethical Leadership Approach for Complex Systems Integrated into the Systems Engineering Practice In An Ethical Leadership Approach for Complex Systems Integrated into the Systems Engineering Practice, Fraga, with a background in computer science and engineering, investigates ethics in leadership from perspectives including software engineering, diversity, and inclusion. Themes within this chapter include: • How ethical systems engineering leadership increases the likelihood of realizing successful systems. • The importance of ethics as an integral part of how leadership is defined and the importance of diversity and inclusion as an integral part of ethics. • How the 3Rs model can be applied to ethical leadership; includes an Interoperability Model for Land Registers (IMOLA) case study example that demonstrates the 3R model. The chapter reports on findings of a survey to systems engineering practitioners and leaders. The survey results validate an operational definition of leadership in use in the chapter and confirm ethics as a valuable skill for leaders.

1.4.3 Chapter 10: The Role of Utilitarianism in Systems Engineering Leadership and System Design In The Role of Utilitarianism in Systems Engineering Leadership and System Design, Fâlé, an engineering leader, technology adopter, and systems integrator, tackles the systems engineering leadership challenge of optimizing system design decisions while facing technical, business, social, political, and environmental complexity. Themes within this chapter include: • How a utilitarianism approach can effectively address inherent complexity in systems engineering leadership and system design decision-making. • How engineering, systems engineering, system design, and engineering education intersect with utilitarianism, sensemaking, and engineering ethics. • Presentation of a model that guides systems engineers in the system design phase in how to approach achieving the maximum utility from the implemented system of interest. • A set of recommendations for engineering leadership to overcome project failure and achieve engineering success. Overall, the author provides systems engineering leaders with methods, processes, and tools to build competency in leveraging a utilitarianism approach in decision-making to achieve optimal system effectiveness.

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1.5 Emerging Technological Change Systems Engineering Vision 2035 (2022) addresses six global trends that are shaping the future of systems engineering, as paraphrased below: 1. Environment sustainability has become a global priority. 2. Global interdependence continues to increase in an increasingly interconnect world. 3. The digital transformation continues to change products and the way we accomplish work around the world. 4. Global change strategies are being driven by Industry 4.0 (cyber-physical systems) and Society 5.0 (socio-cyber-physical systems). 5. System complexity continues to increase on a global level across markets and domains. 6. Smart elements are increasingly showing up in systems; and smart systems are increasingly showing up in systems of systems. As technology advances, so too do system capabilities and characteristics in the form of system function and effectiveness. System engineering leadership must also transform as needed to adapt to these emerging social and technological trends. Chapters 11 and 12, summarized in the remaining parts of this section, respectively address building systems resilience and achieving a value-driven digital engineering ecosystem, in a changing world.

1.5.1 Chapter 11: Building Systemic Resilience: The Role of Systems Leaders in Social-Ecological Systems In Building Systemic Resilience: The Role of Systems Leaders in Social-Ecological Systems, Gupta and Gupta, both business entrepreneurs and system thinkers, share their experience in agriculture and social ecological systems to provide guidance to systems leaders on building greater resiliency into future systems. Themes within this chapter include: • Why planning for resilience is important for systems of the future • Examples in the form of true stories based on India’s agricultural industry that demonstrate concepts related to systems resiliency • How systems leaders can design resilient systems that promote sustainability and growth over the long run The authors’ guidance to systems engineering leaders covers approaches for adapting to anticipated or unforeseen future events by planning with resilience in mind.

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1.5.2 Chapter 12: Achieving Value Through Digital Engineering Transformation In Achieving Value Through Digital Engineering Transformation, Gallego Palacios and Lerner, applying their engineering expertise, address institutional transformation through digital engineering. Themes within this chapter include: • How to develop, deploy, and sustain a value-driven enterprise strategy based on digital engineering • How to develop a roadmap to transition from the current state of the organization to the desired future state of more efficient and effective work processes through the use of digital engineering • The role of models and model-based systems engineering in digital engineering • How to successfully govern the authoritative source of truth and its constituent models in digital engineering • How to evolve current practice and experience to incorporate technological innovation and establish supporting environments and infrastructure for the future digital engineering ecosystem • How to enable a workforce and culture that adopts and supports digital engineering across the life cycle The authors look behind the curtain to show a continuous, incremental, hybrid, agile process for implementing the digital engineering transformation plan and discuss how to sustain the digital engineering transformation, once enabled.

1.6 Conclusion Each of the chapters in this book highlights the importance of a systems engineering leadership approach in making the world a better place. The increasingly complex, interdependent, sociotechnical nature of systems in our world today highlights the importance of applying a systems engineering leadership approach to develop and deploy successful system solutions. Emerging social and technological trends are driving transformation in system engineering leadership. As global interdependency and complexity increases, there is a growing need for global leadership built on a solid foundation of systems thinking.

References Harding A, Pickard A (2019) Towards a more diverse INCOSE. In: Miller W (Chief ed), Squires A, Hoverman L, Long D (Theme eds) INCOSE INSIGHT Practitioner Mag 22(3) Harding A, Squires A (2019) Diversity, equity, and inclusion. In: Cloutier RJ (Editor in Chief) The guide to the systems engineering body of knowledge (SEBoK), v. 2.5. The Trustees of

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the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken. http://www.sebokwiki.org/. Accessed 19 February 2022 Hoverman L, Long D, Squires AF (2019) Diversity in systems engineering special feature introduction. In: Miller W (Chief ed), Squires A, Hoverman L, Long D (Theme eds) INCOSE INSIGHT Practitioner Mag 22(3) INCOSE (2016) Complexity primer for systems engineers. INCOSE Technical Product Reference: INCOSE-TP-2016-001-01.0 A. INCOSE, San Diego, CA INCOSE (2018) INCOSE systems engineering competency framework. INCOSE technical product reference: INCOSE-TP-2018-002-01.0, INCOSE, San Diego, CA INCOSE (2022) Systems engineering vision 2035. https://www.incose.org/about-­systems-­ engineering/se-­vision-­2035. Accessed 27 March 2022 Miller W (Chief ed), Squires A, Hoverman L, Long D (Theme eds) (2019) Diversity in systems engineering. INCOSE INSIGHT Practitioner Mag 22(3) Tuckman BW (1965) Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychol Bull 63(6):384–399 Alice F.  Squires  was born an engineer at heart and remembers buying her first chemistry set which she thought was a great toy at the Toys “R” Us. But she did not know much about being an engineer until her father brought her to work one day to meet with professional women in STEM areas to help her decide what to major in for her college degree. This is when she officially began to pursue engineering in the eyes of the world, and she has never looked back. She has served in professional technical and leadership roles for nearly 40 years and recently served as the Wendell J.  Satre Distinguished Professor of the Engineering and Technology Management program at Washington State University. Dr. Squires is Founder of the INCOSE Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) initiative and serves as a director on the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Systems Engineering Division and Corporate Member Council (CMC) boards. Alice was a key contributing member of the ASEE Diversity Committee that awarded the 2016 Women in Engineering Pro-Active Network Strategic Partner Award, and the Body of Knowledge and Curriculum to Advance Systems Engineering (BKCASE) team awarded the 2012 Product of the Year Award by INCOSE. In the past few years, Alice authored Book 21 Dandelion Wishes: A World Where We Collaborate as Equals for the IEEE-USA Women in Engineering series. She co-authored “Chapter 5: Merging Literature and Voices from the Field: Women in Industrial and Systems Engineering Reflect on Choice, Persistence and Outlook in Engineering” published by CRC Press as part of Emerging Frontiers in Industrial and Systems Engineering: Success Through Collaboration. She served as theme co-editor for the inaugural INCOSE Insight edition of “Diversity in Systems Engineering” which was awarded Outstanding Theme Editor award by INCOSE. Marilee J. Wheaton  was encouraged to pursue an engineering degree and career from a chance conversation with a professor during a Semester at Sea around the world program.  That experience confirmed for Marilee the importance of mentoring which she has pursued with a passion in her own career. Marilee is currently a Systems Engineering Fellow at The Aerospace Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) headquartered in El Segundo, California. In this role, she is responsible for providing technical leadership and building capability across the corporation to include enterprise systems engineering, digital engineering, systems architecting, and model-based systems engineering. Her previous assignment was as the executive director and general manager of The Aerospace Institute which coordinated all education, training, and staff development activities at the corporation. Wheaton has held several executive level technical leadership positions at Aerospace, including general manager of the Systems Engineering Division (SED) and general manager of the Computer Systems Division. From 1999 to 2002, Wheaton was a director with TRW Systems providing leadership for cost estimation, metrics, and quantitative management goals. Wheaton holds a B.A. in mathematics and a B.A. in Spanish from California Lutheran University both magna cum laude. She earned an MS in systems engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) and is a graduate of the UCLA Anderson School

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Executive Program in Management. Wheaton is currently a Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) Fellow, completing her PhD at USC in the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program. A member of INCOSE since 2002, she was selected as an INCOSE Fellow in 2009 for her contributions as a practitioner and to engineering education and received one of the INCOSE Outstanding Service Awards in 2018. Wheaton also received the INCOSE Foundation Kossiakoff Award for best systems engineering research in 2018. Serving as the current President for INCOSE, she is also one of the leaders in the Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) working group.  She has held leadership roles for the Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER) to include the Technical Program Committee and Conference Management. Wheaton was a co-editor of the CSER proceedings volume entitled Disciplinary Convergence in Systems Engineering Research which was published by Springer in 2018, and is the co-editor for the 2020 CSER volume which is also being published by Springer.  She is the co-author of a book chapter in the Springer 2010 publication of Holistic Engineering Education: Beyond Technology. Wheaton is also a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and is an active member of the organization’s technical committees on economics and systems engineering. A Fellow and Life Member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and a past President of the Los Angeles Chapter, Wheaton has taken on high-profile leadership positions for SWE both locally and nationally. She is also a Senior Member of IEEE and an active member of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society. She is the recipient of several awards for her contributions to these Societies including Distinguished New Engineer, Distinguished Service, and Advocating for Women in Engineering national awards from SWE. Wheaton currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board for the California State University Northridge (CSUN) Bonita J. Campbell Endowment for Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and on the CSUN College of Engineering and Computer Science Industrial Advisory Board. Wheaton received a 2016 Volunteer Service Award from CSUN.  Wheaton also served as adjunct faculty for over a decade in the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program at USC Viterbi. Heather J. Feli  came to engineering to shape the world and make the world a better place. These continue to be the driving forces behind her career today. Heather is the Product Engineering Leader in Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense’s Electronics Center of Excellence. Her career spans 19  years in the aerospace and defense industry working in a variety of roles: Propellant Design Engineer on the Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motors, Systems Engineer, Project Engineer, Program Manager, Senior Development Engineer, and now in operations leading Electronics Manufacturing Engineers. Heather’s speaking engagements include panel moderator for INCOSE International Symposium (2020) “Everything You Want to Know About Technical Leadership but Are Afraid to Ask”; STEMfems (2019) teaching hands-on rocket science and positive female role modeling for middle school girls; panelist at the 2016 INCOSE International Symposium on Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering; and teaching Rocket Science for Sixth Graders (2016) Mr. Hall’s 6th grade class at Reed Intermediate School. In 2008 her “outstanding contributions to the Nation in advancing space science and technology for the benefit of humankind” were recognized for her work on the Space Shuttle Booster Separation Motors (BSMs) with a Rotary Stellar Award nomination. In 2009 she received a Program Manager’s Flight Commendation for her dedicated support of the successful Ares I-X flight. In 2016 her outstanding leadership working on the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) was recognized by Lockheed Martin with an opportunity to visit White Sands Missile Test Range to witness a Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile test. Heather was inducted into the INCOSE’s Technical Leadership Institute (TLI) in 2020. She is a co-author of an INCOSE International Symposium 2020 paper titled “Experiments in Leading Through Influence: Reflections from a Group of Emerging Technical Leaders.” Heather leads Ensign-Bickford’s campus engagement team for her alma mater Clarkson University. She is co-creator of Clarkson University’s annual oktoBAJAfest, a unique exhibition race for mini baja vehicles.

Part II

Growing Demand for Essential Skills

Chapter 2

Promoting Yourself into Leadership: Leading from Above, Beside, Below, and Outside Eileen Arnold

and Dorothy McKinney

Abstract  This chapter offers readers multiple ways to promote themselves into leadership, especially as a systems engineer. Leadership can come from many places within an organization, not just those tasked by management with leadership responsibility: (1) leading from above with formally assigned leadership responsibility (including assignment as a project lead without management designation); (2) leading from beside, by influencing peers as an informal leader (not assigned a leadership role); (3) leading from below by influencing decision-makers including those higher in the organization as an informal leader; and (4) leading from outside when a person provides leadership to an area outside their primary management chain, as an informal leader. We describe experience-based approaches (case studies included), suggest actions, and discuss the toll, challenges, and risks of promoting yourself into leadership along with the implications of emerging trends in systems engineering. We offer ways a person can find mentoring to facilitate their journey as they practice their leadership skills. There are a few organizations which have a nurturing and supportive culture, which look hard at every employee to identify and develop leadership potential. For someone working in these organizations, becoming a leader may be accomplished by taking advantage of the support and resources the organization offers. For the many other organizations which do not have such a nurturing and supportive culture, people are more likely to become leaders if they “promote themselves into leadership” by actively seeking opportunities to use their own insights and talents to identify and meet unmet needs of the business.

E. Arnold (*) Raytheon, retired, Waltham, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] D. McKinney Lockheed Martin, retired, Bethesda, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_2

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2.1 Introduction Is leadership inborn or developed? “Research indicates that leadership is a series of behaviors and skills that can be learned by anyone willing to learn” (Kouzes and Posner 2007). No need to wait for management to notice your leadership potential or wait until you are assigned leadership responsibility – there are ways to promote yourself into leadership! You might be wondering if it would be better to wait until management recognizes your leadership abilities with the result of formally assigning you to leadership. The short answer is, “It depends.” It is a good idea to wait in hopes of being promoted into leadership rather than promoting yourself when you have all the following: • High job satisfaction level • Confidence the organization recognizes your leadership potential • Conviction that the business decisions made by your organization will lead to a future you desire Even if all of these are true, there are scenarios in which waiting would not be best for your future. Your organization may desire to keep you in your current position because it would be difficult to replace you, or your organization deems you most suitable for a different position than the one you really want to do. In the latter case, you need to decide to either: • Accept the work assigned to you in hopes the experience opens unanticipated opportunities • Convince management that leadership is the best use of your talents • Move on to another job within the organization or in a different organization If you have detected bias due to ethnicity, gender, or age – or if none of the leaders look or act like you – there is most likely a hurdle to overcome. In order to promote yourself into leadership under these circumstances, you will have to overperform. Tips on getting mentoring: We highlight suggestions for finding leadership mentors throughout this chapter. If a mentor is desired, keep in mind (a) you should have multiple mentors, since different people can provide different insights; (b) some of the people you ask to mentor you will probably refuse, but if you keep asking people, some will agree; and (c) you need to drive the mentoring process yourself by asking thoughtful questions and sharing challenges you are facing with them to get your mentor’s perspectives. Do not expect that someone who has agreed to mentor you will pour wisdom into your head. Consider looking for mentors outside your organization, especially if you work for a small company. Promoting yourself into leadership may allow recognition by others that you are indeed a leader, opening doors for career advancement and satisfaction regardless of bias if your leadership skills are perceived to be needed by your organization. Regardless of your position in an organization, if you assess the current situation,

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identify problems and opportunities, devise potential solutions, and stimulate others into action, you are leading. Using the power of thought leadership and leveraging emerging trends in systems engineering is a viable pathway to propel yourself into leadership instead of waiting for others to discover your leadership potential. This chapter will provide experience-based approaches to promoting yourself into leadership. If you are willing to learn new skills to complement your current skills, leadership skills can be acquired and improved through practice, regardless of your level in an organization: • Leading from above, with formally assigned leadership responsibility (including an assignment as a project lead without a management designation) • Leading from beside, by influencing peers as an informal leader (not assigned to a leadership role) • Leading from below, by influencing decision-makers including those higher in the organization, as an informal leader • Leading from outside, when a person provides leadership to an area outside their primary management chain, as an informal leader

2.2 Locus of Leadership Systems engineering (SE) Leadership of an organization, regardless of size, is a composite of dynamic socio-technical interactions. Leadership can come from outside an organization: from governments, regulatory organizations, customers, suppliers, sub-contractors, professional organizations, stockholders, environmental groups, and other stakeholders influenced by their previous experiences and perceptions of the technical needs and social responsibility. Leadership may come from within the formal management chain of command or through matrix managed organizational chains. Leadership may also come from individuals providing thought leadership. Thought leaders (Brosseau 2014) are informed, trusted opinion leaders who move and inspire people with innovative ideas, turn ideas into reality, and know and show how to replicate their success. Thought leaders are respected for their insights regardless of their formal positions. Thought leaders may provide technical and/or nontechnical leadership. Professional societies recognize the importance of thought leadership, e.g., one key criterion to promote someone to the rank of Fellow in the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) is thought leadership. Tip for Finding a Mentor  Consider asking a thought leader you admire in your organization to mentor you. The essential characteristics of a leader which energize followers include courage, initiative, resilience (a willingness to learn from mistakes without giving up), and communications coupled with listening and openness to diverse ideas. Sharing

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a path to a desired result in a manner that inspires a potential stakeholder or team to want to participate results in motivated stakeholders. The motivation of others, especially in ways that inspire others to become self-motivated, is a prominent trait of admired, successful leaders. Tip for Finding a Mentor  If you find someone in your workplace to be an inspiring role model, consider asking them to mentor you. Becoming a leader often requires disruptive contrast to be recognized as a leader for the first time. Observe areas of your business that are troublesome either from a technical perspective or from an ineffective leadership style of others which may provide opportunities to practice your leadership skills. Be aware that the halo effect (a tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area) is yet another source of potential opportunity for you. How would one go about developing leadership skills in systems engineering? There are courses on the topic if your company supports attendance or you are willing to pay for training or take your chances with free online learning. The courses might serve to pique your interest in leadership or motivate you to work toward developing your skills. Enlisting mentoring services, either during work hours or outside of work hours, and using books and/or online resources, plus deliberate practice, are other alternatives. Applying newly learned skills is necessary to solidify learning.

2.3 SE Leadership Competencies and Skills Six leadership competencies and their associated supporting skills appear to have the greatest impact for systems engineering leadership, based on our combined experience. These competencies and skills serve as a basis for promoting an aspiring leader into a leadership role as a systems engineer. The INCOSE Competency Framework (Presland ed. 2018) is consistent with the skills we highlight. Figure 2.1 indicates the six competencies with the associated skills of particular interest. Human competency is not typically assessed as a binary – a person is competent, or they are not – although we may refer to people as competent in any given area. Competency is a matter of degree. Not all competent people have the same level of competence or the opportunity to showcase all aspects of their competency. People have differing perspectives on the competence of others. One might be considered a “good negotiator,” while the same person may be labeled an “excellent negotiator” dependent on perceptions based on extent of experience with those possessing negotiation skills. Perception of an individual is often influenced by unconscious and even conscious biases, from those observing. These biases may be influenced by the halo effect, identifying an individual as having positive characteristics from a past observation which may be unrelated to the characteristics being assessed. For example, these effects might include perceptions that “people who are sociable or kind may also be more likable and intelligent” (Cherry 2020). Even assessment instruments, intended to be objective, are likely to have built-in biases.

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Fig. 2.1  Key systems engineering leadership competencies

2.4 Leading from Above: Formal Leadership Leading from above, from an assigned leadership position, is viewed as the typical way potential leaders get their start in leadership. Formal leaders that are not managers have the backing of the manager placing them in a leadership role. The team is typically briefed to follow the assigned leader. Managers may or may not be leaders. Some managers are nontechnical managers of people for the purpose of checking time charges and collecting feedback from program performance of the individuals that report to them. Technical direction for a project or program may come from leaders with or without managerial responsibility. A manager’s leadership effectiveness depends on both their assigned leadership responsibilities and their initiative. Leading from Above Case Study: Persuasion Saves the Day Angela had just been designated as the systems engineering domain lead by division management. Although she was not a manager, she was expected to improve the practice of systems engineering within the division. Her boss reminded her that although she outranked the project managers, she would need to use her influence, rather than direct commands, to make changes on the projects she has responsibility for. Her primary assigned job duties were to provide systems engineering support to two projects: the Abcer project and the Delva project. She became acquainted with three other active projects in the division and assessed the status for all five of them for key systems (continued)

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engineering efforts and artifacts (including requirements, design, interface control, and test documents and models). She observed that on all the projects, the systems engineering efforts were behind schedule, and many documents scheduled to be completed were only drafts which followed required formats but had little useful technical content. The only bright spots she saw were the system design models, which were robust and well developed. She developed a list of priorities for the division, including implementing automated document generation from the models, changing the open requisitions to add strong communications skills, and recruiting additional staff. She then developed a proposal for each project showing the specific changes she advocated with the potential pay-off for each program. She had a series of meetings, first with technical staff on each project and then with project managers to persuade them of the benefits of the changes she was suggesting. She did not persuade all the project managers but was successful in persuading two of them – the manager of the Delva project and the manager of one of the projects she was not personally assigned to support. After several months of work to implement automated document generation from the models on these two projects, and coordination with the human resources department to help them focus the hiring efforts on the needed skills, the progress on those two projects improved significantly. Eventually, two more projects adopted Angela’s approach. When later asked about her assessment of the improvement effort, she credited her willingness to keep “selling” her ideas and using her own efforts to implement these ideas. Division management estimated she saved the four projects about 5% of the total project costs and improved schedule performance by 10–15%.

2.5 Other Ways to Lead: Informal Leadership Although leadership is often thought of as a “leading from above” perspective, a responsibility assigned by management, this is not the only option. Informal leadership can come from any place in the organization. That includes leading informally from below (when others are in formal leadership positions above you), beside (leading co-workers), and outside (leading others external to your organization). Informal leadership is the ability of a person to influence the behavior of others without formal authority. Three case studies are used to illustrate leading from below, beside, and outside in the sections to follow. In Tables 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6, we identify ways in which the competencies we have chosen to emphasize can be used to exercise informal leadership. The need for the application of transdisciplinary approaches in systems engineering provides many opportunities for an aspiring systems engineer to exercise informal leadership, especially since many highly experienced systems engineers and managers do not have much experience in implementing a transdisciplinary approach.

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Transdisciplinary “is an approach which crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. This emphasis on a holistic approach distinguishes it from cross-­ disciplinary, which focuses mainly on working across multiple disciplines while allowing each discipline to apply their own methods and approaches. Systems engineering is simultaneously cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary. The transdisciplinary approach originated in the social sciences. It “transcends” all of the disciplines involved, and organizes the effort around common purpose, shared understanding and “learning together” in the context of real-world problems or themes. A transdisciplinary approach is needed when the problem cannot readily be “solved” and the best that can likely be achieved is instead a “resolution.” The participants in the endeavour need to “transcend” their particular disciplinary approach to instead come to some overall useful compromise or synergistic understanding that their disciplines cannot come to on their own (even when working together in a normal integrative approach with other disciplines).” (Sillitto et al. 2018)

2.6 Leading from Below Managers and formal leads, if wise, recognize that they do not have all the answers; they actively listen and leverage capable leadership from below to enhance their own career. Observe experienced managers, chief systems engineers, and other leads that elicit input from you and others and then use the information for the good of the organization. Leaders, both formal and informal, appreciate aspiring leaders that concisely and clearly present information and data in a timely manner. The leader may not be prepared to immediately accept any suggestions made by you. Ask a few questions to ensure the leader understands what was communicated. Remember to be respectful of their time constraints and recognize they have knowledge you do not. If the leader is unwilling to discuss further, accept their decision and move on. They may need time to digest the information, or perhaps the timing just is not right. Observe the political climate in your organization and look for signals of a more appropriate time to bring up the topic again. Realize there are a limited number of times a topic should be brought up, dependent on the leader.

Leading from Below Case Study: Frustration with Crisis After Crisis Alan’s team lurched from one crisis to the next. Alan was tired of working weekends, just because he was single and could always fix the problems involved in the latest crisis. That was not a good reason for him to never have a weekend off, in his mind. He talked to his mentor and told her he thought he should quit. His mentor suggested a different course of action: (1) He should develop a detailed plan he thought the team needed to follow, since his team leader had no written plan. (2) After the next team meeting, he should have a discussion with his team leader and tell her that he had written down a plan as (continued)

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he understood it from what she said at the last team meeting – then show his leader the plan he had devised. Alan expressed grave doubts to his mentor that this would do any good, but he agreed to try it. He came back to talk to his mentor a week later and told her that to his great surprise, his team leader had listened to him seriously and then exclaimed: “Yes, you understand my plan perfectly!” The next day, she called another team meeting and said “It has come to my attention that not all of you understand what my plan is going forward.” She then laid out the plan that Alan had developed. The team followed this plan going forward, and the constant crises were eliminated. Alan was able to take weekends off. His only frustration at that point was that his team leader had taken credit for the plan he had developed on his own, which fixed the team’s problems. His mentor told him that he had made the right choice – giving his team leader credit for the plan enabled the team leader to fully embrace the plan, and his not getting credit was a small price to pay for having the team work well going forward. Epilogue: After another project on which Alan again helped a different team leader devise a better plan, he was promoted to team leader himself. Although he gave away the credit for the two project rescue plans he had devised, in the long run, the organization did recognize and reward his leadership skills.

2.7 Leading from Beside Influencing your co-workers and peers is something we do every day, yet we are often unaware we are affecting our colleagues who work beside us. What we say may resonate with a colleague’s values or remind them of what they intended or should be doing. Exercising behaviors which may be as simple as inclusion, if we are consistent in our actions, may impress and inspire others. Integrity, fortitude, patience, technical expertise, good decision-making, recognizing opportunities, communicating your ideas and those of others, being known for restraining your counterproductive impulses, pitching in where you can, and your ability to coordinate are most likely noticed by your peers, whether consciously or not. If your peers recognize you as a systems engineering leader, chances are, the rest of the organization will as well.

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Leading from Beside Case Study: Seizing an Opportunity to Lead Peers Pradip, a systems engineer in the commercial side of the company, realized there were warring factions regarding downsizing the number of requirements management tools to one. The defense business had used Tool A for over a year, while the commercial business had used a different Tool B for a few months longer. Management on both sides delegated a recommendation to those that had been using both tools, the working systems engineers with a management facilitator. The facilitator attempted to enlist the team in performing a trade study but was unable to develop a trade study weighting that all could agree to since both sides were adamant about the tool they chose previously. After months of limited progress and frustration by all, Pradip saw an opportunity to lead, realizing the only way to move forward was to help his colleagues envision what it would be like to adopt a different tool, emphasizing the various stakeholders, the customers, the defense organization, the commercial organization, marketing, finance, and others. He developed a scenario describing the actions to transition both business units to Tool A with the consequences and affected stakeholders identified. He also did the same for a transition to Tool B. He presented both scenarios in a clear, consistent way, allowing those at the table to make their own decision. The team recognized the obvious choice, and that day solved the dilemma thanks to Pradip!

2.8 Leading from Outside Leading from the outside is perhaps the most unusual way to promote yourself into leadership of any way that we discuss in this chapter. On the face of it, trying to provide leadership in a part of the organization outside of your own management chain sounds like reaching too far – why would anyone in a different part of the organization be willing to accept your informal leadership? The answer, based on the experiences of the authors of this chapter, is that the preparation you do for the possibility of leading from outside can be especially useful in promoting yourself into any kind of informal leadership, as well as preparing yourself for possible formal leadership and management roles. It is true that opportunities for leading from outside are few and far between and more often (in the experience of the authors of this chapter) come through serendipity than any amount of planning. In contrast to the other forms of informal leadership we have discussed above, leading from the outside is mostly a matter of (a) creating opportunities to acquire information on parts of the organization outside of your own, (b) looking for inter-relationships between the work of your part of the organization and other parts of the organization, and (c) considering how this knowledge can help you become more effective. Very occasionally, this knowledge can provide insight into how another part of the organization could improve, plus the leverage to spark such change.

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Leading from Outside Case Study: Using Customer Input to Drive Improvement Jalene, a system engineer, had been convinced for months that her company needed to improve its ability to convert customer feedback into constructive change within the company. Currently, the main use of customer feedback is to identify immediate customer problems and dispatch company personnel to solve these problems for customers. While Jalene thinks that identifying and solving immediate customer problems is necessary, she also thinks that identifying opportunities from customer feedback has the potential to significantly increase the company’s sales and profits. She asked a friend who works in customer service to give her copies of customer feedback forms every day for 2 months. She set aside 20 min of her day each day to review this feedback (being careful not to let this distract her from accomplishing her assigned work tasks). She correlated information from the feedback with the items on the list of current and potential process and product improvements the engineering group she works in has developed and added a few new ideas to the list of potential improvements that occurred to her based on the customer feedback. After she had been doing this for 7 weeks, one of the company’s major customers, which had been buying company products on a sole-source basis, announced that unless her company can demonstrate convincing reasons, they plan to make future purchases on a competitive bid basis. Jalene assembled the results of her analysis of the feedback into a draft proposal to top management for process and product improvements that directly address customer feedback (including this major customer’s feedback). She then arranged with her friend in customer service to give this briefing to the management of the customer service organization, which was frantically trying to formulate a response to the customer. They proved enthusiastic, although they suggested several changes to the proposal. Jalene then supported the customer service management team in presenting the revised proposal to engineering management, who were receptive, but who also suggested several changes to the proposal. Engineering and customer service management then took the revised proposal to top management, which was genuinely concerned about responding to this major customer. Top management approved the proposal, with a few additional changes, and the company successfully pitched the major customer on the improvement initiatives they were undertaking and succeeding in persuading the customer to continue buying products on a sole source basis.

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Why is it useful to learn about other parts of the organization outside of the one in which you work? There are several reasons, including: • Learning about other parts of the organization can help you understand more about the business model and relative priorities of your entire organization, which in turn can help you to make your own part of the organization more effective. • Meeting and talking with people across the entire organization can enable you to develop allies, which can be helpful in many informal leadership initiatives. • This may increase your visibility in the larger organization, which can give you more credibility in any of your attempts to exercise informal leadership. • In addition to being helpful for your attempts to promote yourself into leadership, learning about other parts of your larger organization can also be helpful for your overall career progress. For example, it can: –– Give you exposure to parts of the organization which may have jobs that would be opportunities for career progress in the future. –– Increase your set of social contacts with the larger organization; often, a larger social network can improve job satisfaction because more of your needs for human connection can be met. What methods can you use to learn about other parts of the larger organization? Most organizations have some amount of information online, such as organization charts, and sometimes web pages or other information about each part of the organization. These can be useful in getting very general information about other parts of the organization, but do not typically give you sufficient insight for leadership opportunities. To get the level of insight you need, it is usually necessary to interact with people in those other parts of the organization. Your larger organization may have some opportunities to do this; for example, many organizations have affinity groups or other cross-organizational groups that meet for various purposes, such as outreach (perhaps giving science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) support to schools and universities; perhaps offering charitable or community-service support to the community).You could consider volunteering for any of these activities and using them as an opportunity to meet and interact with people from other parts of your organization. However, usually the most powerful way to learn about other parts of your organization is to interact with them for business reasons. There may be opportunities to interact with some other parts of your larger organization by volunteering to support normal business interfaces between their part of the organization and yours. For example, if you work in an engineering organization, and there are other organizations (e.g., marketing, customer service, human resources) which interact with your part of the organization, you could explore opportunities to support joint activities. If your marketing organization gets regular updates from your engineering organization on new product development progress, you could seek opportunities to participate in those meetings. If customer service comes to engineering with requests for help to address customer problems, you could offer to help address such requests or to follow up after such help was given to see how well customer service was able

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to use the information engineering provided. If human resources need help to do college recruiting, you could volunteer to help with that. Usually, however, such routine interactions will not provide you sufficient opportunity to interact with other parts of the larger organization. There may be parts of the organization that your department does not interact with on a routine basis. To learn about these other parts of the larger organization, you may need to get more creative. The best way the authors of this chapter have found to learn about other parts of the larger organization is to devise useful business purposes for engaging with people in other parts of the organization. For example, you could take an issue you think is important to future customer products (or services) and inquire of each of the other parts of the larger organization about their views of this future issue and ask how they envision it would affect their part of the organization.

2.9 Actions for Promoting Yourself into Leadership Dependent on your personal mix of competencies and the environment of your organization, there are actions that may aid in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership. The tables below list actions for each of the six competencies the authors of this chapter have chosen as the most useful for promoting yourself into SE leadership: 1. Think critically and make decisions 2. Influence 3. Leverage opportunity 4. Communicate 5. Self-lead 6. Coordinate Suggestions for taking action are included in the tables for both the formal and informal leadership position levels. The actions with the greatest leverage in achieving leadership success are indicated by: The actions with average leverage in achieving leadership success are indicated by: The actions which solidify progress in achieving leadership success are indicated by: Actions which lack significant leverage or benefit for a given type of leadership have a blank.

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2.9.1 Thinking Critically and Making Decisions Systems thinking and decision making is the competency that is likely to get your foot in the door of leadership as a technical lead. Identify the problem(s) first before solutions are proposed. Critical thinking requires the skills of observation, analysis, and further investigation of what was observed from both a technical perspective in the case of system engineering activities and from the organizational and stakeholder cultural perspective before forming an opinion in pursuit of making a conscience, fact-based, and data-based decision. Actions to consider when thinking critically and making decisions in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership are listed in Table 2.1 Table 2.1  Actions using the “think critically and make decisions” competency How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Display/demonstrate/apply critical thinking and systems thinking skills for each decision within your purview Identify and question assumptions. Be aware of inferences, seeking explanations for what is inferred Ensure status reporting mechanisms identify any problems, risks, and opportunities in a timely manner. Analyze your observations and communicate risks to decision-makers Impart a shared vision. Understand and serve your stakeholders, seeking feedback for insight into possible adjustments in your mission and vision Think of both the positive outcomes of any decisions made and the adverse reactions or unintended consequences of those decisions. Focus on the overall good of your organization in the near term and in the future Observe the decision-making styles of those above and around you. Proactively provide them information to help improve the quality of their decisions. Provide them feedback on the results of the implementation of their decisions, so they can make better decisions in the future. Become aware of the inherent biases (both intentional and unintentional) within the organization’s culture, understanding the bounds the organizational culture permits Be aware of what and how individual team members are doing and their level of energy and engagement. Observe what happens in your organization; do not ignore the issues. Think through the “so what” of your observations Practice “shadowing” the decision-making process of your leaders if the results appear positive. Gather as much information as you can, and judge how you would decide if it were your decision. Ask for clarification about their reasons if they make a different decision than you would have made. Observe the results of their decision, as well as the efforts they make to gather feedback to see whether their decision had the intended results

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2.9.2 Influence A leader becomes a leader because people listen and are not only willing to follow, but they also embrace the ideas set forth by the leader’s influence. One of the critical skills necessary to influence is negotiation as various stakeholders have conflicting demands. A leader’s influence sets the tone for an organization’s culture. Systems engineering influences and is influenced by internal and external political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors. Personal sway influences subordinates (leading from above and outside), peers (leading from beside and outside), and superiors (leading from below and outside). Practice inclusionary techniques to gain followers. Actions to consider when influencing in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership are listed in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2  Actions using the “influence” competency How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Focus your attention (and that of others) on the problem, without offending egos; try to deflect attention away from those unwilling and unable to listen and participate Notice the effects your words and actions have on others; seek feedback from a variety of people to help understand what kinds of words and actions result in positively or negatively influencing others Identify all the different stakeholders in a dispute and understand their various points of view. Offer solutions which address each of their interests. Sell them on the benefits of solutions you envision which can offer (possibly different) benefits to each of them Inspire others to tackle the activities to implement the improvements. Give people an opportunity to shine by challenging them to try something different or new Take charge when the situation demands it. Say “Let’s do it” (specifying the action you think is needed) when you see action is needed and no one else is taking the initiative to suggest any response Lead by example. Take the first step when the group needs to do something different. Demonstrate your practice of being inclusive Encourage others to think about “both X and Y” solutions instead of “either X or Y”; offer ideas (as a neutral party) which might give people locked in conflict a different alternative they can both accept Practice your influence on your co-workers using (1) your own effectiveness, in both action and communication, and (2) your ability to assess their strengths and weaknesses as evidenced in their work, as well as their intentions. Observe the amount of control an individual has, to affect a positive outcome in each situation before judging their performance

2  Promoting Yourself into Leadership: Leading from Above, Beside, Below, and Outside How to actions Give serious thought to your own strengths and weaknesses and use the insights you gain from this thought to showcase your strengths to others Use your status as a (dispassionate) outsider to offer advice independent of internal politics Negotiate agreements with an understanding of the organization’s needs and goals. Relish the challenge of staying within the constraints Use the formal organization chart and informal sources of influence to formulate strategies for exerting your influence Carefully select which stakeholders will participate in any negotiations. Set the ground rules for each negotiation, focusing on constructive outcomes

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2.9.3 Leverage Opportunities Leveraging opportunities is a competency that could fast track your success as a leader. Keep apprised of industry trends such as the SE leadership trends discussed in this book. Observe any hurdles your manager or your customers are attempting to overcome. Focus on understanding your organization’s goals and cultural history in order to know where boundaries of acceptance might lie. Actions to consider when leveraging opportunities in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership are listed in Table 2.3. Table 2.3  Actions using the “leverage opportunity” competency How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Look for failures that could be turned into successes quickly with low risk Step up to an opportunity if you are motivated to accomplish and have the ability to affect and take advantage of the opportunity Notice when others take a risk and celebrate the learning that results (whether the risk resulted in the result the person hoped for) For each opportunity (a) clarify your understanding of the situation and the needs to be satisfied; (b) assess the strengths, weaknesses, and insights of the people on your team, including yourself; and (c) determine your willingness to put in the energy to lead and inspire others. Conclude if this is an opportunity worth pursuing Consider framing any suggestions you have for action as being a natural part of the activities needed to carry out direction you have already been given Develop a vision for your organization’s future. Recognize that you may need to change or modify your vision when unforeseen events occur. Actively solicit from others input on your vision, your approach to making progress toward making your vision a reality, and consequences of steps as you and the team take them

(continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Help the organization understand how problems and opportunities elsewhere in the larger organization offer opportunities for this part of the organization to make a larger contribution Remove the blinders that titled levels provide, circumventing the need to “pull rank” to get things done. Use your power to remove roadblocks for your team and the mission Notice win-win outcomes and celebrate them Consider how forward progress could be made; solicit others’ opinions of your ideas (especially people who think differently than you do) to get more insight into possibilities and barriers to change. If you get unexpected feedback, seriously consider changing your ideas to address issues others raised Encourage your team to meet established deadlines, using risk management constructs for higher-risk opportunities Delegate authority along with responsibility for how to do it along with what to do in pursuit of the goal. Help people grow by providing opportunities they have a good chance of achieving which will help the organization move toward desired goals

2.9.4 Communicate Communication is one of the most important competencies one could possess in a transdisciplinary environment. Communication is a critical part of information management which is central to effective systems engineering as described in the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Presland ed. 2018). Be prepared to hear what you may not agree with or may be surprised by. Accept the differences, engaging in dialog to understand in more detail what the ideas may have in common and where differences exist. Do not assume everyone agrees. Learn the basis for the differences, using influence if the ideas are at odds with the company culture. Celebrate small successes as well as larger successes. Actions to consider while communicating in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership are listed in Table 2.4.

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Table 2.4  Actions using the “communicate” competency How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Take the initiative to discuss issues with others, especially when you think they are stakeholders who may not have been involved in providing input on issues which affect them Proactively ask questions while communicating, to clarify team understanding and direction. Provide a safe environment for others to ask questions Communicate the effects of decisions and corresponding actions on your organization and on the other organization(s). Verbalize how each organization could increase the likelihood of success for each other When you see others being less than fully effective, commend them for the more effective actions they are taking, and offer gentle suggestions for how they could improve their effectiveness (presenting these as helpful suggestions rather than criticism). Be selective in providing harsh feedback. “Tough love” may help some get back on track but be judicious in its use Notice and speak up in praise when others take the initiative to act above and beyond their assigned tasks; encourage others to take action, especially when they feel action is appropriate but are not sure whether it is okay for them to act Help those above you understand your contributions by highlighting them both systematically (such as in progress reports) and when opportunities arise (such as suggesting in a team meeting which is soliciting ideas for next actions how the team could build on progress you have already made) Communicate early and often to stakeholders about the same 3–5 most important needs to make the team become part of the solution Be transparent. Sharing information with your co-workers is a good way to help earn their trust; active listening to demonstrate to them that you not only hear their input but also integrate it with your overall understanding can help develop the kind of rapport needed for you to lead from beside Use your communication skills to influence those above, providing clarity, conciseness, and listening skills. If those above are not open to your ideas or those of the team, the timing may not be right. Thank those above for listening to your proposal and consider revising your proposal for a future date based on what you heard from those above Engage in dialogs with employees to understand their expectations. Listen to what they have to say and provide positive feedback and encouragement – people just want to be heard Take care to make your words and actions consistent with your own beliefs. When you feel the need to speak or act in any way which does not fully match your own convictions, speak up to let others know the reasons you are “taking shortcuts” or otherwise speaking or acting in a way which does not truly reflect your own beliefs

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2.9.5 Self-Lead Self-leadership is imperative if you want to lead others. We include the primary skills of self-awareness, self-motivation, and resilience under this competency. Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that people do not always learn from experience, and experience does not guarantee people are able to recognize false information. Eurich estimates that only 10–15% of the people they studied actually fit the criteria for self-awareness (Eurich 2018). Self-motivation must be present for leadership to be effective. Leadership requires effort. “Slackers get more pleasure and comfort from not doing anything, physically at least, while go-getters physically gain more pleasure from acting” (Hollins 2019). A high resilience quotient is a necessity for leaders, an expected attribute. Develop active coping skills. The most resilient people use active rather than passive coping skills. They create positive statements about themselves and actively seeking support from others. Actions to consider while self-leading in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership are listed in Table 2.5. Table 2.5  Actions using the “self-lead” competency How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Assess your capacity to take on additional activities. Know your own limitations Leverage your passions to achieve the most benefit to your organization Understand and leverage your strengths, including team members and stakeholders that supplement the strengths and weaknesses needed to move the organization in a positive direction Set stretch goals for yourself and encourage others to set stretch goals (especially stretch goals which have the potential to free up time and other resources so that when problems arise, there will be resources to deal with the problems) Imagine if you were in the position of your leader; consider how they could get the best results from you. Then, don’t wait for your leader to take the needed actions to get these best results from you; instead take the responsibility to create the conditions you need to perform at your peak Set aside your own ego, and look objectively at your co-workers, and consider their interests as distinct from your own interests and ambitions Write down a description of your ideal job. Use this as inspiration to craft and restructure the way you perform your assigned work to make it closer to your ideal job Work to improve your emotional resilience by noticing positives (especially in the face of problems) and communicate your celebration of the positives to others

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2.9.6 Coordinate Coordination sets up the work environment for an understanding geared toward sharing needed information, planning, rallying the troops to reach cooperative goals, and empowering people to make needed progress toward goals. Know who your stakeholders are. Know their goals and the constraints under which they are working. Coordinate across the stakeholders until a collaborative path forward is reached. Understand the planning needs of your stakeholder managers, leaders above and beside you, and their associated teams along with the goals and needed results these plans are intended to achieve. Without having this knowledge, coordination is much more problematic as you strive to coordinate across teams or individuals. If your coordination skills are one of the reasons driving your desire to promote yourself into leadership, mentor others through coaching and encouragement. Focus your team and perhaps other teams on what needs to get done by when. Tip for Finding a Mentor  If you notice someone in your workplace who consistently has a contingency plan ready when unexpected problems arise, consider asking them to mentor you. Actions to consider while coordinating in your pursuit of promoting yourself into SE leadership are listed in Table 2.6.

Table 2.6  Actions using the “coordinate” competency How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Meet needed deadlines for your responsibilities. Notice when others look as though they might miss deadlines, and offer help, as well as reminders of the importance of the deadlines Share the positive possibilities, collaborating with others to envision how progress could be made within available resources Seek to understand the challenges and roadblocks your colleagues are encountering. Partner with colleagues when you face common issues. Offer solutions you have found to colleagues who are facing issues you have found a way to resolve Offer others opportunities to contribute, and showcase their contributions so they receive credit for their efforts. To do this, you need to coordinate to ensure they have sufficient resources for their efforts When you see risks in taking the actions you propose, share with others your vision of the risk/reward trade-off, and solicit ideas from others on how the team can quickly tell when any of the risks has become a problem. Express your commitment to noticing problems as soon as possible and changing course as necessary to keep the chances of success high

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Table 2.6 (continued) How to actions Above Below Beside Outside Plan your own efforts, including obtaining resources you need to do your job effectively. Involve other stakeholders in your planning, so they know what you need from them, and you understand what they need from you Be aware of jealousy and downplaying of achievements by others. Lead the naysayers to understand there is more than enough room for achievement by all teams and individuals Seek input from your team for potential problems and risks Seek out others from both your immediate organization and those in other parts of the organization with whom you can share observations and ask for their input and feedback; identify among these people ones that would help with actions

2.10 Toll of Promoting Yourself into SE Leadership There are clearly benefits to promoting yourself into SE leadership: having a stronger positive impact on the organization, helping to shape the future, and very possibly earning more recognition and career advancement. However, it is also important to be aware of the potential pitfalls of promoting yourself into SE leadership, including the challenges and risks you may encounter. Challenges are inevitable consequences of promoting yourself into leadership, whereas risks may or may not happen. Promoting yourself into leadership has impacts on your emotions, energy, and focus. Table 2.7 lists a few actions with the possible toll each might exact from you. It is important to understand these possible impacts, so you can thoughtfully choose how to allocate your attention and energy. Table 2.7  Examples of personal toll of activities to promote yourself into leadership Activity Diagnosing problems and opportunities Envisioning the future, including solutions to problems and ways to leverage opportunities Sharing your vision and enlisting others to believe in it (or at least accept it as a real possibility) Devising specific (small) steps toward implementation of your plans Encouraging (cheerleading) others to take these steps Celebrating and advertising successes Motivating others

Possible toll (on your energy, emotions, and focus) Becoming discouraged about the number and magnitude of problems facing your organization Getting too discouraged when the path your higher management and leadership takes is different from the one you envision would work best You may suffer “proselytizing fatigue” – wearing yourself out trying to persuade others who are not easy to persuade It can take a lot of work to devise specific small steps, and it can be discouraging if others do not listen to your ideas about what they need to do to make progress The amount of your energy required to cheer others on may be out of proportion to the progress they make If celebrating takes a lot of energy for you, it may use up too much of your energy It may take an inordinate amount of your energy to motivate people who are making only slow progress

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2.10.1 Challenges of Promoting Yourself into SE Leadership If you choose to devise strategies to promote yourself into systems engineering leadership, it is important to be fully aware of the ensuing challenges. We describe a few common challenges you should expect. 2.10.1.1 Time and Energy Limitations Your time is limited and your energy even more so. Exercising informal leadership requires continuing prioritization and focus. Colleagues may push you when they recognize you are willing to expend a lot of energy to succeed. Management can push an individual until they determine their breaking point. If you get overwhelmed, you may decide leadership is not for you because too many activities were undertaken. You need to learn to say “no.” Choose wisely as to how to use your own time and energy. Especially for a small entity organization, ensure your expertise is appropriate to succeed at any extra tasks being considered before undertaking them. Three questions to ask yourself in order to decide whether to take on a task in the future were expressed cogently by Dan Ariely (2014): 1. First, every time a request comes in, ask yourself what you would do if it was for next week. If you would cancel other things to make time, go ahead and accept – but if you wouldn’t prioritize it higher than your other obligations, just say no. 2. Second, imagine that you are fully booked that day, and then try to gauge your emotional reaction to declining the request. If that prospect makes you feel sad, you should accept; if you feel happy at the prospect of getting out of it, turn it down. 3. Third, imagine that you accepted this particular request, and it promptly got canceled. If you can taste the joy at the prospect of its being scrubbed, decline the task. Resilience matters. Prioritize what is important to the organization and determine how much you are able to influence. Find others willing to take on the organization’s higher priority challenges not identified by you as one of your strengths. By doing this, you are perhaps growing other leaders in your organization. 2.10.1.2 Trying to Do Too Much Too Quickly Promoting yourself into SE leadership is a marathon, not a sprint. Promoting yourself is a process that requires trial and error to learn to exercise informal leadership effectively. Repeated interactions with others are needed to build the trust that is the basis for effective leadership. Expect that some of your efforts will fail, viewing each of these failures as a learning opportunity. Analyze the results of your choices

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and actions. Ask others for their perspectives to improve choice selection. Even more importantly, notice the consequences of your actions, both the successful ones and the ones which do not achieve the results you intended. 2.10.1.3 Scrutiny and Criticism Accepting input and feedback is critical to effective informal leadership. Opening yourself up to criticism can be emotionally draining. Leadership, including self-­ promoted leadership, invites scrutiny and criticism from others. Criticisms are often based on the unrealistic assumption that the person taking action should have had all of the relevant information and experiences to make the same decision that in hindsight seems best. Garnering support early on helps address the challenge of overcoming negative scrutiny and criticism. The challenge is knowing which feedback to act upon and when not to act (not all feedback is constructive feedback). If you support a decision that is at odds with your management, let your team know you feel differently from the organization, yet you are willing to support management’s decision. Only pursue your unpopular decisions after there is enough support to assure success. 2.10.1.4 Need for Resilience It is important to understand your own resilience quotient. Informal leadership requires significant resilience and persistence. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks and cope with adversity. Resilience enables us to persist in the face of nay-sayers and anyone who does not want us to succeed (for whatever reason). There are two quick assessments available online which measure resilience and coping skills. PsyToolkit provides the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) which asks six questions and the Brief Resilience Coping Scale (BRCS) which asks four questions (Stoet 2010, 2017). 1. We suggest taking the BRS at https://www.psytoolkit.org. This score results in an interpretation of: • 1.00–2.99 low resilience • 3.00–4.30 normal resilience • 4.31–5.00 high resilience 2. We also suggest taking the BRCS at http://www.psytoolkit.org. The score results are interpreted as follows: • 4–13 low resilience copers • 14–16 medium resilience copers • 17–20 high resilience copers

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As an alternative, honestly compare yourself qualitatively to the characteristics of a very resilient person you know. Resilience characteristics to use as comparison are listed below (Saeed et al. 2017): 1. I do not change how I act just to please others. 2. When someone disagrees with me or is even adversarial, I continue the conversation rather than refuse any further dialogue. 3. When feelings are high around an emotionally charged issue, I remain calm and focused rather than get caught up in the surrounding turmoil. 4. My vision of what I want for the organization/people that I lead is clear. 5. When faced with resistance to changes I have imitated, I go forward despite the opposition I may encounter. 6. When I am in an important relationship that is strained, I remain connected rather than withdraw. 7. I seek first to understand my own contribution to problems rather than look for others to blame. 8. I can remain playful and use humor even in very tense situations. 9. I act in the best long-term interests of the organization, even when the cost is quite painful to me and/or others. 10. When I am disappointed with someone, I am close to, my tendency is not to withdraw from that person. 11. When I am experiencing conflict with a co-worker, I can still distinguish between the issue and how I feel about that person. 12. When being a leader requires me to stand alone on issues, I do what I know to be right, despite the solitude. 13. When I get tense or anxious, I have various ways to turn down the heat, let off steam, and regain my calm. 14. When I have to work closely with people, it does not make me feel crowded or smothered. 15. I avoid over-functioning or getting overly involved in situations where others are responsible for the outcome. If you have low resilience, or low resilience coping skills, you will probably find attempts to lead from below and beside to be overly discouraging. Successful systems engineering leaders the authors of this chapter have encountered have medium to high resilience and coping skills. It is worth noting that women leaders in general exhibit more resilience than male leaders (Reed and Blaine 2015). 2.10.1.5 Not Getting Appropriate Credit If you promote yourself into leadership, expect that you will not get as much credit as you deserve, at least in the short run. Informal leaders often do not get full credit for the work that has been accomplished through their leadership. Managers and formal leaders commonly take credit for accomplishments of their teams. Sometimes an informal leader can actually get more accomplished by arranging for a manager

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to get credit, for example, offering your own ideas to a manager as your understanding of the way they want you to proceed, when their directions are vague or unclear. It is often a good trade-off to get more done, even if you do not get full credit for progress. In the long run, most organizations notice and reward those who make good progress. A related challenge is that the “reward” for doing more with less is too often being given even greater goals with even fewer resources. If you have worked miracles, you may raise expectations that you can produce even more miraculous results in the future. As an informal leader, it is important that you give credit where credit is due to those that went out of the way to take actions you saw were needed – even if you are not getting credit yourself for leading them. How do you know who has accomplished what? Communicate with others often, to understand how they work, developing a rapport and a reliable network of individuals. Giving credit to others when it is due will enhance your ability to lead future efforts.

2.10.2 Risks of Promoting Yourself into SE Leadership Understand potential risks and possible mitigations before taking action to promote yourself into leadership. Taking the initiative to undertake SE leadership activities without formal direction from above may cause problems with work relationships. There is risk associated with “going out on a limb” for unpopular beliefs. Consider your cultural climate and its alignment with your values. The discussion below briefly describes some of the specific risks associated with actions you can take as an aspiring systems engineering leader. 2.10.2.1 Perception of Dereliction of Duty Leadership activities (which are not part of your assigned job duties) may be seen as a failure to do your assigned job adequately. It is important to understand that there is a real risk that the thought, effort, and energy that you invest in leadership activities which are not part of your assigned job duties could be seen as a failure to do your assigned job adequately. If the quality of your work products decreases (even if the quality is still as high or higher than that of colleagues), managers may conclude your informal leadership activities are adversely affecting the quality of your work. If you are observed talking with others more than you used to do, which may be necessary to do the communication and coordination to be an effective informal leader, managers may interpret this as socializing with others instead of doing your assigned work. They may even conclude that you have too much spare time and assign you additional work.

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Managing people’s expectations is a critical communication skill. Recognize both the positive and negative unintended consequences ahead of time and be prepared for surprises in your career! Taking on leadership activities beyond your assigned job duties comes with the risk associated with criticism. Be aware, and emotionally prepare yourself to take criticism constructively. 2.10.2.2 Reputational Risk and Social Responsibility Social responsibility, especially ethical behavior, is critical to being seen as a viable leader. Determine what your values are, establishing a platform you are willing to communicate and act upon, so people know what you consider important. Temper what you say and how you say it to be in alignment with the organizational culture, or you may adversely affect your reputation at work. Leaders are watched by those above, beside, below, and even outside. It is common practice that executives, whom you may not know outside your reporting organization, watch and judge your reputation, background, and leadership skills. With the advent of social media and search engines a click away, their assessment of your worthiness is likely to affect your career. 2.10.2.3 Discovering Leadership Itself Is Not What Was Anticipated You may find that leadership does not provide the rewards you anticipated or that it comes with consequences you do not enjoy. Rewards which may not materialize from informal systems engineering leadership, especially in the short run, include remuneration, power, and glory. Consequences can include an increase in your workload and unexpected accountability, including accountability for the actions of others whom you informally lead. Aspiring leaders often discover they do not have enough time to pursue a leadership path, or encounter too many people unwilling to collaborate, or discover leadership requires skills that require more effort to acquire than they are willing to invest. 2.10.2.4 Cultural Mismatch A cultural mismatch occurs when your values are not the same as either the organization or the management chain or other leaders. Organizations must bring in money to continue to exist, and in some organizations the focus on sales or profits may override other values. Some organizations cater to the customer, focusing on eliciting customer needs and delighting their customer with decisions that would provide the organization and the customer what they need. Other organizations may focus on sales of their product and systems as built and are not in the business to please

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customers if they have a unique product or system. Others value innovation. Most organizations have a culture that embraces more than one of these goals. Organizations may claim one set of goals and values and exhibit behavior in contrast to those goals and values, exhibiting traits not in alignment with what they claim or aspire to. For example, an organization that embraces innovation may restrict innovation opportunities to a select few, although the company is perceived to be innovative. Along the same lines, an organization may change the title of all their engineers to “System Engineer” to influence a customer’s perception that the organization is system engineering knowledgeable, without actually increasing systems engineering activity. Cultures of organizations come together based on patterns of learned behaviors of individuals and the reinforcement of the behaviors by the organization’s leaders. The organization’s values guide the decision-making. The set of values demonstrated consistently collectively define the culture. Aspiring leaders are advised to observe the diversity in their group along with the leadership chain to understand the unwritten values of the team. This risk of a cultural mismatch is greatest if those that succeed do not look like you and applaud behaviors not in alignment with your values. 2.10.2.5 Unexpected and Undesirable Results Your best efforts may result in negative outcomes that you did not foresee. One of the case studies from “Change Agency for Systems Engineers” (McKinney et al. 2015) illustrates one of the many surprises individuals encounter in organizations. Case Study: Leadership Surprise Ian, a forward-looking middle manager, noticed the trend of competitive awards going more and more to companies which had demonstrated a high level of CMMI maturity. He made a case to senior management for the business benefit of improving the organizational maturity but was not able to persuade them to take action. The culture of the organization consisted of a short-term incentives type of organization which made most middle managers reluctant to push for any major change. A few years later, when business did in fact decline because customers would only buy from high CMMI maturity suppliers, that middle manager was fired. Higher management concluded that he had the knowledge of the business need but was unwilling to do what it took to engage the organization to make the needed changes.

As a leader, one must learn to live with ambiguity. We can almost guarantee the future will bring surprises! Learn to anticipate possible unintended outcomes, look for symptoms of impending problems, and be prepared for a quick change in direction. Use your system engineering skills to look beyond the obvious.

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2.10.2.6 Being Made a Scapegoat The risk of scapegoating occurs more frequently and intensely during recessions and other economic downturns since people are afraid for their own jobs and future. Spreading rumors, often untruths, about another employee they are not fond of might allow them to keep their job if layoffs should happen. Scapegoating also occurs even without a downturn in the economy as a measure to remove others with whom they feel uncomfortable due to differences of opinion, jealousy, or intended or unintended biases. There are ways to minimize scapegoating. If a co-worker complains frequently about another, validate the facts instead of spreading rumors that may not be true, even if you are not fond of the employee who was accused. Identify the complainers and people you’ve heard bad-mouthing others. Realize that they could be saying untruths about you. Sometimes attempts to discredit well-respected engineers known for their system engineering knowledge can be attributable to people who do not share the same worldviews (Sillitto et al. 2018). For example, a system engineer that believes systems engineering is just process may resent others that insist system engineering goes beyond creating and following process. Make sure your boss and everyone around you knows your responsibilities and the limits of your span of control. If you do that effectively, it is harder for someone to blame you for something that goes awry. If you or others become a victim of scapegoating, communicate the facts. Accusations of others or making excuses will only give credence to the accusations. 2.10.2.7 Perception You Are a Threat to Decision-Makers There are circumstances under which the risk is too high to attempt promoting yourself into leadership (e.g., negative perceptions of your performance, instabilities in the work environment, your own undue sensitivity to feedback). The risk of negative perception of employee performance is common when a person promoting themselves into leadership is noticeably different in gender or cultural background from most existing leaders, especially if an inclusionary environment is not evident. Of course, anyone, leader or not, may be perceived to be a threat for reasons of age differences, jealousy of a person perceived to get preferential treatment, and especially those who joined an organization as an outsider from another group, department, or external organization. There are signs that decision-makers may feel intimidated by you. They may avoid you when they would be expected to interact with you (not attending your meetings, not acknowledging you during shared meetings), body language (lack of eye contact, distancing, aloofness, etc.), speaking timidly, or not speaking to you directly, or they directly attack you verbally. If you notice decision-makers exhibiting these signs, make an effort to connect with them. Seek common ground if you can, broaching either work-related or hobby commonalities. Communicate with them in settings with people you both respect. Listen to what they have to say and ask questions requiring more than yes or no

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answers. Do not expect an instant turnaround. Overcoming intimidation takes energy, time, and patience.

2.11 Impacts on the Organization of Promoting Yourself into Leadership There are obviously impacts, both positive and negative, on an individual that promotes themselves into systems engineering leadership. Perhaps less obvious, but not less real, are impacts to the organization.

2.11.1 The Impacts on Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity Informal leaders have a sphere of influence that often results in a more productive workforce, especially if recognized by those above for their talents. Aspiring leaders will be noticed and followed if they practice inclusionary techniques. The results for the organization are typically better performance. The McKinsey Company researched the impact of diversity, in 2014 (Hunt et al. 2015, 2018), and again in 2019 (Dixon-Fyle et al. 2020). Organizations in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 33–35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. When a workforce is led by inclusive leadership, individuals feel they are a part of the organization. Feeling great about the unique qualities one has to offer inspires innovative ideas and contributions regardless of rank in the organization. The workforce energy is enhanced, although this may not be attributed to the informal leader immediately. Incremental cultural change in an organization is often a result of individuals promoting themselves into leadership. Informal leaders come from a mix of sources. Some are seasoned veterans, some are younger professionals looking to climb the ladder of success, and some had supervisory authority in the past. Informal leaders care deeply about their organization. Passion and resilience allow them to persevere, driven by a motivation to improve the organization. Informal leadership often encourages others to take action and become leaders themselves.

2.11.2 The Impacts on Organizational Culture Promoting yourself into leadership can have a significant impact on your own job satisfaction and possibly your career progress. In addition, it can have an impact on the culture of your organization. Such an impact is not quick, but can be caused by a series of actions, both the actions you take as an informal leader and the actions

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that your leadership inspires others to take. Aspects of culture most likely to be affected by informal leadership include intrapreneurship and risk-taking. In addition, informal leadership may improve the degree to which an organization has a learning culture. Significant change in the people in an organization often results in culture change. You can see this in many companies as they move from small start-ups to larger organizations; it is rare that the culture of the start-up persists as the organization grows by orders of magnitude. Leaders of an organization can decide to deliberately change the culture of the organization through starting an initiative, but most of these attempts to change culture do not have the desired effect. In fact, people in many organizations have seen multiple attempts by higher management to change the culture and have discovered that if they just wait, as many of these initiatives are management fads which will pass. Although leadership decisions do not often lead to culture change, sustained leadership actions can indeed lead to change. As you diagnose problems and identify opportunities in your organization, envision ways to address problems and leverage opportunities, and share your visions with others to inspire them to action, you are implicitly inviting others to share in the increased insights and power to act. Not everyone will accept this implicit invitation, but if even a few do, the ripple effects can spread through the organization. Seeing the world and your place in it differently is not a change that can be easily undone. As you make it possible for others to see that anyone – not just formal leaders  – can notice and act to address problems and opportunities, these others are likely to retain this insight. Not everyone will act on this insight, but even noticing can change the tenor of conversations in the organization. The change of perspective from “how frustrating it is that we have this problem” to “I wonder what we could do to address this problem” can be subtle, but as people focus more energy on exploring possible solutions than decrying problems, this subtle shift in energy can, over time, make a significant difference in the organization’s culture. One of the most powerful tools in a leader’s toolbox is leading by example. As an informal leader, if you choose deliberately to take a risk, and let others know why you see the potential benefits as being worth the risk-taking, you signal that thoughtful risk-taking is permitted in the culture. If you encounter problems and are resilient enough to work through setbacks toward your goal, you signal that problems do not equate to failure – instead, they equate to a need to learn from setbacks and find a new way forward. Actions, however, are not the only way that a culture is changed. Observing, considering the implications of what you observe, and sharing these perceptions with others can also affect the culture. Many people notice things in the workplace which have immediate effect on themselves. Far fewer people notice things in the workplace and then take the time and effort to consider how these things relate and what implications they might have. Changes in the workplace can be an especially powerful source of observations from which to draw implications. Many people see change and notice primarily the pain that comes with it: new things which must be learned, old information which must be unlearned (which is more difficult than acquiring new knowledge), and forced changes in habits which have been effective in the past. But if you look for opportunities in change, there are often ways you can

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use the impetus of changes to open yourself and others to new ways of seeing and interpreting what is happening and what new possibilities are arising. Sharing these insights with others consistently over time can lead to culture change.

2.12 Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering There are a number of emerging trends in systems engineering. These provide opportunities for promoting yourself into leadership. These trends include, but are not limited to: • Increasing complexity of systems and the physical, social, and cultural environments in which they need to function. • Technical innovation, especially dynamically adaptable systems • Expanding socio-technical systems boundaries • Society holding systems engineering responsible for unintended consequences • Changes in the ways organizations manage systems engineering efforts, including: –– Organization globalization and diversity of leadership and teams –– Entrepreneurship replacing command and control –– Remote work, so leaders may not be co-located with workforce members • Changes in the way systems engineering activities are done, including: –– Principle-based guidance over process-based rules –– Integrated tool sets across the systems engineering life cycle –– Transdisciplinary approaches including disruptive collaboration, experiential design, immersive knowledge experiences, and storytelling Each of these trends offers opportunities for aspiring leaders to promote themselves into informal leadership by developing the skills to leverage these trends to help your organization become more successful. This can distinguish you from others in your organization, increasing your ability to provide informal leadership and possibly positioning yourself for formal leadership responsibility.

2.13 Implications of Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering for Promoting Yourself into Leadership 2.13.1 Dancing Across Disciplines In the early days of systems engineering, the major focus was on integrating the efforts of different engineering disciplines. That is still important today, but the scope of systems engineering has broadened considerably. In complex systems, and

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especially social-technical systems which have as stakeholders not only technically sophisticated users but also people with little or no education in science or engineering, the job of the systems engineer has expanded. The system engineer is now responsible for engaging the active participation of a broad range of stakeholders, including those in the hard sciences, project management, operations, engineering disciplines, and the soft sciences and people whose knowledge and insights come from deep involvement in the social systems and application domains in which the system (or system of systems) must function. Envision this as the change from making connections across disciplines which can be described in two dimensions to moving up and down and across three dimensions. In addition to the dimensions of different engineering and hard science disciplines, a transdisciplinary approach includes social sciences and the wide spectrum of people and perspectives that include all the other stakeholders in the systems we develop and support (Madni 2018). It may be helpful to envision this as three dimensions, with the different disciplines spread across the X and Y dimensions and the third dimension being the human spectrum on the Z axis. We envision moving in this three-dimensional space as a sort of dance. It requires agility on the part of the systems engineer: ability to reach out and touch different disciplines and stakeholders, ability to draw ideas and perspectives from all of them, and ability to co-create the new knowledge and insights needed to address new or hitherto insoluble problems. Envisioning this as a dance might help us move from the more linear, logical thinking we used in the past to the more fluid thinking and perception we need to do in the future. Moving multiple times forward to touch many other disciplines and stakeholders, and then moving back to analyze and synthesize, looks and feels much more like a dance than the steady progression in a single direction which was characteristic of system design and development in the last century. This dance offers a way for people interested in promoting themselves into systems engineering leadership to differentiate themselves and to focus on developing their skills in directions which make them better “dancers” than their more staid colleagues.

2.13.2 Thinking in Distinctive Cognitive Space Rational thought and critical thinking were the most important attributes of a systems engineer in the last century. This century, creative thinking is equally important. Creativity is required to go from mere communication with stakeholders to actively involving them. This involvement needs to span the spectrum from co-­ creating a common understanding of the problems and issues a system is intended to address, and the environment in which it will be used, to interactive generation of options – some of them novel – to making choices with all the concerns of stakeholders being used productively in the trade-offs, to preparing stakeholders for system deployment so that the system is embraced proactively enough to fully meet its intended purposes.

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Transdisciplinary systems engineering is new to most organizations, and so its implementation offers great opportunities for a systems engineer to promote themselves into leadership. Three approaches used in transdisciplinary systems engineering offer especially rich opportunities: • Experiential design, in which a combination of system modeling, interactive storytelling, visualization, and augmented reality are used to enable stakeholders to experience aspects of a system and provide user feedback before the system is even built. • Interactive novel option generation (the convergence of psychological principles, systems thinking, and decision science to enhance trade-offs). • Immersive storytelling (the convergence of engineering and entertainment/cinematic arts) provides for much richer and more effective communication, since humans learn much more effectively from stories than they do from conventional engineering-type presentations.

2.13.3 Championing Creative Communication One way to provide leadership, regardless of your formal position, is to become a facilitator and practitioner of creative communication. Disruptive collaboration is a hallmark of transdisciplinary systems engineering, and it requires making connections and fostering communication and collaboration between many stakeholders, including ones who may not normally communicate with each other. This transdisciplinary collaboration disrupts traditional decision-making processes. Traditional communication can be thought of as a transmit-receive process, with most of the improvement effort going into making transmission more effective. Creative communication, in contrast, also puts effort into finding more receivers and fostering two-way interactions (not merely communication), using multiple channels, including social media. As a systems engineer, you can leverage models to make communication much richer, allowing stakeholders to explore the relationships between parts of a system – and system of systems – and see the trade-offs between different capabilities and constraints. Imagine showing stakeholders not just a scale model of a building, but also how the energy usage of the building changes with more or fewer windows and more floors. Or using a model (or more likely a set of interconnected models) to let stakeholders experiment with different trade-offs and see how an increased acquisition cost might result in lower maintenance costs or how changing the skill level required to operate a system can affect costs of user interface development. Or imagine crowd-sourcing possible uses for elements of a system-of-systems and enabling contributors to see how changing demand for different services can change the economic and social impacts of the system-of-system operations. One specific way, therefore, that you can promote yourself into leadership is by envisioning how you can use models  – both those already developed and those

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which could be developed on your project – to enrich communications with stakeholders and obtain input to choices on requirements and design trade-offs which will make it possible for decision-makers to make choices which otherwise might not have been politically acceptable. Of course, once you develop such a vision for how to use models, you will need to either develop the needed model interfaces and features or inspire and persuade others to develop these. You will probably also need to plan and implement the initial efforts to use the models for these communication and consensus-building purposes, to show others how to bring your vision to fruition. Another specific way you can promote yourself into leadership is by devising ways to leverage diversity to improve communication and coordination. If your organization already values diversity, you can look for innovative ways to harness diversity to improve communication, coordination and identification of existing options and creation of new options. If your organization does not value diversity, you can conduct experiments to showcase the payoff of using diversity. For example, you could tap people with diverse backgrounds and personality types to participate in brainstorming exercises to support project tasks.

2.13.4 Surfing the Waves of Change: Coping with Changing Realities Demystifying/minimizing complexity and coping with changing realities will make informal leadership more powerful. Coping with change is an area which offers potential leverage for a systems engineer who wants to promote themselves into leadership. Change is difficult for most people and organizations to cope with. Learning to embrace change, and to look at all changes for possible opportunities, may not be easy, but will prepare you to be more resilient and proactive in the face of change and enable you to lead others more effectively. One major change in many system development efforts between the last century and the current century is the increase in complexity. Certainly, some systems, and especially systems-of-systems, are more complex. In addition, the environments in which systems need to operate, including not only the physical environment but also the social, political, and cultural environments, are often more complex. Dealing with this complexity offers an aspiring systems engineering multiple opportunities to provide informal leadership. The INCOSE Complexity Primer (Sheard et al. 2021) offers examples of techniques which can be more effective for dealing with complexity. For example, you can use multi-scale modeling (linking macro- and micro-­level models), including exploratory analysis and agent-based modeling, and experimentation: (a) to generate insight into the implications of derived requirements and (b) as the basis for trade studies and to inform trade-off decisions. Another example is using self-organizing and self-repairing elements to increase the resilience of a system, modeling the cost of change versus development cost to sell stakeholders on their benefits. Trying out these approaches in your own work, and

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then using what you learn from this to lead others in dealing with complexity, can be powerful in becoming a more effective informal leader. The continually escalating pressures for lower costs, shorter schedules, and lower risk are resulting in volcanic explosions of needs for entrepreneurship and creativity. Some companies are demanding intrapreneurship while executing pressing schedules and reduction of risk. This often provides opportunities for informal leadership because managers are hard-pressed to meet these demands and may welcome creative ideas. If you innovate in your own work and succeed in making new approaches work, you can offer your own successes as a basis for the change your organization needs to implement to meet these new demands.

2.14 Summary and Conclusion Promoting yourself into SE leadership is usually a conscious choice based on the effort you are willing to expend at any job position level in your organization. Rarely, it can happen accidentally due to a combination of circumstances, passion to make a difference, opportunities, and chance coupled with the right mix of competencies developed over time. Thus, a wait-and-see approach is not the recommended way to acquire the right combination of SE and leadership competencies to increase the likelihood of your progress into a systems engineering leadership position. Emerging SE trends in leadership offer novel opportunities to promote yourself into SE leadership. Transdisciplinary systems engineering requires social skills and emotional intelligence not required of engineers in the past. The challenges facing SE leadership offer unique opportunities to learn targeted skills and knowledge which will provide a competitive edge as you work to become a leader. These emerging challenges of systems engineering leadership are so vast, and so varied, that it is unlikely that the management of most organizations will be able to rise to meet all these challenges at once. This creates real opportunities for people who are looking to move into leadership. By identifying which of these challenges present the greatest opportunities for your organization, you can promote yourself into leadership by providing needed leadership – whether it is formally a responsibility in your current position or whether you choose to lead from beside or below. Finding the mentoring you need to promote yourself into leadership can be done by identifying people who have the skills you want to develop and asking them to provide mentoring. Both formal mentors and people who are willing to answer questions and offer insights (informal mentors) may provide useful information. Expect to learn multiple useful things from each mentor, not just the specific skill you admire them for. The urgent need for systems engineering in the world affords greater opportunity for aspiring systems engineering leaders than ever before. Transdisciplinary and integrative skills – which are critical in today’s systems engineering – are powerful for promoting yourself into SE leadership. These skills will also have a positive impact when carried over to socioeconomic and technical engineering leadership.

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References Ariely D (2014) Three tools to guard your calendar priorities. Wall Street J, August 28, 2014 https://www.wsj.com/articles/three-­tools-­to-­guard-­your-­calendar-­priorities-­1409241072 Brosseau D (2014) Ready to be a thought leader? How to increase your influence, impact, and success. https://Thoughtleadershiplab.com/Resources/WhatIsaThoughtLeader. Accessed 15 Feb 2021 Cherry K (2020) Why the Halo effect influences how we perceive others. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-­is-­the-­halo-­effect-­2795906. Accessed 8 Oct 2020 Dixon-Fyle S, Dolan K et  al (2020) Diversity wins: how inclusion matters. McKinsey and Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-­insights/diversity-­and-­inclusion/diversity-­ wins-­how-­inclusion-­matters. Accessed 12 Mar 2020 Eurich T (2018) What self-awareness really is and how to cultivate it. https://hbr.org/2018/01/ what-­self-­awareness-­really-­is-­and-­how-­to-­cultivate-­it Hollins P (2019) Build a better brain: using everyday neuroscience to train your brain for motivation, discipline, courage, and mental sharpness. Independently Published Hunt V, Layton D, Prince S (2015) Why diversity matters. McKinsey and Company. https://www. mckinsey.com/business-­functions/organization/our-­insights/why-­diversity-­matters#. Accessed 8 Feb 2021 Hunt V, Layton D, Prince S (2018) Delivering through diversity. McKinsey and Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-­functions/organization/our-­insights/delivering-­through-­ diversity. Accessed 16 Mar 2020 Kouzes J, Posner B (2007) The Leadership Challenge™ workshop: how to get extraordinary things done in organizations. https://davidsteele.blog/2010/03/22/the-­leadership-­challenge-­james-­ kouzes-­and-­barry-­posner-­2007-­revised/. Accessed 2 Mar 2020 Madni A (2018) Transdisciplinary systems engineering: exploiting convergence in a hyper-­ connected world. Springer, Cham McKinney D, Arnold E, Sheard S (2015) Change agency for systems engineers. In: 25th International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) proceedings. Wiley Press Presland I Ed (2018) Systems engineering competency framework. In: 28th International Council on systems Engineering (INCOSE). Wiley Press Reed D, Blaine B (2015) Resilient women educational leaders in turbulent times: applying the leader resilience profile® to assess women’s leadership strengths. Plann Chang J 46(3/4):459–468. ISSN: ISSN-0032-0684 Saeed S, Quock R, Lott J et  al (2017) Building resilience for wellness: a faculty development resource. Association of American Medical Colleges’ Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources. https://www.mededportal.org/doi/10.15766/mep 2374-­8265.10629. Accessed on 11 Mar 2021 Sillitto et  al (2018) What do we mean by “system”? – System Beliefs and Worldviews in the INCOSE Community. In: 28th International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Proceedings. Wiley Press Sheard S, Cook S, Honour E, Hybertson D, Krupa J, McEver J, McKinney D, Ondrus P, Ryan A, Scheurer A, Singer J, Sparber J, and White B (2021) A Complexity Primer for Systems Engineers White Paper Rev 1. International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Complexity Working Group product. INCOSE-TP-2021-007-01 Stoet G (2010) PsyToolkit – a software package for programming psychological experiments using Linux. Behav Res Methods 42(4):1096–1104 Stoet G (2017) PsyToolkit: a novel web-based method for running online questionnaires and reaction-­time experiments. Teach Psychol 44(1):24–31

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Eileen Arnold’s  career as an electrical engineer, software engineer, and a system engineer spans almost 40 years of observation and technical experience as a formal and informal leader after graduating from the University of Iowa. She officially retired although has continued her dedication to system engineering. When it comes to her choosing STEM, Eileen says: “Although exposed to general science d­ iscussions as an interest of my parents from a young age, I became enamored with geology during a summer vacation at the age of seven. The Museum of North Carolina Minerals on the Blue Ridge Parkway identified my pail of rocks and provided a geologic history of each. By junior high school, I had discovered math was a forte after placement in an accelerated math class. Summer vacations were spent visiting National Parks and monuments in the United States, whereby I read and internalized every sign about the origins of landforms, history, and the interactions of society and weather. Armed with a homemade chemistry set, I began to experiment. Honors English and honors Biology further enforced and broadened my knowledge of science. Although my preference was to major in geology, I needed a music scholarship to afford college. As a violin major, I managed to take science-based geography classes, graduated with a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Geography, then continued college on a path to a Bachelor of Electrical/Electronic engineering after learning women were limited to geology-based desk jobs and not allowed in the field.” Eileen pursued her field of passion—aircraft electrical systems engineering at Rockwell Collins and United Technologies Corporation as an aircraft technical design engineer, manager, aircraft standards author, system engineering curricula developer and systems discipline chief. She broadened her knowledge of systems engineering at BAE Systems—weapons systems—acquiring a defense perspective of system development. The focus of her later years was as a mentor, resulting in a position as a co-founder for Considered Thoughtfully Inc., an online start-up that created a My Career Mentor automated virtual career mentoring application. Eileen was the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Fall Conference (Fallcon) Technical Chair in the mid1990s attracting over 1000 participants prior to discovering INCOSE and system engineering. Eileen has been an active INCOSE volunteer and author, holding a variety of international and chapter level volunteer and elected leadership positions that included, but are not limited to, President of INCOSE Heartland and INCOSE North Star chapters. At INCOSE’s international level, she has served as a Technical Board Co-Chair, Corporate Advisor Board (CAB) representative, Technical Chair for IS2000, Certification Advisory Committee Chair and was a member of the Board of Directors, among other leadership positions. Eileen has authored and presented over 19 peer-reviewed papers since 1996, on topics such as systems process (project management and systems engineering integration, competency, leadership vs management, process deployment, risk management, system / systems engineering definition and worldviews, curricula and change agency). She and her co-authors were honored with Best Paper awards for “Change Agency for Systems Engineers” and “What Do We Mean by ‘System’ – System Beliefs and Worldviews in the INCOSE Community.” She was a presenter and panelist at National Defense Industry Association (NDIA) and INCOSE symposia, INCOSE regional conferences and for several INCOSE chapters over the years. She was an invited panelist and speaker at two Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) conferences. She recently jointly developed a popular tutorial entitled, “Strategies for Overcoming Systems Engineering Dysfunction.” Eileen was a recipient of the lifetime achievement Minnesota Federation of Engineering, Science and Technical Societies (MFESTS) Charles W. Britzius Distinguished Engineer Award in 2012. This was a culmination of her many awards, some of which are listed here. She was a recipient of a cross-­operating group BAE Systems Electronics & Integrated Solutions Team award for engineering training and competency development and was rewarded for her effort in finance optimization. She has received several INCOSE Service awards, her first in 2002, for moving INCOSE from a paper-based review process to an electronic review database with an INCOSE colleague. She was awarded a plaque, “For leadership and contributions in the evolution of INCOSE’s Systems Engineering Professional (SEP) program,” for establishment of the ESEP credential. She holds credentials as an INCOSE certified Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP) with a Department of Defense Acquisition extension (no longer an option), is an INCOSE Fellow, and was a PMI Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) for almost ten years.

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Dorothy McKinney  is the Founder and Director of Advanced Systems Thinking, Inc., a systems engineering consulting company. She is currently under contract to Northrop Grumman. She has worked in the aerospace and defense industry for over 30 years in capacities ranging from Chief Systems Engineer to Director of Systems Engineering to Vice President, Senior Fellow, and she retired from Lockheed Martin as a Fellow Emeritus. Dorothy’s interest in STEM started at age 9, when her father’s employer, General Electric, had a family day, and she was allowed to play with a keypunch machine. In high school, her father arranged for her to attend programming classes he was teaching at his new employer, Control Data Corporation, and she was hooked. When she discovered a couple of years later that her liberal arts college had no computer class, she arranged to teach one, mentored by her mathematics professor, who worked during the summers as a programmer at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Her publications include the “Change Agency for Systems Engineers” paper presented at the 2015 INCOSE Symposium and published in the Symposium proceedings (which won best paper award), and “Systems Engineering Implications of Neuroscience Discoveries” paper presented at the 2013 INCOSE Symposium and published in the Symposium proceedings. She co-authored the INCOSE Complex Systems Primer, as well as several papers supporting INCOSE’s revised definition of systems engineering in 2018 and 2019; “Six Translations between Software-Speak and Management-Speak” article in IEEE Software November/December 2002; and “Risk Reduction Through Changing Success Criteria” paper presented at the INCOSE 2000 Symposium, and published in the Symposium proceedings; “Executive Use of Metrics: Observations and Ruminations” article published in the International Council on Systems Engineering’s INSIGHT in Volume 1 Issue 4, Winter 1998/99; “An Apocryphal Metrics Case Study: A Composite of Real Experience on Programs” article published in the International Council on Systems Engineering’s INSIGHT in Volume 1 Issue 4, Winter 1998/99. Dorothy served as original editor for the International Council on Systems Engineering’s Systems Engineering Handbook: A “What To” Guide for All SE Practitioners first published in 1998. Dorothy’s speaking engagements included being a panelist on the panel on “Envisioning Systems Engineering as a Transdisciplinary Venture” at the INCOSE 2018 Symposium; AIAA Panelist on “What can you expect for your engineering career: engineering or management?” in August 2008; her talk on “Risky Measurements: Lessons Learned Using Metrics to Control Risks” was the keynote speech at the November 2000 mini-conference in San Diego, and an updated version was given to Las Vegas INCOSE chapter in November, 2001; she was an INCOSE Risk panelist at several INCOSE events (including the 2000 Symposium); she developed and delivered briefing on “Impact of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software and Technology on Systems Engineering” in 2001 to multiple groups of industry practitioners, and “Impact of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software on The Interface Between Systems and Software Engineering” was presented to Barry Boehm’s International Conference on Software Engineering in Los Angeles in 1999. She delivered a talk on “How INCOSE Solves Tough Program Management Problems: Future Synergies and Tensions Between Systems Engineering and Program Management” at a PMI seminar in Silicon Valley in September 1999; “The Systems/Software Engineering Interface: Impact of COTS and New Software Technology Developments” was presented to the Software Technology Conference in Salt Lake City in 1999; and “The Systems/Software Engineering Interface: Impact of COTS and Other Recent Developments” presentation made to the Los Angeles chapter of SPIN in August 1998. Dorothy has received numerous awards, including an INCOSE Service Award for service as Chair of the INCOSE Fellows from 2014 to 2017, and several Lockheed Martin awards, including a Team Excellence Award in 2008.

Chapter 3

Systems Engineering Leadership Through Influence and Persuasion Anne O’Neil

, Kerry Lunney

, and Melissa Jovic

Abstract  Rarely the ultimate decision-maker or policymaker, systems engineering (SE) leaders undertake a role to enable informed decision-making and guide outcomes to align with overarching strategic objectives. Therefore, influence and persuasion skills are a fundamental necessity for SE leaders to acquire and hone. Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected at all levels of society across all demographics. Effective systems require a team effort across multiple disciplines that may not in the past have been as pivotal to the success of the solution. Recognizing the cruciality of interoperability, interdependencies, vulnerability, ownership, deployability, safety, obsolescence, technology rate of change, and other architectural and realization considerations requires SE leaders to be highly informed, flexible, and adaptable. The arrival of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy, coupled with the rising prominence of sociotechnical challenges, compels SE leaders to direct outcomes through team collaborations. This chapter explores the various factors that shape the influence and persuasion strategies SE leaders adopt and adapt to their varied circumstances including preserving the “strategic thread”; organizational attributes; diverse audiences, roles, and culturally diverse teams; industry and domain characteristics; and new technologies – with considerations for temporal constraints and the perceived value of the SE leader. Finally, guidance is given for measuring the success of the collective strategies employed by the SE leader.

A. O’Neil (*) AOC Systems Consortium, New York City, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Lunney Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] M. Jovic South Pacific Systems, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_3

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3.1 Introduction Successful systems engineering (SE) leaders possess exceptional influence and persuasion skills. A leader must be able to identify the decision-makers and read the situation, be knowledgeable on the topic under scrutiny, be confident and empathetic, and socialize the message, to be effective influencers. Furthermore, the ability to adapt to various scenarios is critical. There are many complementary and competing factors that can impact the type of techniques employed to influence or persuade decisions to reach a desired outcome. These factors and many techniques are illustrated in Fig. 3.1 and are explored in this chapter. This chapter demonstrates how strong SE leaders recognize the variations in the broad operational environment in which they perform to influence and persuade at all levels of the enterprise. While it does not elaborate on all possible techniques, it does refer to where many are applicable. There are many references available that provide such details, including the highly recommended book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, where he defines tactical empathy, labeling, calibrated questions, and mirroring (Voss 2016).

3.1.1 Systems Engineering and the Strategic Thread The SE leader is uniquely positioned to understand and preserve the “strategic thread” that links the policy and strategy drivers with operational needs to guide the design for an optimum solution. This holistic approach has become increasingly critical in an era of ever-evolving technologies such as digital engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, and autonomy, to name a few.

Fig. 3.1  Influence and persuasion

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SE leaders facilitate, at the outset, the definition of the ultimate set of desired, strategic outcomes, given the operational context in which the system will be employed. They guide teams past a tendency to focus on “how” outcomes will be met, to defining an agreed set of end goals and ensuring attention is paid to the entire lifecycle considerations, including retirement strategies. In this capacity, the SE leader holds up these strategic outcomes as a standing reminder and guiding compass header throughout project development and delivery.

3.1.2 The Criticality of Influence and Persuasion Influence and persuasion are two different but complementary skills, vital for effective SE leaders. Influence allows the SE leader to establish a vision for the optimum system outcome, without force or coercion, motivating diverse stakeholders (at times with competing views and agendas) to adopt this as a shared vision and work toward its realization. With persuasion, the SE leader can sway the individual, group, or organization’s attitude, beliefs, or behaviors, motivating them toward a desired outcome and decision. For example, influence is fully applied when informed decision-making, by executives and program managers, occurs over the complete lifecycle from the investment decision to retirement, i.e., disposal/renewal/replacement. The SE leader considers the risks, intended outcomes, full range of stakeholder perspectives, technology obsolescence, and migration; interdependencies; and supply chain implications. Persuasion, however, can be instrumental in dealing with stakeholders, who represent diverse perspectives and functional areas and hold equally diverse and at times competing agendas (DeFalco 2009). The importance of influence and persuasion cannot be underestimated. To expertly apply different techniques to influence and persuade, consideration must be given to the six factors depicted in Fig. 3.1, i.e., temporal constraints, domain and industry specificities, organization attributes, audience and adopted roles, technology adoption, and the perceived value of the SE leader. Examples of these six influence and persuasion factors are interspersed throughout this chapter.

3.2 The Dimensions of Organizations The attributes of an organization in relation to influence and persuasion can be described from three different dimensions –structure, type, and culture. Each dimension requires SE leaders to adapt their style of influence and persuasion to have the greatest impact.

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Fig. 3.2  Three dimensions of an organization

However, each dimension should not be considered in isolation, but collectively, as a whole entity as illustrated in Fig. 3.2. As such, the influence or persuasion strategy adopted by an SE leader is best when it crosscuts these three dimensions. The degree to which one dimension is stronger in comparison to another is a variable the SE leader needs to be aware of to make a conscious decision on what influence and persuasion technique to apply for a desired outcome for a specific organization. Regardless of organizational structure, the SE function resides within the structure. However, it can vary in form and position. It performs best as a core entity serving a portfolio of active projects across the lifecycle and strategic initiatives. Being a core entity enables SE practitioners to work cohesively with common purpose, a unified strategy and consistent messaging – despite the specific SE activities which differs between projects and initiatives. Given the positional authority and executive sponsorship to influence decision-making and decision-makers and to bridge organizational silos, the specific position of the SE function can fluctuate. In organizations newly adopting an SE capability, its position often shifts over time as the function attains executive sponsorship, positional authority, and organizational credibility. With respect to organizational type, the SE function may be externally located. In these cases, it will be harder for the SE leader to have the same degree of influence as an internal team member for a given project or initiative.

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3.2.1 Organizational Structures Organizational structures characterize the strategy, values, implementation policy, and risk appetite of the organization. This generally applies to medium- or large-­ size organizations, public or private, which operate as complex systems at the enterprise level. The landscape of interfaces and interdependencies within these organizations is not always clearly defined. In addition, it is important to understand the internal systems within an organization, as well as the external entities and their dynamic influences, often changing in priorities over time. This temporal effect adds a layer of complication and potential complexity for SE leaders to address, particularly when their operating environment straddles multiple leadership turnovers. Within the landscape of such organizational structures, SE leaders are not typically the ultimate decision-maker, policymaker, nor the program manager making the final call. However, it is their professional responsibility to use their skills to influence decision-making to define and preserve the strategic thread as well as deliver desired outcomes. Given the expanding number of impacted and invested stakeholders, direct or indirect, plus the wide-ranging technical and engineering specialists and other experts drawn upon to design and deliver a system solution, it is necessary to orchestrate activities through team collaborations, often without holding direct positional authority. To facilitate this “juggling act” across concurrent, multiple teams, SE leaders need to understand the organizational structure in which they are endeavoring to influence and persuade. The description of three different organizational structures is depicted in Table  3.1. One of the first tasks of an SE leader is to identify the organizational structure from the views of ownership, drivers, and audience, to determine what best resonates with the stakeholder. Likewise, the SE leader can apply different “lenses” to understand the horizontal vs. vertical hierarchy. It is often easier to influence or persuade a decision when the organizational drivers are clear. This can be more evident in a corporate organization versus a government organization where transparency may be lacking. For instance, if the organization is driven to capture greater market share, an appropriate influencing premise addresses this need. Likewise, for not-for-profit organizations, a strong understanding of the community or member needs can be leveraged as the driving factor. To effectively influence decision-making, it is an imperative for the SE leader to understand the organizational governance with its risks and opportunities, in addition to the strategies outlined for executives, policymakers, and project managers.

Corporate

Private sector

Functional

Vertical

Profit Focus

Owners, shareholders, investors

Typical Structure

Typical Hierarchy

Main Driver

Audience

Function 3.1

Function 3

Ownership Example

Function 2

Class

Function 1.2

Function 1.1

Function 1

CEO

Table 3.1  Dimensions of organizational structures

Taxpayers, community

For the benefit of the community

Vertical

Divisional

Government sector

Public

Division C

Division B.2

Division B

Division B.1

Division A

CEO

Role 2

Role 5

Role 4

Role 3

Members, community

To aid and serve the community

Horizontal

Flat

Societies/Associations

Not-For-Profit

CEO

Role 1

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3.2.2 Organizational Types The second dimension SE leaders must consider is the organizational type. Different organizational types include research and development (R&D), product/system delivery, and service delivery. The influence or persuasion premise used by SE leaders can vary greatly under these three organizational ecosystems and likewise the technique employed. To illustrate this point, consider the four qualities of goal, business drivers, targeted audience, and risk tolerance for each of the organizational types, as depicted in Table 3.2. R&D organizational types are the most flexible and, by their very nature, often operate with a high business risk profile (Tirpak et al. 2006). For example, in contrast to product/system delivery and service delivery organizations, R&D teams are exploring possibilities, often without clearly being able to forecast an outcome until the level of maturity in the problem-solving space is reached, if at all. At times, the initial goals are lost in the research details. SE leaders play a major role in keeping the R&D teams focused on the “strategic thread.” Similarly, SE leaders bear influence and persuasion on investment continuation. In both cases, the premise and the decision are based on the assessment of the business drivers. For example, if a customer’s need is not being met by the existing market offerings and the organization is well positioned to invest in this opportunity, SE leaders will focus on an influence and persuasion strategy that will holistically support the advancement of the R&D activities that will strengthen market penetration. However, if the organization is making poor investment decisions to continue in R&D for the sake of exploiting research, the SE leader’s influence or persuasion premise changes to either re-direct efforts in hope of recovering or cease further investment. How effective SE leaders Table 3.2  Organizational type comparison Research and development (R&D) To innovate and discover new products and potential services to take to market

Product/system delivery To deliver a product/ system that meets the customer’s needs

Business drivers

Exploration to fill a gap or address a deficiency Market expansion Market disruption

Targeted audience

Sponsor Funding provider Parent organization

Risk tolerance

High

Product portfolio growth Market expansion Market disruption Repeat customer(s) Customer(s) Parent organization Government bodies and regulators Other stakeholders Low to high

Goal(s)

Service delivery To deliver value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without ownership of specific assets, costs, and risks Dependability and reliability Market expansion Repeat customer(s) Organizational stability Customer(s) Community Government bodies and regulators Other stakeholders Low

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are in this situation is largely how their value is perceived by the stakeholders. The more valued the SE leader is, the greater their influence. For product/system delivery organizational types, their business model is focused on constant market expansion, operating at a risk level acceptable to the organization. This is also the business environment with high expectations for product portfolio growth and a solid, repetitive customer base. SE leaders can influence outcomes by guiding an early and clear definition of customers' needs and aligning these with the organization’s product line portfolio, thereby preserving the strategic thread. Service delivery organizational types are frequently more mature businesses with a lower-risk appetite. As shown in Table  3.2, this type has business drivers centered on dependability, reliability, and repeat customers. To influence and persuade service delivery organizational types, SE leaders focus their premise on what enhances and aligns with attaining dependable and reliable service, which in turn will entice and retain customers. If it becomes evident the organizational attributes relating to structure, type, or culture are no longer suited or capable to deliver the desired outcomes, with active support of executive leadership, the SE leader can guide the change journey. This journey requires SE leaders to adapt their influence and persuasion style and techniques to accommodate the various organizational cultures.

3.2.3 Organizational Culture The iceberg model as shown in Fig. 3.3, adapted from Lucia Harper’s work (Harper 2018) based on the original works of Sweeney and Meadow (Sweeney and Meadow 2010), is a good visual metaphor for systemic change required of organizations. It requires more than a single intervention or change in the system to affect changes to outcomes; it requires fundamental changes throughout the system or organization. These include the underpinning structures and policy and process frameworks and may require transforming the deeper underlying attitudes and beliefs held across the organization. In this visual metaphor, these layers are unseen, i.e., “below the water line,” yet in practice, these attitudes and beliefs although may not be documented are well-known and adhered to by staff in the organization. Collectively, an organization’s culture cannot be ignored but in turn is leveraged by impactful SE leaders influencing and persuading decision-makers. When these deep-seated organizational beliefs and values are challenged, any subsequent changes take time. The ability for SE leaders to influence and persuade in the face of an organization’s culture can be difficult and time-consuming. However, if an ideal held by the organization can be incorporated into the premise, SE leaders may be able to generate a potential paradigm shift. SE leaders “who have managed to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm have hit a leverage point that totally transforms systems” and outcomes (Meadows 2008). SE leaders can also align with external drivers, such as societal movements which drive paradigm shifts. For example, there is a prevalent groundswell for corporate boards, business

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Fig. 3.3  Culture is like an iceberg. (Harper 2018)

leaders, and organizations to become attentive to and address unconscious bias, to be inclusive and diverse and more representative of their customers and society at large. These are strong premises to use when influencing and persuading. Another example is the increasing need to accelerate activities to create a more sustainable world. Inputs correlated with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and Vision 2050 (United Nations n.d.), or organizations such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD 1995) provide excellent premises for SE leaders to help shift organizational culture toward solutions to meet sustainability challenges and transform an organization’s value chain with buy-in across stakeholders. So how are paradigms changed? Meadows points to Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the great paradigm shifts of science. “You keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm. You keep speaking and acting, loudly and with assurance, from the new one. You insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather, you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded” (Kuhn 1962). This is powerful advice for SE leaders as to where to focus their efforts when discerning whom to persuade. Changes to the business environment and supply chain dynamics can serve as drivers for change. SE leaders can leverage these external drivers using the mirroring technique (Voss 2016), to effectively reflect to executives, project managers, and peers changes to the business environment and contrasts that have occurred as a case for realignment. Sharing relevant case studies to demonstrate application of long-­ standing policies, processes, and techniques no longer adequately lead to consistent,

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successful outcomes in the changed environment is another useful influence and persuasion technique. Present the case study by succinctly summarizing the pertinent aspects of an example project or initiative that underscore the case for change. Likewise, positive reinforcement serves as another technique to create a confident atmosphere, thereby increasing the probability of the influence or persuasion premise being accepted. SE leaders generate organizational momentum for change by showcasing case studies that highlight the contrast in successful outcomes between projects adopting changes and those retaining traditional practices that did not align to the current environment. If early in the adoption phase, when an organization has limited internal examples, leveraging targeted case studies from external peer organizations is effective. Strong SE leaders use as many communications means as possible, with both internal and external audiences, to celebrate success and to showcase frontline staff and peer allies, enlisting support at all levels, e.g., “all-hands” meetings, intranet site, and social media posts, and, importantly, enlisting executive leadership to use their communication platforms. McKinsey studies, including global surveys, indicate that when the executive team communicates the progress of change programs, the success is eight times more likely (Keller et al. 2019). When frontline staff feel empowered to take ownership, the success rate of transformations was 70%. Celebrating success provides energy along the change journey, and organizations that did this in addition to communicating the reasons for change showed stronger transformation outcomes (Keller et al. 2010). As Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.” This call to shift one’s perspective is necessary for leading change. Tony Schwartz calls for “modern leaders need to consciously cultivate the capacity to see more — to deepen, widen, and lengthen their perspectives” (Schwartz 2018). SE leaders must challenge their own biases, assumptions, and beliefs to ensure their own perspective has not been clouded [Deepening] before guiding executives to do the same. Timeframes for both short- and long-term consequences need to be considered [Lengthening]. Various viewpoints must be explored, gathering perspectives from stakeholders [Widening] and importantly sharing these views to allow others to step outside the system and “see the whole.” Visualizations of the organizational dynamics depicted as a system model or using the rich picture technique can be a powerful aid for SE leaders to garner buy-in for change from all levels and roles across the organizations. Studies of successful organizational change consistently show that it is exceedingly unlikely for cultural change to occur without the buy-in from top leadership (Bucy et al. 2016). While it may not originally be initiated by them, top leadership must be enlisted to effectively lead change. McKinsey estimates the vast majority of complex, large-scale change programs do not achieve their goals. Thus, SE leaders are wise to cultivate executive sponsorship from the outset. Such executive sponsorship is crucial for directing changes, when necessary, across peer functions over which the SE leader does not have authority. When the SE leader clearly recognizes the need for organizational change, yet cannot engage executive sponsorship, it is time to consider applying their skills elsewhere.

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3.3 The Art of Applying Influence and Persuasion to Roles How influence and persuasion are applied varies on the situation, largely affected by the audience to engage. When interfacing and socializing with varied audiences, from executives and policymakers to project managers, peers, and supply chain partners, an adept SE leader adopts a different influence or persuasion strategy tailored to the role of the audience.

3.3.1 Calibrating to the Audience Over the course of a project, SE leaders must interact and engage with a broad array of audiences. These audiences frequently range from the executive decision-maker or government policymaker to project managers, organizational peers, as well as supply chain partners. These audiences and strategies are considered for “tuning to the specific audience.” Executives  Executives seek to be informed of risks, especially risks to program delivery or the outcome of a strategic initiative. They generally operate at and set strategic goals for an organization and are measured by the outcomes achieved. Therefore, they have limited interest in the implementation details of specific techniques or analysis SE practitioners have employed in generating executive guidance. However, they will want assurance that key stakeholders were identified and meaningfully engaged. Their strategic emphasis can at times disconnect executives from the frontline operation, so it is incumbent upon SE leaders to ensure their baseline awareness aligns with current situational status, needs, and opportunities. A critical role for SE leaders is to ensure decision-makers are making informed and holistic decisions. They influence this by identifying key drivers effecting a decision as well as the full range of consequences and impacts of taking a decision, ensuring decision-makers have a more complete situational awareness and context. Techniques often include facilitating stakeholder engagement, obtaining input from a broader array of effected stakeholders than may had been initially considered or understood to be impacted. Other influencing strategies include highlighting interdependencies not previously characterized, summarizing trade-off analysis or other systems analysis that explore interactions to uncover risks and implications for decision-making. Executives particularly benefit from visualizations that coherently bring these many dynamics to light, readily painting a fuller picture of the context for which and in which they make their decisions. Policymakers  Like executives, policymakers want to be guided toward generating responsive, holistic policy that is informed by the application context and grounded in the needs of their constituents. SE leaders influence this by facilitating greater understanding of who constitutes key stakeholders affected by given policies and a broader depth of understanding for the intersecting and at times divergent needs of

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their constituents. Policymakers will benefit from being informed of trade-off analyses as well as from a greater understanding of the intersecting issues and interdependencies that increasingly add complexity to policy issues they seek to address and/or improve. This raises their situational awareness. Good policy lasts, persisting through time and election cycles. There is a greater chance of achieving this longevity when SE leaders proactively identify and articulate needs with the contextual landscape outlined above at the onset. Likewise, SE leaders influence the appropriateness and broadness of a policy’s appeal by leveraging systems thinking techniques, which can equally shape the messaging and articulation of the policy to best effect. Another dynamic between policymakers and programs effects government domains whose programs rely upon public funds and domains subject to government regulations. Policymakers desire to demonstrate their service to constituents and attain press coverage with periodic announcements. By assisting executives in proactively attending to this, SE leaders can have influence on ensuring policymakers’ messaging aligns with strategic objectives and preemptively prevent unachievable implementation timelines from being announced. SE leaders can influence this by working with policymakers’ staff to learn whether their office have key timelines for announcements and to strategically inform the staff as to the program’s strategic goals, discuss key issues for the program, as well as ascertain whether the policymaker’s constituents have been in touch with their office. This can uncover areas of community concern to mitigate, identify where the policymaker can provide supporting actions and announcements, as well as influence key messaging. It is likely that SE leaders will work closely with executives to directly engage with policymakers and to coordinate the interaction between policymakers and executives’ staffs and offices. Such interactions with policymakers and their staff are more common in government sectors. Project Managers  This role focuses on the delivery of a particular program or project goals, which are typically less strategic and more implementation oriented. Traditionally most organizations measure project managers by their adherence to schedule and budget milestones. While they, like executives, want to be informed of risks, project managers emphasize risks to project delivery and specifically to achieving schedule and budget milestones. SE leaders may be in a position where their systems efforts and requests for resources may create real or perceived impacts to the project schedule and/or budget. In domains where systems practices are less traditionally applied and considered novel, SE leaders do well to justify the value of their contributions with respect to ensuring delivery goals, such as assessing and identifying risks to delivery with lead time to allow for interventions and course corrections. Conveying tactical empathy for project managers’ main concerns along with articulating tangible activities to mitigate potential delays become critical strategies for persuading their buy-in. Equally important is attaining project manager support and active awareness for systems activities conducted in early project phases that generate key groundwork

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for delivery success. Activities such as aligning the project with executive strategies; conducting analysis to ensure all key stakeholders are identified with a corresponding stakeholder engagement strategy in place; making early preparations to mitigate delays during the project’s systems integration phase; and aligning the enabling support of other organizational peers (e.g., procurement, legal, etc.) and supply chain partners – all contribute greatly to the success of projects and the project managers that lead them. Here SE leaders influence best by communicating relevant case studies highlighting SE contributions to achieving project delivery outcomes or that share lessons learned from previous less successful or out-right failed projects that can be avoided. Visualizations that synthesize multidimensional viewpoints can be powerfully persuasive when informing decision-making and enhancing project managers’ situational awareness. As Russell Ackoff aptly described, “Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other” (Ackoff 1979). SE leaders essentially make these interactions and interdependencies visible and transparent to project managers, enabling an informed response. Organizational Peers  Peer departments frequently encompass functional teams that play enabling roles for projects and organizational initiatives  – such as contracts/procurement, legal, finance, administration, and human resources. Peers can prove to be tremendous allies, when educated on and aligned to a program’s overarching “strategic thread.” Otherwise, they can equally become obstacles and impediments to achieving strategic outcomes. As discussed earlier, organization structures and types can vary; however the larger the organization, the more likely enabling functions are segregated into different parts of the organization. Given these dynamics, organizations themselves can be considered a system. In the case of system dynamics, “missing information flows are a common cause of system malfunction. Adding or restoring information can be a powerful intervention” (Meadows 2008). SE leaders can gain influence with peers and establish trust by ensuring peers are included in communication loops that provide them access to information flows. Investing time to inform peers of desired outcomes and to explain how their contributions enable those outcomes demonstrates respect. Reinforce that trust and respect by gathering information from these functional teams to identify any potential impacts, positive or negative – to resources, response times, or other factors that a program or proposed initiative may pose. This data can be proactively elevated to project managers and executives to engage with the impacted teams and who have the authority to mitigate the impacts. These techniques go a long way with peers to foster confidence and increased perceived value of the SE leader. Supply Chain Partners  Organizations themselves operate within a broader industry ecosystem with dynamic sets of interactions between and among their supply chain partners. As with any other stakeholders, SE leaders must often interact with and influence supply chain partners toward the realization of a shared purpose. Attaining situational awareness regarding the viewpoints and goals of various supply chain members is a crucial early exercise for SE leaders to undertake.

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Engage supply chain partners proactively to create a sense of partnership by establishing the value of their contribution toward achieving the overall solution. SE leaders can influence the alignment of actions as well as persuade changes in behaviors necessary to strengthen and maintain future partnerships through employing active listening techniques, constructive dialogue, and the timing and timeliness of communications.

3.3.2 Adaptive Leadership Roles Adopted Over the Project Life A rare talent of SE leaders is their capability to define the problem space, leading stakeholders on a decision-making journey toward the solution space while never losing sight of short- and long-term sustainable outcomes. The whole process resembles more the art of system thinking and less the science of system engineering. As such an SE leader acts in different roles as depicted in Fig. 3.4, often starting as a facilitator who articulates the problem space, and then morphs to the role of a translator who successfully communicates statements from an investment language to terminology used by other disciplines such as technical/engineering, delivery, operations, maintenance/sustainment, etc. Along the way, SE leaders generally discover different levels of stakeholders’ knowledge/familiarity/maturity and find themselves in the role of an educator. Objectives are defined, purpose (mission) statement understood, strategic goals known, risk appetite and decision criteria set up, and options generated, and the SE

Fig. 3.4  Roles adopted by SE leaders

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leader and stakeholders are embarking toward the scenario playing stage. However, stakeholders’ lateral thinking encompasses many opposing views and interests. This is the point when SE leaders find themselves playing the role of a moderator. The audience of stakeholders is aware of a systems approach such as systems thinking which can depict all possible interactions within a system. Often an issue then arises, which can prevent consensus in decision-making, and in turn, the SE leader must become a visionary motivator to reach a future proved outcome. Consider the prominent roles adopted during lifecycle stages. During early stages, SE leaders as facilitators elicit a collective response to the “why” question, which defines the purpose and strategic objectives of the program. As the program engages diverse stakeholders, the role of translator is adopted to define “what” capabilities and functionality will deliver the strategic objectives. As the program evolves, the role of educator emerges to inform decision-making and ensure alignment maintained with the strategic objectives. As moderator the SE leaders guide analysis of implementation options guiding determination of “how” implementation will be delivered. SE leaders continuously adopt the motivator role throughout the lifecycle until project delivery, commissioning/acceptance, and operations stage when strategic thread reaches back to the vision.

3.3.3 Holding Cultural Intelligence It is imperative for SE leaders to understand how different cultures effect the roles they are interacting with, and their own role they are fulfilling, to be effective influencers and persuaders. Similar in understanding organizational culture, knowledge of the cultural traits of individuals provides insight for SE leaders to tailor their premises to their audience and select an appropriate influence and persuasion technique(s). SE leaders possessing cultural intelligence can modify their approach to delivering their message, to addressing team dynamics, and to understanding who and how decisions are made; all necessary to “preserve that strategic thread.” To illustrate the strength in holding this “cultural intelligence,” it is advantageous for SE leaders to recognize if they will have greater success in influencing and persuading if they approach the topic in a theoretical and conceptual premise versus via a more straightforward and practical manner. These two styles are largely the result of how different cultures vary in the manner they conduct learning and as a result how individuals process reasoning. Erin Meyer in her research on navigating cultural differences has identified this as two styles of reasoning – principles-first or deductive reasoning and applications-first or inductive reasoning (Meyer 2014). Another example relates to how decisions are made and by whom. Are decisions typically made by groups, or by individuals, often following a hierarchical structure or somewhere in the middle? Holding this cultural intelligence allows SE leaders to be more prepared and perceptive at recognizing the other person’s or groups’ reactions and to modify their own behaviors to deliver their message effectively.

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However, this is a lot harder when operating with a multi-cultural team as the SE leader must adopt an approach that reiterates the premise in both styles. They will become a master in traversing cultures. This can, at times, become tiring and time-­ consuming. If this should be experienced, SE leaders wishing to succeed in influencing and persuasion can choose to continue translating their message, i.e., maintaining status quo, attempt to modify the composition of the team to be of “more-like” cultures, or identify who is the decision-maker and realign the delivery of the message, refocusing on this individual. Possessing cultural intelligence equips SE leaders with an awareness of many factors, such as: what is considered polite; what manners are acceptable; how to address individuals in a group scenario; what level of detail needs to be communicated and in which of the two learning styles (as outlined from Meyer’s research above); punctuality and timeliness considerations; and the intrinsic decision hierarchy. This awareness is illustrated in Fig. 3.5, a culture map (derived from the works of Erin Meyer) (Meyer 2014) showing four different countries compared across eight cultural traits. For example, it is not unusual when working with French colleagues to build a rapport first, before the task at hand can be addressed adequately. This can be quite frustrating for US and Australian colleagues who are both very task oriented, and it is therefore through executing the task that the rapport becomes established. This is reflected in the “trusting” cultural trait in Fig. 3.5. SE leaders who develop a cultural map of their audience they are endeavoring to influence and persuade are utilizing the insightfulness from cultural intelligence, which, in turn, increases their probability of success.

Fig. 3.5  Representative culture map for Australia, China, France, and the USA

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3.4 Challenges and Uniqueness of Different Industries and Domains Just as variations in organizations and roles can impact SE leaders’ approach to carrying out their means of influencing and persuading, so too must the type of industry and domain within that industry be taken into consideration. There are often common characteristics across industries and domains, but it is the unique aspects that are important to identify and recognize when selecting influence and persuasion strategies. To illustrate this, Fig. 3.6 shows 13 industries compared across 3 sets of characteristics displayed as continuums (axis): • Asset driven to service driven: where the industry is oriented, from an asset-­ driven perspective to a service-driven perspective • Client focused to community focused: where the industry is strongly focused on specific client needs versus a more general and broader community need • Low criticality of failure to high criticality of failure: where the impact of the system failing in such an industry has a negative effect and unfortunate consequences, on a scale of low to high criticality. Aerospace and automotive are asset-driven, client-focused industries in which the criticality of failure has a high negative effect with unfortunate consequences. In comparison, community services, education, and information technology are nearly the opposite, being generally asset driven with some service-driven elements, largely client focused and having a low-mid criticality of failure level. When considering finance, defense, energy, and infrastructure, the differences progress from asset driven to service driven respectfully, from client focused to community focused, and range in criticality of failure from a mid to high level with respect to negative effects with unfortunate consequences. There are many more characteristics of an industry that can be considered and more so when considering the multiple domains within each industry, yet this sample set shown in Fig. 3.6 highlights the importance of SE leaders considering these unique characteristics when formulating their influencing and persuading strategies.

Fig. 3.6  Comparisons across different industries

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For example, within mobility, public transportation has emerged as a domain newly adopting SE over the last two decades. A service-driven and community-­ focused domain, nowadays, it is equally recognized as an essential enabler for sustainable, environmentally conscious economic development. By comparison, automotive, as a mobility domain, is asset driven and client focused; both have a high criticality regarding failures. As automotive undertakes a significant transformation to electric vehicles (replacing internal combustion engines with electric batteries), it is responding to societal calls to reduce its carbon footprint. However, when considering the temporal factor, this too has a limitation in the future with respect to manufacturing, unwanted by-products, and disposal of batteries, requiring SE leaders to consider premises that support a strategy to migrate to renewable fuel resources in the foreseeable future. Defense offers another example illustrating the contrasting challenges and contextual differences to account for between and within industries. Depending on the mission being undertaken by defense, the focus can be either asset driven, particularly in times of conflict, or service driven when supporting a community through hardships such as recovery from natural disasters. In turn, SE leaders need to understand the overarching mission behind a specific challenge and modify their persuasion strategy accordingly. This too can change with time and location. Consider that while the mission may be service driven, it could also have a client focus if directly servicing its military operations or have a community focus if providing a service outside of the military branches. Similarly, what is considered an “acceptable failure” varies from low criticality applications when security and life safety is not threatened to high criticality applications at the opposite end of the scale. The energy industry typifies another case where it is asset driven for the producers of energy but very service driven for the retailers of energy. However, both are community focused, as energy production and consumption are expected be safe, reliable, and eco-friendly. Thus, SE leaders must always take into consideration what the community values and prioritizes when influencing or persuading in this industry. They must also be aware of the level of redundant systems or alternate sources of energy available for their influence and persuasion premise to ensure a low criticality of failure. Failing to do so, SE leaders could be faced with unsafe and high critical impacts related to failures. In addressing the challenges and uniqueness of the different industries and domains, the ability and ease of SE leaders to influence and persuade can also be affected by the level of maturity of SE practiced in each domain and industry.

3.4.1 Practice and Maturity of Systems Engineering in Different Industries SE as a discipline in modern times was originally codified through its application in three main industries  – defense, aerospace, and aviation. These industries have decades of history working with SE practitioners, which, over time, have generally

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become embedded into the engineering and organizational business processes. By contrast, for industries such as finance, mobility, energy, and healthcare, increased technology deployment has led to increasing complexity and integration levels, now requiring more and more SE implementation to ensure successful outcomes. However, these industries are still evolving their SE adoption, making it more challenging and time-consuming for SE leaders to influence and persuade. Often there are small, distributed pockets of “good SE practice” within the industry or domain that SE leaders can take into consideration when formulating their premise for influence and persuasion. They can choose to adopt and propagate these practices as part of their influencing strategy or recognize why there is a lack of critical mass present and thereby address this when influencing or persuading. Either way, SE leaders make use of this situation to aid their interaction with the decision-makers. SE leaders spend significantly more time adopting roles as educator and translator where the practice and maturity of SE has not fully evolved to the meet the needs of the stakeholders. This requires more interactions with all stakeholders  – from executives and policymakers to project managers, organizational peers, and supply chain partners. Given SE practices typically introduce new or amended program activities and unfamiliar terminology to these maturing domains, SE leaders must carefully consider the best techniques as outlined earlier for engaging and persuading these varied audiences (Elliott et al. 2011). Proactive outreach and stakeholder engagement at the formative periods of project initiation and early development and as projects transition across each phase of the project lifecycle is critical. If supporting these domains, SE leaders can also review the strategies recommended for changing organizational culture  – as this dynamic is clearly evident in these domains. Just as maturity in SE strengthens over time, the offering and focus of a business can change, which in turn impacts the “who, what, and how” SE leaders are influencing or persuading. Consider examples from mobility domains: public transportation has historically focused its teams around physical assets – their deployment, use, and upgrade or replacement to extend their asset life. It has now shifted to become service driven, focusing on the capability required to provide a reliable service to the community. Automotive has a similar evolution to make. Its design development teams structure still aligns to the physical elements of vehicles (e.g., body, powertrain, chassis), yet most functionality is generated by software, control systems, and their interactions with hardware components. Automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and public transportation agencies both serve as “drivers of the supply chain” when it comes to practices and propagating change for their respective domains. They generate contracts with supply chain partners, directing the terms of engagement, regulations, or standards to adhere to and expected behaviors between parties. Therefore, they have an outsized ability to influence their supply chain partners to adopt and mature their SE practices; correspondingly SE leaders may play a direct role in facilitating this interaction. When doing so, SE leaders must note the domain distinction that agencies are government owned and service delivery organizations, whereas automotive OEMs

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are private sector corporations and product/systems delivery organizations. Earlier sections on organizational types and structures outline guidance. It is these evolving dynamics for domains still maturing their adoption of SE practices where SE leaders will want to assess that maturity and correspondingly calibrate their influencing and persuading strategies.

3.5 New Technology Impacts The manner SE leaders influence and persuade is not without consideration to the subject and the timeframe. This is unmistakable when considering new and/or disruptive technologies. The velocity of change is accelerating. Globalization is increasing leading to stronger competition. System solutions are becoming highly interconnected and increasingly interdependent, often part of a broader system of systems. When individuals, groups, or organizations are working with such technologies, the dynamics of the decision-making ecosystem are impacted, and this in turn impacts the means and ability to influence and persuade, making it that much harder to preserve and propagate the “strategic thread.” As such, SE leaders need to modify their approach to maximize a positive outcome. To illustrate this point, four technologies are referenced – artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, data analytics, and augmented or virtual (A/R) reality. Resistance to new technology is not uncommon as documented by Calestous Juma (2016). For the SE leader, it is prudent to understand not just the technical and engineering aspects of the new technologies but how they are perceived by society in general. If not, there will be gaps that will undermine or, at a minimum, dilute the influence or persuasion premise. To illustrate this point, a summary is provided in Table 3.3 outlining some of the perceptions related to the new technology that must be taken into consideration by the SE leader. Noting these perceptions, as well as the technical and engineering aspects, eight technology adoption levers have been identified that SE leaders can anticipate, becoming effective influencers. These technology adoption levers are illustrated in Fig. 3.7 and are: 1. Organization maturity: a measure of an organization’s stability and capability through its people, practices, and tools, as well as its ability to react to change, adapting to its environment 2. Organization risk appetite: the amount and type of risk that an organization is willing to pursue or retain (ISO 2009) 3. Human-in-the-loop: a measure of how much human interaction is required for developing the technology and executing/operating a solution utilizing the same technology 4. Societal acceptance: the ability of a community to accept or tolerate the new and/ or disruptive technology

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Table 3.3  Examples of perceptions related to new technologies New technology Examples of perceptions related to the technology Artificial Definition: human-like intelligence exhibited by a computer, robot, or intelligence machine (IBM Cloud Education 2020) Perceptions include: Unethical or immoral to replace human with machine Improves productivity Can operate continuously Increases information sharing If designed wrong, AI will “take over the world” Lack of trust Autonomy Definition: the fusion of machines, computing sensing, and software to create intelligent systems capable of interacting with the complexities of the real world (Defence Science and Technology Group 2021) Perceptions include: Useful to employ where humans cannot safely go No need for humans – good and bad Can more efficiently and effectively gather data through increased sensing Can operate for longer periods and in remote areas Hard to trust Data analytics Definition: the process of examining data sets to draw meaning or insight from the information provided. Perceptions include: Too much data – good data and bad data Does not require much investment to progress Lack of trust Augmented or Definition: adding to (augmented) or replacing (virtual) what people see and virtual reality experience in the physical world Perceptions include: Predominantly for game applications or to simulate unsafe or difficult physical environments Expensive

5. Attractiveness: how well a system solution built from, or using the technology, is safe, secure, reliable, sustainable, and eco-friendly 6. Elegance: the contribution of the technology to producing a system design that works as intended, is robust and efficient, and minimizes unintended actions, side effects, and consequences (Griffin 2010) 7. Costs: the amount of financial investment to realize the technology, both from the developer and consumer perspectives 8. Technology maturity: a measure of the technology’s readiness for operation across a variety of environments Knowing how these levers affect the “strategic thread” provides insight into “what,” “where,” and “how” influence and persuasion is applied. For example, if the organization valued diversity in its system solutions portfolio, then levers for organization maturity, organization risk appetite, attractiveness, elegance, and costs may be of greater significance. In turn, the SE leader may apply influence and persuasion

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Fig. 3.7  Technology adoption levers

techniques that would draw out the importance of these and thereby be potentially “more readily heard” by the decision-maker. Likewise, if the importance of introducing a new technology is focused on building and protecting trust, the technology adoption levers for societal acceptance, attractiveness, organization maturity, and technology maturity have greater bearing. It is vital to recognize there are differences in the significance of these eight technology adoption levers across different technologies. These differences are highlighted in a comparative analysis in Fig. 3.8 for the four new technologies identified in Table 3.3. Referring to the figure, it is not surprising that AI and autonomy have similar weighting against the technology adopters. Both technologies have similar challenges, hold common perceptions with society, and have strong reliance and interdependencies on each other’s technology. Correspondingly, the societal acceptance lever is highly significant for AI and autonomy but of low significance for data analytics and A/V reality. To further demonstrate the use of these technology adoption levers, consider the scenario of a young organization that has had success in delivering an autonomous system solution for a specific customer for a specific application. The organization wishes to build on its good reputation and success by developing a variation of this solution as part of its product line, for a completely different application and customer, operating in a somewhat similar environment. This could be applicable to the deployment of drone technology, for example, across different regulated industries, from defense to infrastructure to agriculture and even retail. Although the technology maturity and elegance of the system are likely to be similar, the attractiveness and societal acceptance are different across these four industries. Referring to Fig. 3.8, influencing and persuading will have greater impact when incorporating

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Fig. 3.8  Comparative analysis of technology adoption levers across four new technologies

premises associated with the attractiveness of the system solution and guidance in gaining societal acceptance under this scenario. This does not mean influence and persuasion may not be required for considering what should be undertaken by a human versus a machine or that the ability of the organization to be able to adapt to change if there is a need to address a specific issue in these areas. However, addressing the same issue through the higher impactful levers can result in a faster and more effective desirable outcome, than tackling the issue directly with the lesser impactful levers as shown in Fig. 3.8. Using another scenario, an organization is developing advanced data analytical tools to mine and fuse data to identify possible cures for breast cancer. It is highly probable that working with the elegance lever will create a better outcome than attempting to influence or persuade through implementing the societal acceptance or costs levers. In addition to addressing the impact of new technologies and utilizing the technology adoption levers, SE leaders need to be versed in the underlying techniques and enablers of the technical solution, including model-based system engineering approaches, models and simulations, and digitization to be effective influencers. Furthermore, knowledge and understanding of the increasing importance of situational awareness, following the digital thread over the lifecycle, revisiting the overall risk profile from a different perspective, determining what can be persuaded and what can be influenced, and recognizing where the ultimate decision-making final call resides, is vital. Recognizing the criticality of interoperability, interdependencies, vulnerability, ownership, deployability, safety, obsolescence, technology rate of change, and other architectural and realization considerations places great importance on the SE leaders to influence and persuade. Being highly informed, flexible, and adaptable, employing a variety of influence and persuasion techniques as

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depicted in Fig. 3.1, taking advantage of the technology adoption levers, demonstrates the versatility and breadth of SE leaders.

3.6 Guidance for Measuring Success Influencing and persuading is often considered a very “nebulous” subject. What the impact of such interaction is can be hard to assess. Successful outcomes for SE leaders are for the influence to be evident through a natural course of progression to achieve the desired outcome. As influence involves creating a shared vision and the subsequent realization of it, the means of measuring this is difficult and often subjective. Regarding persuasion, it may be a little clearer and obvious as the adoption of an idea may be evident in a change in action toward achieving the desired outcome. Either way, how do you measure mastering the skill of influence and persuasion? When do SE leaders know when they have reached the desired outcome in employing influence and persuasion unless it is obvious to all involved? Balancing the six different influence and persuasion factors as shown in Fig. 3.1 varies from one problem space to another and from one solution to another. Likewise, the measures of success must consider the benefits reached; the value drivers behind these benefits; the dependency and impact related to a cultural shift, often organization-based; and the education and background of those being influenced and/or persuaded. There is not a unique and consistent set of measurements that can be applied repeatably and consistently. This can be considered problematic and lacking rigor. However, over time, possible outcomes that can be indicators and can be measured may be re-applied across different scenarios under different constraints, potentially leading to the evolution of a set of heuristics for influence and persuasion. As such, a limited set of guidance and helpful hints are listed in Table 3.4. Each influence and persuasion success indicator, guidance on what to measure, and the corresponding supporting evidence have been identified. Lastly, there is one valuable measure of success for SE leaders and that is: “Were you asked back to the table?” This strongly relates to the influence and persuasion factor, “Your Perceived Value”. When the other party (whether a policy maker, program manager, or another decision-maker) seeks and values the input from the SE leader that is a measure of success. Inclusion of SE leaders and their skills, knowledge, wisdom, and insight from the onset of tackling a project is high praise. This positive outcome engenders trust, in turn allowing the SE leader to be in a stronger position of influence and persuasion for the next project. Measuring success can truly be summarized by Robert Iger: “If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real” (Iger 2019). Interpreting this further, the greatest measure of success of influence and persuasion is demonstrated by its invisibility.

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Table 3.4  Influence and persuasion indicators to measure success Success indicators Involvement at policy level

Guidance on what to measure The greater the level of involvement; the ease of obtaining an invitation to participate; and the ability to redirect or refocus outcomes or to remain true to the objective

Measurable evidence Meeting artifacts Policy briefs Peer reviewer role Preserves “strategic thread” Direct correspondence

Desired outcomes Long-lasting policy, serving constituents and their needs

Involvement at planning level

The greater the level of involvement; the ease of obtaining an invitation to participate; and the ability to redirect or refocus outcomes or to remain true to the objective

Meeting artifacts Planning contributor Peer reviewer role “Strategic thread” preserver Direct correspondence

Agreed to executable plans Preservation of the strategic thread

Consultation level

The increase in participation on a topic and across multiple topics; greater engagement at decision-­ making levels; and the ability to redirect or refocus outcomes or to remain true to the objective

Frequency of consultation Consultation requests from multiple decision-­ making levels Meeting artifacts Direct correspondence

Informed decision-­ making occurred Strategic objectives defined and met

Technical debt resolution

The greater level of involvement to measure, manage, resolve, and monitor technical debt; greater engagement on technical and engineering decisions; and the ability to redirect or refocus outcomes, or to remain true to the objective. The higher frequency of request for support; the higher frequency of listening to what the expert is offering; and the increase in delegation of authority

Trade studies/ alternate options “Get well” plans in action

Minimal technical debt Delivery of an elegant design (Griffin 2010)

Frequency of engagement Level of authority Direct correspondence

The greater demand for participation in group-related activities; and the increase in authority bestowed as the organization’s representative

Meeting artifacts Organization representative Direct correspondence

Delegation of authority to SE leader Inclusion in key decision-making activities Recognition of expertise and value to the community Contributions sought and guidance actioned

Expert recognition

Committee/ group/board membership

(continued)

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Table 3.4 (continued) Success indicators Organization representative/ ambassador

Guidance on what to measure The increase in number of external (i.e., outside the organization) events and activities as the organization’s representative/ambassador; and the increase in authority bestowed as the organization’s representative/ambassador

Measurable evidence External presence Media logs and records Event participation Client liaison

Desired outcomes Recognition of expertise and value to the broader community Contributions sought and recommendations followed

Fig. 3.9  The balancing act to influence and persuade. (Pape 2012)

3.7 Conclusion Where are we as SE leaders now? We operate within a complex, multidimensional landscape that represents our programs, organizations and cultures, stakeholders, industries, and domains with continual adoption of new technologies. Our ability to influence and persuade to enable informed decision-making and guide outcomes is more an art than a science. The successful interaction between SE leaders and decision-­makers requires the identification and harmonization of the influence and persuasion factors depicted in Fig. 3.1. Individually each factor has a direct bearing on the strategy to be deployed, but this is not enough. To be effective influencers and persuaders, SE leaders balance each factor while holistically addressing the task at hand. Metaphorically, our system approach to influence and persuasion is “our safety harness to walk across our Niagara Falls” as represented in Fig.  3.9 (Pape 2012).

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Influence and persuasion are fluid. A technique employed for a specific influencing strategy can differ from over time, as too can the strategy itself. Successful SE leaders recognize the temporal constraints and adapt their means of influence and persuasion accordingly. Lastly, and very importantly, the perceived value of SE leaders by decision-­ makers enhances or hampers the ability to influence and persuade. Strong SE leaders are always striving to build relationships and demonstrate the value of a systems approach through systems engineering to all stakeholders. To do this, SE leaders need to be “masters of influence and persuasion,” to guide the desired outcomes. To quote Theodore Roosevelt, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care” (Roosevelt n.d.). Through influence and persuasion, this will be very evident.

References Ackoff RL (1979) The future of operational research is past. J Oper Res Soc 30(2):93–104 Bucy M, Finlayson A, Kelly G, Moye C (2016) The “How” of Transformation [Online]. Accessed 17 Apr 2021 DeFalco N (2009). https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/influence-­vs-­persuasion-­critical-­ distinction-­leaders. [Online]. Accessed 8 Aug 2020 Defence Science and Technology Group (2021) Autonomous Systems [Online]. Accessed 31 Mar 2021 Elliott B et al (2011) Overcoming barriers to transferring SE practices into the rail sector. Syst Eng 15(2):203–212 Griffin M (2010) How do we fix system engineering [Online]. Accessed 27 Mar 2010 Harper L (2018) The Iceberg Model [Online]. Accessed 07 Apr 2021 IBM Cloud Education (2020) What is Artificial Intelligence (AI) [Online]. Accessed 31 Mar 2021 Iger R (2019) The ride of a lifetime: lessons learned from 15 years as CEO of The Walt Disney Company. s.l.:Penguin Random House LLC ISO (2009) ISO guide 73:2009 risk management – Vocabulary. s.l.:ISO Juma C (2016) Innovation and its enemies: why people resist new technologies. Oxford University Press, New York Keller S, Schaninger B (2019) The forgotten step in leading large-scale change [Online]. Accessed 17 Apr 2021 Keller S, Meaney M, Pung C (2010) What successful transformations share [Online]. Accessed 17 Apr 2021 Kuhn T (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Meadows D (2008) Thinking in systems: a primer. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing Meyer E (2014) The culture map – decoding how people think, LEad, and get things done across cultures.PublicAffairs(TM), Perseus Books Group, New York Pape D (2012) TIghtrope Walker Nik Wallenda walking across Niagara Falls in 2012. s.l.:Unknown Roosevelt T (n.d.). https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/652964-­nobody-­cares-­how-­much-­you-­ know-­until-­they-­know-­how [Online]. Accessed 27 Apr 2021 Schwartz T (2018) What it takes to think deeply about complex problems. [Online]. Accessed 17 Apr 2021 Sweeney LB, Meadow D (2010) The systems thinking playbook. Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont

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Tirpak TM, Miller R, Schwartz L, Kashdan D, (2006) R&D structure in a changing world. Research-Technology Management, September. pp 19–26 United Nations (n.d.) Sustainable development goals [Online]. Accessed 21 Apr 2021 Voss C (2016) Never split the difference: negotiating as if your life depended on it. Random House Business Books, London WBCSD (1995) World Business Council for Sustainable Development [Online]. Accessed 07 Apr 2021 Anne O’Neil,  as Founding Principal of AOC Systems Consortium, counsels industry executives to adopt Systems practices and apply Systems Engineering (SE) capability to achieve and improve business outcomes. This spans an increasingly diverse range of infrastructure sectors facing complexity and integration challenges, ranging from mobility (automotive, public transportation, etc.) to water, smart buildings, telecommunications, and healthcare. A respected Systems catalyst, Anne addresses global industry forums, corporate roundtables, and graduate programs. As founding Chief Systems Engineer for MTA New York City Transit (2005–2013), Anne established an SE capability to improve the agency’s capital project delivery. This required developing Systems Engineering discipline expertise and modifying the agency’s business process and program development approach. It also necessitated effecting change and building Systems awareness, cultivating executive sponsors internal to the agency as well as at an industry level—among peer transit properties, consultants, contractors, and systems suppliers. A registered professional engineer and Certified SE Professional with nearly 30 years of experience, Anne has served in corporate strategy, program leadership, engineering design, technical management, and construction management capacities—in private and public sector settings. A former Board member and Industry Outreach Ambassador for INCOSE, International Council on Systems Engineering, Anne was profiled by Engineers Australia’s Create magazine (2017) and by Money magazine, when Systems Engineering was named Best Job in America (2009). A recognized Systems champion for mobility, she evolved the INCOSE Transportation Working Group (chair, 2006–2012) into an international forum for industry exchange. Concurrently, she founded and chaired (2008–2012) the Systems Engineering Committee for APTA, [North] American Public Transportation Association. Anne advises SAE International on SE adoption and adaption for automotive and future mobility executives and industry forums (since 2016). Anne was drawn to the creative design aspects of engineering as well as to its ability to make positive contributions to peoples’ daily lives. She had broad extracurricular exposure across the arts and sciences. Her mechanically inclined father patiently engaged Anne from elementary school age in a wide array of home and volunteer hands-on electrical and construction-­related projects, allowing her to be increasingly involved as she grew older. Her interest in engineering solidified after a summer engineering and sciences program hosted by Northwestern University following her junior year of high school. A panel of women engineers from the local Society of Women Engineers (SWE) chapter sharing their professional experiences proved a profoundly resonating event. As an electrical engineering/controls systems major and working in power and transportation sectors, Anne has often found herself one of few women. However, she was particularly well supported by various mentors early on and throughout her career. As a result, Anne has made it a point to mentor other young engineering professionals and to coach diverse junior staff creating opportunities to amplify their contributions. Kerry Lunney  has extensive experience developing and delivering large system solutions. She has worked in various industries including Information Communication Technology (ICT), Gaming, Transport, Aerospace, and Defense. The systems delivered include combat systems, mission systems, communication systems, road and rail Intelligent Transport Systems (ITSs), flight simulators, security systems, vehicle electronic systems, and gaming systems. Kerry’s career has taken her throughout the Asia-Oceania region and beyond including engineering leadership roles in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the USA, and NZ. Her career has spanned over 30 years in which she has held roles such as Lead Systems Architect, Engineering Manager, Principal Systems Engineer, Technical and Engineering Director, and Design Authority in the international organizations of

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Rockwell, Boeing, GTECH, and Thales. Currently, she is the Country Engineering Director and Chief Engineer in Thales Australia. Kerry is a Fellow of Engineers Australia, an Engineering Executive, and Chartered Professional Engineer and holds the Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP) qualification from International Council of Systems Engineering, INCOSE. She is also a member of IEEE. Kerry contributes extensively to the discipline of Systems Engineering (SE), increasing the awareness and competencies of SE, and the benefits of applying a systems approach, in particular to complex problems. She has held many volunteer roles in her career including past Local State President (NSW) and past National President of the Systems Engineering Society of Australia (SESA). She has also been a member of the INCOSE Board of Directors, in the roles of Director for Asia-Oceania, President-Elect, and President. Kerry holds industry advisory roles for several tertiary institutions and is regularly sought to present at international conferences and events on SE and Technical Leadership. She has been featured in Engineers Australia’s Create magazine and recognized as an Australian 2020 National Finalist for Women in Defence (Engineering) by the Australia Defence Magazine (ADM). Kerry has always been interested in science and mathematics from a young age. Her first career wish was to become a mathematics teacher, then a medical research doctor, before settling on engineering. Going to an all-girls high school in Sydney for six years where no technology or engineering subjects were offered didn’t deter her, but it did make for a more challenging first year at university. She was introduced to subjects in which other (predominantly male) students already held fundamental knowledge and skills. She only succeeded with additional support from her “classroom mates.” This experience instilled her commitment to “pay it forward.” As a Systems Engineer, Kerry recognized the importance of continuous learning to maintain currency and knowledge on advancements in technology and in her discipline. She has realized this through a blend of courses, training, and networking; some supported by her employer, the rest fully invested by herself. Kerry found volunteering in organizations such as Engineers Australia, SESA, and INCOSE as strong avenues to learn, contribute, and excel. The combination of roles in the workforce and volunteering, and her ongoing learning initiatives, helped propel Kerry’s career and increased her visibility. This has led to many memorable moments. She became the first Australian to earn the internationally highly regarded Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP) qualification. She has twice had the opportunity of serving as Master of Ceremonies for international Systems Engineering symposiums. Kerry continues to be recognized by her peers and her discipline for many accolades and honors. In turn she is an advocate of STEM initiatives, always willing to support younger generations on their career journey. Conducting training programs in her area of expertise, led to another memorable moment—receiving her employer’s Trainer of the Year award, when technically her role was not that of a trainer! She also contributes as a steering committee member and mentor, for a research initiative on “Safer Complex Systems” with the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK. Systems Engineering has provided a strong foundation in mastering the versatility of subjects from an awareness level to that of expert. This has become pivotal in supporting Kerry’s global keynote addresses. Topics have ranged from IOT, System of Systems Engineering (SoSE), Resilience, Digital Transformation Impacts, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Establishing Yourself as Female Engineering Leader, Making the Jump from Expert to Executive, and Leveraging Global Diversity. As a Systems Engineer Kerry has had a very rewarding career. As she continues her journey, she remains a champion of continuous learning, fulfilling her commitment to “pay it forward.” Melissa Jovic  is a Chartered Professional Civil Engineer, Fellow, Engineer Executive, Certified Associate in Asset Management, and Graduate Company Director with more than 30 years’ experience in transportation strategic planning, governance, design, and program/project management of railway and infrastructure projects including undergoing independent assurance while working collaboratively across States and Commonwealth of Australia governments. Her experience includes high-speed, heavy, and light rail systems identifying risks levels associated with development, delivery, and operations on a wide range of programs within Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Since 2009, after an extensive career in the corporate sector, Melissa has worked for the New South Wales government in rail transport strategy, and more recently with Engineers Australia

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in their internationally recognized Chartered Engineering program. Her work included the application of system engineering to ensure benefit realization and justify integrity and operational consistency within the rail strategy portfolio. She was also responsible for development and implementation of System Thinking/Systems Engineering approach in the early stages of Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) investment lifecycle. Melissa is also an experienced Non-Executive Director, Chair, and Committee member with over 20 years of board- and committee-level experience across the public, commercial, and not-for-profit sectors at state and federal level. Her particular experience in governance includes balancing the interests of stakeholders and ensuring the delivery of strategic objectives within the current economic, political, regulatory, technological, and competitive environments. Her systematic approach in strategic development encompasses risk appetite and management capability, toward a big-picture perspective delivering sustainable value in economic, environmental and social terms. Melissa chose her occupation almost as a calling, coming from a line of engineers in her family and having been exposed to railway engineering since early childhood. She never had any other desire than to pursue and progress an engineering professional career regardless of geographical location. Coming from a country where female engineers represent at least 40% of the workforce, she has since faced the challenging situation of very often finding herself as the only women engineer in a working environment. The challenge was greater, when considering her different ethnic background, Eastern European accent, motherhood responsibilities, and approach as a confident subject matter expert. Making no apology, Melissa has continually aimed to achieve professional respect and equality for women in engineering and in society at large. In 2002, she was a founding member of the current Women in Engineering (WIE) Committee, from the Sydney Division, a Special Interest Group of Engineers Australia (EA). After holding multiple roles in Sydney, Melissa transitioned to national roles, becoming National Committee WIE Deputy Chair and then Chair (2014–2019). During that time, she led the establishment of WIE’s strategic and corporate governance frameworks using a consistent, systemic approach, plus ensured mentoring programs throughout EA WIE Branches were consistent with the national strategy. Melissa’s aim is to raise the number of female engineers to more than 40% and to retain women in engineering. She has also led development of related initiatives such as the Gender Diversity Awards, promoting the most outstanding and ambitious Company in Gender Diversity. Another is the “Call for Fellows” which promotes women engineers to Fellowship status, the second highest grade of Engineers Australia membership. The criteria specify an engineering professional of distinction, demonstrating technical excellence and leadership, and equally serving as a role model for other women in engineering. Melissa has received many awards for her significant voluntary work and engineering mentoring. In 2017, she was awarded the company honor of Champion of Diversity and Inclusion by Transport of New South Wales, the government transport agency with over 50,000 employees. Currently, she volunteers as a mentor with the Australian Government Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade for young engineers in South Pacific. Melissa is a proud professional who “builds the bridges” using System Thinking and System Engineering to reach out to professionals of different cultures, countries of origin, generations, first nation peoples, and regional towns across Australia and the South Pacific. In her everyday work, these “bridges” are between different engineering disciplines, business and technical functions, and organizational silos within companies.

Chapter 4

Improving Competence in the Professional Competencies for Systems Engineers Heidi Ann Hahn

Abstract  In 2018, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) introduced a set of competencies for systems engineers in a framework structure that gives guidance as to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors important to systems engineering effectiveness at each of five “levels” of competence. These levels range from awareness to expert. There are five categories of competencies: (1) core competencies that underpin both engineering and systems engineering; (2) technical competencies that are associated with the systems engineering technical processes; (3) professional competencies that reflect behaviors established within the human resources domain; (4) systems engineering management competencies that relate to managing and controlling systems engineering activities; and (5) integrating competencies that recognize that the systems engineering discipline joins its activities with those of other disciplines, including project management and quality, to create project coherence. The purpose of this chapter is to provide research-­ grounded methods for improving one’s competence in the INCOSE professional competencies while recognizing that improvement strategies may differ for men and women and for people from different cultures due to the different gender- and culture-based strengths and weaknesses documented throughout the chapter. Several of the professional competencies are included, either explicitly or implicitly, in the list of emerging areas for systems engineering leadership that this book is intended to address. Specifically, the chapter addresses ways that systems engineers can improve their own competence in these key areas. Diversity-related findings regarding the various professional competencies are also discussed.

H. A. Hahn (*) Sante Fe, NM, USA email: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_4

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4.1 Introduction Holt and Perry (2011) define competency as “a measure of an individual’s ability in terms of their knowledge, skills, and behavior to perform a given role” (pg. xvi). Competency is distinct from competence, which is the ability to do something well (Merriam Webster n.d.). Competence reflects the total ability of the individual, while a competency reflects a single skill; the sum of an individual’s competencies makes up their competence (Holt and Perry). Many employers use the terms skills and competencies interchangeably (Strebler et al. 1997). In this chapter, the term competency is used to encompass knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors. Additionally, although the terms competence and competency are commonly used interchangeably, in this chapter, competency is used to define the need, and competence is used to define the outcome, as is the case in the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland 20181). Capability can be defined as the means to perform an action to produce an outcome (Merriam Webster n.d.). It is generally thought of as an organizational attribute rather than an individual one as is the case with competence (Holt and Perry 2011). The main elements of capability are human capital, financial capital, customer relationships, and infrastructure (i.e., processes, facilities, and equipment). Thus, realizing an organizational capability requires having sufficient numbers of competent staff as well as other resources. Competency frameworks describe the set of competencies that apply to a particular field or role. Organizations and individuals have numerous use cases (lists of actions or event steps that define the interactions taken between stakeholders to achieve a goal, Salinesi in Alexander and Maiden 2004) for competency assessment. Organizational uses include recruiting and selecting candidates for employment; making appraisal, promotion, and compensation decisions; providing developmental opportunities; aligning organizational structures to maximize organizational capability; and identifying workforce training requirements that can be communicated to internal or external training providers who can develop and tailor content that will deliver the required competencies (Holt and Perry 2011; Skills for the Information Age 2011). As Strebler et al. (1997) note, to demonstrate equity (in particular as regards pay and professional development opportunities) when competency frameworks are used in these ways, the ties to the competencies must be transparent.

 All discussions of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework are drawn from this reference unless otherwise cited. 1

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4.1.1 The INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework In 2018, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) introduced the Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland 2018) which provides a set of systems engineering competencies in a framework structure that gives guidance as to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors important to systems engineering effectiveness in the domain in which the competency model is applied. The framework can be applied in any context and can be (indeed, is expected to be) tailored to suit the application domain and/or integrated with other complementary frameworks, such as the Project Management Institute’s Project Manager Competency Development Framework (Cartwright and Yinger 2007). There are five “levels” of competence outlined, ranging from awareness to expert, in each of five categories of competencies: • Core competencies that underpin both engineering and systems engineering. Capability engineering, which refers to the delivery of a desired outcome rather than the delivery of a desired performance level, is one of the systems engineering core competencies. Others are systems thinking, lifecycles, general engineering, critical thinking, and systems modeling and analysis. • Technical competencies that are associated with the technical processes identified in the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Walden et  al. 2015)  – requirements definition, systems architecting, design for…, integration, interfaces, verification, validation, transition, and operation and support. • Professional competencies that reflect behaviors established within the human resources domain. A detailed listing of these competencies is given in the next section. • Systems engineering management competencies that relate to managing and controlling systems engineering activities. These include planning, monitoring and control, decision management, concurrent engineering, business and enterprise integration, acquisition and supply, information management, configuration management, and risk and opportunity management. • Integrating competencies that recognize that the systems engineering discipline joins its activities with those of other disciplines, including project management, finance, logistics, and quality, to create project coherence. Beasley et al. (2019, pg. 301) hailed the inclusion of the professional competencies in the framework as a “significant development.” At the awareness level of the competency area, the person has knowledge of key ideas relevant to the area and understands key issues and their implications. The person who is at this level may be an entry-level systems engineer or someone outside of systems engineering who needs an understanding of the competency area to fulfill their role. People at this level may be certified as an Associate Systems Engineering Professional (ASEP) by passing a knowledge exam; the exam can be

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waived for ASEP applicants who have completed an academic program that has been granted academic equivalency by INCOSE (INCOSE n.d.-a). At the supervised practitioner level, the person demonstrates an understanding of the competency area and has some limited experience with it. The person requires supervision when performing their role and may be an engineer-in-training. Practitioners have knowledge and experience in the competency area and can perform their role independently. They also are capable of mentoring more junior practitioners. Practitioners with at least five years of documented and validated (by references) experience may be eligible to become a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) depending on their educational background and the depth of their experience with the INCOSE technical processes (INCOSE n.d.-a). Prospective CSEPs must also pass the knowledge exam, unless they are transitioning from ASEP to CSEP (INCOSE n.d.-a). Lead practitioners have extensive knowledge and experience in the competency area, provide guidance to others, and develop organizational best practices. At the expert level, in addition to having extensive knowledge and experience in the competency area, the person is recognized outside their organization for contributing regional, national, or international best practices. Lead practitioners and experts who can document, and have validated, at least 20 years of experience and substantive leadership in systems engineering may be eligible to certify as an Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP) (INCOSE n.d.-a). This certification does not require taking the knowledge exam; assessment is made through an oral interview.

4.1.2 Emerging Areas in Systems Engineering In Chap. 1, Squires discusses leadership in emerging areas in systems engineering, which include empowerment, equity, diversity, inclusion, and mentoring (Squires, personal communication 2020). These emerging areas will not be discussed in this chapter except to: • Highlight diversity as an emerging area specifically addressed in this chapter • Raise issues related to equity when using competency frameworks for organizational purposes. • Note that mentoring is one of professional competencies and that all of the other professional competencies also address coaching and mentoring because it is an expectation that lead practitioners and above in every competency coach and mentor others in the competency.

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4.1.3 Rationale for Focusing on the Professional Competencies The INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland 2018) contains an annex that analyzes the alignment of the framework with other INCOSE initiatives. In looking at the alignment with the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Walden et al. 2015), one sees that there is virtually no alignment between the handbook and the professional competencies (this is being addressed in the 5th edition [under development]). There is some overlap between the professional competency of negotiation and the technical competencies of requirements definition, verification, and validation and the management competency acquisition and supply. Beasley et al. (2019) described the Technical Leadership Model developed by the INCOSE Institute for Technical Leadership and “mapped” its elements to the professional competencies. The Technical Leadership Model defines the state of “being a systems technical leader” in terms of six interdependent concepts that align with the professional competencies: • • • • •

Holding the vision (technical leadership) Thinking strategically (technical leadership) Fostering collaboration (negotiation, team dynamics, facilitation) Communicating effectively (communications) Enabling others to be successful (coaching and mentoring, ethics and professionalism) • Demonstrating emotional intelligence (EI) While the core competencies, technical competencies, and some of the integrating competencies are traditionally addressed in engineering curricula and the systems engineering management competencies and others of the integrating competency areas are taught in engineering management programs, few of the professional competencies, which are oriented toward human resources, are addressed in either. While there have been panels and papers on this topic presented at the International Symposium over the past decade or so (which resulted in their inclusion in the 2018 INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland 2018)), these resources are difficult to access because they are not well indexed. A review of INCOSE webinars over the past five years shows that there were none that addressed the professional competencies. This is in spite of the importance of the professional competencies to systems engineering effectiveness. Clearly, the “soft skills” (or, as one reviewer called them, the “professional skills” noting that there is nothing soft about these skills – they are the hardest to learn!) that the professional competencies represent are areas in which systems engineers require developmental opportunities. A new INCOSE Working Group “Professional Competencies and Soft Skills” has been formed to address this gap. Resources that this author has found useful for self-study are provided throughout this chapter. Because the INCOSE Professional Competencies and Soft Skills Working Group’s website (INCOSE n.d.-b) states that there is anecdotal evidence

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that generalized “soft skills” training is not fitting for training engineers, the focus of the methods provided is engineering-oriented or, at least, believed to be applicable across multiple disciplines.

4.1.4 Chapter Overview The purpose of this chapter is to provide research-grounded methods for improving one’s competence in the INCOSE professional competencies while recognizing that improvement strategies may differ for men and women and for people from different cultures due to the different gender- and culture-based strengths and weaknesses documented throughout the chapter. Several of the professional competencies are included, either explicitly or implicitly, in the list of emerging areas for systems engineering leadership that this book is intended to address. Specifically, the chapter addresses ways that systems engineers can improve their own competence in these key areas. The chapter begins with a general overview of the concepts of competency, competence, and capability (above) and then proceeds to a more detailed description of each of the professional competencies (which include communications, ethics and professionalism, technical leadership, negotiation, team dynamics, facilitation, emotional intelligence, and coaching and mentoring) with a discussion of why they are important to systems engineering effectiveness and how they relate to the emerging systems engineering leadership areas. Diversity-related research is then discussed followed by a discussion of methods for improving competence in the professional competencies. Finally, conclusions are drawn as to the importance of improving competence in the professional competencies and of recognizing and appreciating gender and cultural differences.

4.2 The INCOSE Professional Competencies 4.2.1 Introduction In this section, each of the professional competencies is defined, and their importance to systems engineering effectiveness and relationship to emerging areas for systems engineering leadership are discussed. With the exception of mentoring, which directly maps to the professional competency coaching and mentoring, the relationships tend to be as enablers for realizing progress toward the emerging area.

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4.2.2 Communications The communications professional competency is defined as “[t]he dynamic process of transmitting or exchanging information using various principles such as verbal, speech, body-language, signals, behavior, writing, audio, video, graphics, language, etc. Communication includes all interactions between individuals, individuals and groups or between different groups” (Presland 2018, pg. 45). “Communication plays a fundamental role in all facets of business within an organization, in order to: transfer information between individuals and groups to develop a common understanding and build and maintain relationships” (Presland, pg. 45). Effective communication is key to project success. Systems engineering leadership in communications, especially inclusion of a diverse group of stakeholders and an understanding of diversity-related differences in communication styles and preferences, is essential for building consensus. Thus, effective communication is an enabler for the emerging areas of diversity and inclusion.

4.2.3 Ethics and Professionalism Professional (engineering) ethics comprise the personal, organizational, and corporate standards expected of systems engineers as well as the specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities used by systems engineers when providing services to the public. Professional responsibility is “the legal and moral duty of a professional to apply his or her knowledge in ways that benefit his or her client, and the wider society, without causing any injury to either” (businessdictionary.com n.d.). Engineering does not have a single uniform system of ethical conduct across the entire profession. The conduct of licensed professional engineers is governed by statues promulgated by the government entity that has given permission for the engineer to practice within its regulatory boundaries. Most engineering professional societies, including INCOSE, have a code of ethics that governs fundamental principles and duties that apply to members’ conduct as engineering professionals. A common feature of these codes is that the protection of the public interest, the environment, and the health and safety of those affected by the engineered product is paramount. Duties related to professional behavior with respect to one’s clients, employers, and the profession itself are also a common element. Engineers certified through a professional society  – whereby a community of knowledgeable, experienced, and skilled representatives of the organization provides formal recognition that a person has achieved competence in specific areas as demonstrated by education, experience, and knowledge – may be bound by a code of ethics defined by the society, even if they are not members of the society.

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Engineers working in government and industry, even if not licensed or certified, may be held to a standard of conduct by their employer. Such standards often rely on principles of business ethics rather than engineering ethics. Ethics are just one aspect of professionalism, which refers to the conduct, behavior, and attitude of someone in a business environment (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 2020). In addition to the taking of ethical and responsible actions, professionalism includes characteristics such as critical thinking and problem-solving, initiative and accountability, and a respectful professional demeanor (Kokemuller 2018). The preamble to INCOSE’s Code of Ethics highlights the importance of ethical behavior in systems engineering, in particular, because of the unique nature of the discipline, which is highly integrative, often provides representation of stakeholders’ interests other than those of the employer or client, and operates in international arenas where cultural dimensions such as value systems, beliefs, and customs can vary widely (INCOSE n.d.-c). Systems engineers are trusted to apply their knowledge and skills to make judgments and reach unbiased conclusions. It is important that the systems engineer always act ethically and responsibly in order to maintain trust and ensure professional standards are upheld and their wider societal obligations are met. Trust is central to leadership (Covey 2006) because without trust, there are no followers. Ethical behavior speeds up trust-building in relationships (Hosmer 1986), so it plays a key role in building the trust needed by systems engineers with limited authority to motivate team members and others to achieve project success. Trust is also central to managing diverse groups of stakeholders, so it should serve as an enabler of the emerging areas of diversity and inclusion. In addition, ethical behavior would include treating others equitably, thus supporting the emerging area of equity.

4.2.4 Technical Leadership Technical leadership in systems engineering combines the application of technical knowledge and experience with other professional competencies including communications and team dynamics, as well as other skills such as relationship management, accountability, and skills related to creativity and innovation in problem-solving. In response to INCOSE’s Vision 2025 (INCOSE 2015) which calls out technical leadership as one of seven areas of competency that would be required for successful systems engineering endeavors, Godfrey (2016) worked with the first cohort of the INCOSE Technical Leadership Institute to develop the INCOSE Technical Leadership Model, which defines the state of “being a systems technical leader” in terms of six interdependent concepts: holding the vision; thinking strategically; fostering collaboration; communicating effectively; enabling others to be successful; and demonstrating emotional intelligence.

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The technical areas in which a systems engineer must excel are encapsulated in the INCOSE technical competencies. In assessing technical leadership, as is done in reviewing ESEP applicants, however, too often the emphasis is placed on technical knowledge and experience rather than on leadership in a technical area – the accent is placed on the wrong syllable, so to speak. Technical leadership should involve not only technical management but also people management and project/program management. As systems become increasingly complex and the environment becomes more competitive, technical excellence is critical; technical leadership helps teams succeed in this environment. Among the qualities of a good leader is the ability to delegate to and empower others (Hasan 2019), thus supporting the emerging area of empowerment. The leadership quality of integrity, which, as stated previously, is one aspect of ethics and professionalism, supports the emerging area of equity. Finally, a leader who understands the benefits that arise from diversity in teams likely supports the emerging areas of diversity and inclusion.

4.2.5 Negotiation In the negotiation professional competency, systems engineers facilitate dialogue among parties having differences over one or more issues to achieve a beneficial outcome, which may apply to all parties or to just one of them. Because systems engineers are the “glue” that hold system development efforts together, they are often at the leading edge of interacting with different groups of stakeholders and trying to gain agreement among them; negotiation skills are critical to this activity. As was the case for the communications competency, systems engineering leadership in negotiation – especially inclusion of a diverse group of stakeholders – is essential for building consensus. As such, effective negotiation is an enabler for the emerging areas of diversity and inclusion.

4.2.6 Team Dynamics The team dynamics professional competency addresses the unconscious psychological forces that influence how a team behaves and performs; team dynamics are a function of the work itself, the personalities of the team members, and the work environment. Good team dynamics can lead to better group and individual performance; on the other hand, bad team dynamics can cause conflict, be demotivating, and result in poor team performance. Bear and Woolley (2011) noted that scientific innovations

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are increasingly produced by team collaborations, making it all the more important that teams function effectively. Teams having good dynamics understand the value of cooperation over competition. Such a mindset should be supportive of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

4.2.7 Facilitation In the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland 2018), facilitation is defined as “the act of helping others to deal with a process, solve a problem, or reach a goal without getting directly involved” (Presland 2018, pg. 50). Facilitation is about helping people gain skills and knowledge; the job of a facilitator is setting up activities that enable people to learn from one another and build on their own knowledge, capitalizing on the learning cycle shown in Fig.  4.1 (SeedsforChange.org n.d.), which says that people reflect on their experiences and generalize them to other situations then build on the new situations gaining experience with them. The facilitation competency is intimately related to the technical leadership competency – it is the “how” to the technical leadership competency’s “what.” In light of the fact that systems engineers often work in an environment in which they have a great deal of responsibility and accountability for delivering technical products with little authority with which to achieve the desired results, the systems engineer’s leadership in facilitation becomes important to project success. “‘Facilitative leadership’ is the ability to lead without controlling, while making it easier for everyone in the organization to achieve agreed-upon goals” (Presland 2018, pg. 50). Facilitation is considered a core competency for people who need to create and manage learning groups effectively (Jelavic and Salter 2014). As was the case with the technical leadership competency, competence in facilitative leadership should support the emerging areas of diversity and inclusion, empowerment, and equity.

Fig. 4.1  The learning cycle. (From SeedsforChange.org n.d.)

Generalisation

Experience

Reflection

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4.2.8 Emotional Intelligence (EI) Rouse (2020) notes that the term emotional intelligence (EI) is often used as a synonym for people skills and soft skills. Salovey and Mayer (1990, pg. 185) first defined emotional intelligence as “a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one’s life.” Over the intervening years, others, including Presland (2018, pg. 51), have used simpler language: “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide thinking and action.” EI is conceived of as falling along four dimensions: perceiving emotion, using emotion to facilitate thought, understanding emotion, and managing emotion (Salovey and Mayer). Development of EI enables individuals to glean information and ideas from others and allows connection with wider networks, breaking down barriers (Beasley et al. 2019). EI consists of five abilities – self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills  – that help individuals and organizations achieve higher productivity, more constructive and less stressful interactions with colleagues, and better results on projects (Brauer 2019). These characteristic skills of EI are critical to systems engineers, who regularly interact with many diverse stakeholders. These skills should also be supportive of the emerging areas, all of which require positive interactions with others.

4.2.9 Coaching and Mentoring According to Keydifferences.com (2018) coaching is the process of training and supervising a person for a specific and short-term purpose, to improve their performance and develop skills, while mentoring is a counseling process carried out to provide encouragement, insight, and counseling to the mentee for the development of their career through a long-term informal relationship. Both employ one-on-one conversations in non-directive ways to achieve their objectives. Coaching and mentoring support all of the systems engineering competencies in the framework; at the higher levels of each competency, there is an expectation that those individuals will coach or mentor others in the competency. “Coaching and mentoring play an important role in the development of Systems Engineering professionals, providing targeted development and guidance, organizational and cultural insights. They represent learning opportunities for both parties, encouraging sharing and learning across generations and/or between roles” (Presland, pg. 52). This multi-generational and cross-role emphasis supports the emerging area of diversity and inclusion, in this case experience-based diversity, as does the provision of cultural insights. Understanding organizational characteristics should also help empower the mentee to be an independent actor in the work environment.

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The organization should also benefit from mentoring relationships between senior and more junior staff in the form of greater retention of staff engaged in mentoring, improved productivity, and enhanced communication (on both sides of the relationship). In a 2019 workplace survey, Wronski and Cohen found that about half of workers say they have a mentor at work, and those who do are significantly more likely to be happy with their jobs. They note that happier, more productive workers are valuable to the company because they tend to stay longer. Over 40% of workers who do not have a mentor said that they had considered quitting their job in the previous three months, compared with just 25% of those who do have a mentor. Likewise, Lyman (2017) says that, while a mentoring relationship is primarily intended to benefit the mentee, mentoring can be equally as beneficial in building the mentor’s experience, confidence, knowledge, and leadership capacity, as it is fulfilling. As an unbiased party, the mentor has the advantage of being able to see the whole picture, without getting caught up in details or emotions that may hinder the mentee, so can offer advice that is clear and sound. Spacey (2017) refers to this ability to see problems in context as “big picture thinking” and notes that it is critical to personal resilience.

4.3 Survey of Diversity-Related Research Regarding the Professional Competencies 4.3.1 Introduction In this section, research into gender and cultural differences regarding the professional competencies is discussed. Preference was given to research specific to engineering; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); or research and development, where available. When considering the research findings, it is important to recognize that they do not apply universally; further, one should not stereotype men and women or people from different cultures according to them (Lieberman 2017; LeBaron 2003). Whether a generalization holds true depends on many contextual factors, including setting, situation, time, the nature of the issue, and individual preferences (LeBaron). McCabe et  al. (2006) differentiate between sex, which they characterize as a biological variable, and gender, which they view as a multidimensional construct that is based on gender identity theory. Gender identity theory says that gender consists of biological sex as well as instrumental (masculine) and expressive (feminine) psychological traits associated with males and females and gender-role attitudes. Gender-role attitudes refer to a person’s beliefs about which roles are appropriate for men and women. Gender differences were generally equivocal for all of the professional competencies, with some studies finding differences and others finding none. McCabe et  al.’s (2006) treatment of gender as a multidimensional variable versus other

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researchers who used gender solely as a biological variable may account for these inconsistent results. Finally, it should be noted that most of the research on cultural differences on the professional competencies is derived from Western concepts rather than from an intercultural perspective (LeBaron 2003). Because of this, the generalizations that follow from these studies are limited.

4.3.2 Communications Communications have both verbal and nonverbal elements, and there are gender and cultural differences in both areas. Verbal communication refers to the language used to convey meaning; language, in turn, shapes how a person thinks about things (Nuss 2014). More than half of the information conveyed in conversation is in nonverbal form (Point Park University Business Department [PPU-B] 2017). Nonverbal communication may be used to accent the meaning of verbal communication, complement or contradict verbal messages, regulate interactions with other people, or substitute for a verbal communication. There are seven types of nonverbal communication including facial expressions; paralanguage or the non-lexical component of verbal communication, such as intonation, pitch, and hesitations; the use of physical space; touch; posture; gestures; and eye contact (Point Park University Public Relations and Advertising Department [PPU-PR&A] 2017). There are known differences in communications styles and language used by men and women. Men and women also have different reasons for communicating. vomSaal (2005) says that men’s goal for conversation is to transmit information, while women’s goal is to build relationships. Point Park University (PPU-PR&A 2017) agrees when it comes to women’s motivations for communication but says that men communicate to negotiate for power and to maintain status. Effective communication requires balancing two sets of qualities: warmth (empathy, likeability, caring) and authority (power, credibility, status) (Goman 2016). Warmth is usually associated with the feminine and authority with the masculine; it is from these qualities that most of the gender-based differences in communication styles emerge. Goman (2016) notes that men are more likely to use language that is direct and to the point, while women often meander. Other differences in the verbal communications of men and women include: • In solving a problem, men process internally and do not speak until they have arrived at a solution; women process and think of solutions aloud. • Men talk more in business meetings and are more likely to interrupt; women try to ensure equity and are less likely to interrupt (Goman, Lieberman 2017).

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• Men use blunt or accusatory language (Goman) and are adversarial (vomSaal 2005), while women prefer indirect accusations (Goman) and seek synergy (vomSaal). • Men often engage in monologues, women in dialogues. An article in the January 11, 2020, issue of The Economist cited research in which the self-promoting language of papers written by male authors was compared to those authored by women. Men were far more self-promoting than women. They used the term “novel” when describing their research 59.2% more frequently than did women; they used the term “promising” 72.3% more frequently. Goman (2016) had a similar finding, noting that women believe that their superiors will notice their positive results and promote them, while men think that they need to promote themselves to advance. Goman (2016) and others have also described how men and women differ with respect to nonverbal communication in a number of ways: • Men use fewer facial expressions, keeping a “poker face,” while women are more emotionally expressive; women rely heavily on nodding and eye contact to express emotion (PPU-PR&A 2017). • For men, nodding connotes agreement; for women, nodding may mean agreement but may also be an indication of listening or encouragement to another to continue speaking (Goman; Lieberman 2017). • Men use three tones while speaking, and their deeper voices sound confident; women use five tones, and their voices tend to rise under stress. • Men use less paralanguage than women, and they mostly use paralanguage to convey agreement; women use paralanguage, including noises and nodding, to convey that they are listening (PPU-PR&A). • Men expand into the physical space, which gives the appearance of confidence and helps create a feeling of confidence in themselves (Goman); they have wider postures and stand with their arms and legs spread (PPU-PR&A). Women try to take up as little space as possible, making them seem smaller and creating a feeling in them of being less powerful; women are more likely to keep their arms closer to their bodies and cross their legs (PPU-PR&A). • Men prefer facing the other person, while women are more comfortable when positioned side-by-side (PPU-PR&A). • Men keep greater distances between themselves and people they have just met than do women (Goman). • Men want the opportunity to shake hands or pat the other person’s shoulder as a show of dominance, while women may touch the other person’s arm or offer a hug as a show of support or to build a connection (PPU-PR&A). • Women use more hand gestures than men, and their gestures are more fluid; men’s hand gestures are sharp, directed movements (PPU-PR&A). • Men use eye contact to assert power or position; women use it to create relationship and connection (PPU-PR&A, Lieberman).

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Table 4.1  Communication styles of high context and low context cultures High context Verbal communication is indirect and understated People are expected to speak in an orderly, linear manner Conflict is to be avoided or immediately resolved Physical space is communal not personal; close physical proximity is common Accuracy of the communication’s content is most important

Low context Verbal communication is explicit, direct, linear, and dramatic People speak constantly and interrupt one another Disagreements are not personal and do not have to be resolved immediately Physical space is considered personal, and boundaries must be respected Efficiency of the communication is most valued

From PPU-B (2017)

Through their use of body language (which includes the nonverbal attributes of physical space, posture, and eye contact), women’s styles tend to convey warmth, while men’s styles tend to convey authority (Goman 2016). Different cultures also have different communication styles. Nuss (2014) describes the concept of linguistic relativity, which states that people of different cultures perceive and think differently about the same things. Although nonverbal communication is a universal phenomenon, the meaning of the nonverbal cues is not – it varies by culture (PPU-B 2017). To understand the nuances of both the content of verbal communication and the balance of nonverbal to verbal communication, it is necessary to understand the differences between “high context” and “low context” cultures. High-context cultures use a great deal of nonverbal communication, while low context cultures depend more heavily on the verbal content. Table 4.1 compares the communication styles of high and low context cultures. Asians, such as the Chinese and Japanese, are the highest context cultures, while the Swiss and Germans are the lowest context cultures; the United States (US) is at the upper end of the lower context part of the spectrum (PPU-B 2017). In a study of intercultural communication at a Chinese subsidiary of a Danish corporation, Jonasson and Lauring (2012) noted that Westerners’ communications tend to be individually oriented, while the Chinese tend to be more group-oriented, focusing on family and personal networks. The Chinese also tend to rely more on nonverbal communication than do the Westerners. Chinese managers reported feelings of exclusion and inequality when dealing with the Danes. This result suggests that improving one’s competence in the communications professional competency could help improve the emerging systems engineering leadership areas regarding equity and inclusion. Park Point University’s Business Department (2017) describes a number of cultural differences in nonverbal communication: • The meaning of facial expressions varies by culture, especially in regard to winking, which is considered romantic in Latin America but rude in China.

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• The uses of paralanguage vary across cultures, with people in the United Kingdom using loud voices to convey anger and people in India using it to command attention; additionally, the use of silence is used differently in different cultures – the Greeks use it as a refusal, while the Egyptians use it to consent. • As noted in Table 4.1, the need for personal physical space varies by country. • Many cultural expressions are achieved through touch, though the meaning of various types of touches varies. For example, a handshake is considered to be an appropriate greeting in the United States, but in the Middle East only a right-­ handed handshake is acceptable (because the left hand is commonly used for bodily hygiene, it is considered rude to use it for a handshake or to accept a gift). There is also a great deal of variability between cultures regarding the acceptability of physical contact between members of opposite sexes. • Posture is used to convey power structures, attitudes, and level of civility differently throughout the world. Standing with one’s hands on one’s hips, for example, might convey power in the United States but be seen as an angry or challenging gesture in South America. • Whether or not eye contact is made, who makes it, and how long it is held vary across cultures, with Asian cultures viewing avoidance of eye contact as a sign of respect while in North America eye contact is seen as conveying equality among individuals.

4.3.3 Ethics and Professionalism Most of the research related to the ethics and professionalism professional competency focuses on ethics, and specifically on business ethics, rather than on professionalism. Further, most of the research is indirect, looking at an organization’s code of ethics rather than directly assessing ethical behavior (Scholtens and Dam 2007). When comparing sex-based differences in ethical perceptions and behaviors, results have been equivocal, with some researchers finding that men are more willing to behave unethically than women and that women are more likely than men to view questionable behaviors as unethical and other researchers finding no differences (McCabe et  al. 2006). McCabe et  al. attribute this to gender having been treated as a dichotomous variable, sex. They say that when the variable is treated this way, “women perceive ‘giving and receiving gifts in exchange for preferential treatment’ as significantly less ethical than men” (pg. 106). McCabe et al. (2006) used the Ruch and Newstrom Scale, a validated questionnaire that asks respondents about less ethical employee behaviors such as doing personal business on company time or taking company materials and supplies for personal use, more unethical employee behaviors like claiming credit for someone else’s work or falsifying records and bribery, and a multidimensional perspective to assess gender differences in ethical perceptions. They found that people with socially oriented, expressive traits, which are usually judged to be more associated

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with women than men, regardless of their biological sex, are more able to identify unethical behaviors as unethical. Further, those with an egalitarian view of gender roles (versus a traditional view) have an increased likelihood of viewing bribery as unethical. Stedham et al. (2007) say that men and women have different ethical perspectives and that these differences account for differences in their intention to behave in certain ways. The ethical perspectives Stedham et al. considered were relativistic and justice. The relativistic perspective acknowledges that moral standards are subjective and assesses ethicality by observing group behaviors, while the justice perspective judges ethicality on the basis of fairness in treatment according to ethical or legal standards. Women’s focus on relationships is aligned with the relativistic perspective; men’s emphasis on objectivity and abstraction is consistent with the justice perspective. Stedham et  al. (2007) used the Reidenbach and Robin scenario-based survey instrument which asks respondents to rate the scenarios using relativist dimensions – whether the action taken is culturally acceptable, individually acceptable, traditionally acceptable, and acceptable to the respondent’s family – justice dimensions including whether the action is just and fair, and questions about the probability that the respondent’s peers would take the same action and that the respondent him or herself would take the action. Their results confirmed that intention to behave is a function of gender, the relativist perspective is significantly related to intention to behave, and the expected behavior of peers is significantly related to intention to behave. Their hypothesis about the relationship between the justice perspective and intention to behave was not confirmed. Regardless of the perspective used, women saw the scenarios as more unethical than men; Stedham et al. speculate that this may be because women “use ‘relativistic factors’ in their ethical assessment independent of the specific criteria they are asked to use” (pg. 171). Stuhlmacher and Linnabery (2013) reported gender-based differences in negotiation ethics, with women seeing bluffing and using questionable tactics like withholding information as more unethical than did men. Scholtens and Dam (2007) analyzed the ethics policies of corporations in industrialized countries and found that there are significant differences among countries and among industries regarding communication and implementation of systems of ethics, governance of bribery and corruption, and human rights policies. They associated the ethics policies with Hofstede’s (see Hofstede et  al. [2010]) cultural dimensions, which include power distance or the extent to which less powerful members of institutions within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally; individualism versus collectivism or group focus; uncertainty avoidance, which is the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations; masculinity versus femininity or the desirability of assertive behavior against the desirability of modest behavior; time orientation, which is whether the culture takes a long-term or a short-term view; and indulgence versus restraint. Scholtens and Dam found that countries where masculinity and power distance are valued have a negative association with firms’ ethics, and countries where individualism and uncertainty avoidance are valued have a positive

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association. Masculinity and power distance values are also negatively associated with countries’ bribe-taking as assessed by Transparency International (Sanyal 2005).

4.3.4 Technical Leadership The technical leadership competency encompasses, among other things, skills related to creativity and innovation in problem-solving. Most of the leadership research found in the literature is generic in nature and does not focus specifically on technical leadership. There are, however, bodies of literature around creative problem-solving and innovation. Those are the focus of this section, in which gender and cultural differences in technical leadership are explored. Creative problem-solving is a way of solving problems or identifying opportunities that is used when conventional methods are not yielding a solution (Mind Tools Content Team n.d.). It involves four core principles: balancing divergent thinking, in which many possible solutions are generated, and convergent thinking, where the options are evaluated and the most promising is selected; framing problems as questions; deferring judgment on solutions; and using language that encourages people to expand their thinking. Innovation, or the formation of a new product or production process, is a six-­ stage process, as described by Okon-Horodynske et al. (2016): • • • • •

Creativity – generating ideas Accumulation – gathering and applying ideas Prioritization – selecting the best ideas Development – testing and evaluating solutions Potential innovation  – readying the solution and preparing commercialization • Innovation – implementing the solution and diffusing the innovation

for

Speaking of leadership in a generic sense, Lieberman (2017) noted that leadership styles vary by gender, with women preferring to lead through consensus-­ building, while men take a more hierarchical approach. In a meta-analysis of research related to gender-based differences in skills and competencies, Strebler et al. (1997) found that while women and men do not differ greatly in their leadership competence, women are less likely to be perceived as being effective leaders than men. They also note that position descriptions may be gender-biased if they value men’s transactional leadership style more than they value women’s transformational style. In a study of gender differences in solving complex mathematics problems, Mustafic et al. (2015) found that women outperform men in knowledge acquisition and men outperform women in knowledge application. In a meta-analysis of studies of gender differences in creative problem-solving, Hardy and Gibson (2015) found a lack of consensus. They attributed this to gender-specific inconsistencies in measurement. When they reanalyzed the data using the Besemer and O’Quin three-facet

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model of creativity, they observed that females exhibited higher baseline measures of creativity on all three dimensions – the quality, originality, and elegance of their solutions. In describing their roles relative to the innovation process, women are most likely to describe themselves as team members, while men are most likely to say that they are “idea sowers” (Okon-Horodynska et al. 2016, pg. 257). When engaging in innovation processes, women are more involved in innovation in organizing work, and men are more involved in developing new products. Men and women also have different views regarding the importance of various features as they apply to the stages of the innovation process, with women placing more value on the ability to make decisions at various points in the process and men putting more focus on tasks. Okon-Horodynska et al. concluded that the differences in how the genders perceive innovation leads to differences in how they participate in it. In a study of problem-solving styles of managers in North America as compared to those in Latin America, Grosse and Simpson (2008) found that the North Americans were action-oriented “convergers,” while the Latin Americans were reflection-oriented “assimilators” (pg. 47). Convergers emphasize decision-making and use deductive reasoning, while assimilators emphasize planning and the use of decision analysis models. Van Duesen et  al. (2002) found significant culturally based differences (e.g., individualistic versus collectivist cultures) in how organizations solve problems and the quality of their solutions. They conducted a survey of organizations in seven countries across the world and concluded that the principal explanation for the differences they observed was cultural. Further, they noted that organizations in individualistic countries appear to be moving toward more collectivist problem-solving methods and involving more of their workforce in problem-solving exercises. This may be an outgrowth of the quality movement and teaming culture that became popular in the United States in the 1980s.

4.3.5 Negotiation There is no right or wrong way to approach negotiations, only effective and less effective approaches, which vary according to many contextual factors, conflict resolution styles, and worldview frames (LeBaron 2003). Stuhlmacher and Linnabery (2013) noted that negotiation occurs not only in the workplace, but also at home, with family, and in political and civic settings. Most of the literature on gender differences in negotiation focus on qualitative experiences or negotiation styles (Stuhlmacher and Linnabery 2013). Stuhlmacher and Linnabery used a social role model, which says that people hold behavioral expectations for themselves and others based on their social positions, to explain gender-based differences in negotiation. They stated that gender roles and the association of the negotiator role with stereotypically masculine agentic behaviors (an approach that involves acting as an individual and experiencing power and

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achievement as opposed to a stereotypically female communal approach) explain the differences between the sexes regarding initiating a negotiation, the behaviors displayed, the perceptions of the negotiators, and the reactions of the counterparts. Agentic traits such as strength, assertiveness, and dominance are seen as more important to negotiation success than communal traits like submissiveness and emotion. Stuhlmacher and Linnabery (2013) reported that women are less likely to initiate negotiations than men. This effect seems to be moderated by task instructions; labeling the activity as asking rather than negotiating reduces the gender difference in initiating a negotiation. While engaged in negotiations, women exhibited more cooperative behaviors versus the more competitive behaviors exhibited by men, especially if the negotiation occurred face-to-face. In a meta-analysis that looked at gender differences in negotiation outcomes, Stuhlmacher and Walters (2006) found that men negotiated slightly better outcomes than women; this was true irrespective of the type of negotiation being studied, though men tended to have better outcomes with male stereotyped issues than with female stereotyped issues. Ambiguity about the area of potential agreement moderates this effect – men were more successful in high ambiguity situations – though other moderators such as opponent sex, relative power of the negotiator, and communication mode had no effect. Goal setting behavior, with women setting fewer and lower negotiation goals than men, also affects the success of the outcome (Stuhlmacher and Linnabery 2013). LeBaron (2003) makes the point that culture-based differences in negotiation styles are related to differences in time and space orientations. Time orientation can be monochromic (linear and sequential) or polychromic (involving simultaneous occurrences of many things). As shown in Table 4.2, negotiators have different characteristics depending on their culture’s time orientations. As described in the foregoing discussion of nonverbal communication, space orientation has to do with public versus personal space, comfort with physical contact, and eye contact. Cultural differences regarding these variables must be taken into consideration when arranging for face-to-face negotiations (LeBaron 2003). Hofstede’s cultural dimensions also come into play in explaining cultural differences in negotiation. Cultures where masculinity and high power distance are valued tend to have negotiators who are assertive and task-oriented and negotiations Table 4.2  Time orientation effects on negotiation Negotiators from monochromic cultures Start and end meetings on time Schedule breaks Deal with one agenda item at a time Talk in sequence View lateness as disrespect From LeBaron (2003)

Negotiators from polychromic cultures Are flexible when it comes to meeting starting and ending time Take breaks when it seems appropriate Multi-task Overlap conversations Do not take lateness personally

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that are hierarchically based and allow the use of power with discretion (LeBaron 2003). In cultures with high uncertainty avoidance, negotiators may find it difficult to establish trust in negotiations with people who are not family or close friends. There are also cultural differences in the persuasive styles used by negotiators and in their comfort with emotionality, which is associated with Hofstede’s femininity dimension.

4.3.6 Team Dynamics Most of the research on gender and team dynamics relates to the gender composition of the teams; similarly, most of the research on cultural differences in team dynamics focuses on multicultural teams. Bear and Woolley’s (2011) interest in the role of gender in team collaboration came about as a result of the fact that women continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields and the reality that scientific innovation is increasingly produced by teams of scientists working collaboratively. In a review of research findings, Bear and Woolley observed that the presence of women in a team enhances team collaboration. They believe that gender diversity benefits group processes in a variety of ways; the benefits arise from gender differences in attitudes (egalitarian rather than autocratic norms) and behaviors (enhanced interaction and communication) during group interaction. In a study that used self- and peer-assessments of group work processes and performance, Takeda and Homberg (2014) found that gender-balanced teams displayed enhanced collaboration, less loafing behaviors, and more equitable contributions to group work. However, their results also indicated that enhanced collaboration did not lead to better team performance. Bear and Woolley (2011) noted that the effects of gender diversity on team performance on objective (e.g., financial outcomes, quality of the products produced) and subjective (e.g., self-ratings) measures is equivocal, with some researchers finding improved performance and others finding no improvement or even decreased performance among mixed gender teams. Equivocal findings in the literature regarding the effects of gender diversity on team performance must be interpreted in light of organizational context. In engineering, for example, which is male dominated, gender diversity has a negative effect on team performance, whereas in gender-­ balanced professions, gender diversity has a positive effect. As more companies globalize, they increasingly rely on globally distributed team; therefore, it is important to understand the effects of cultural differences on team dynamics (Neeley 2015). Cultural differences contribute to high social distance (low emotional connection among team members) within globally distributed teams. According to Solomon (2018), cultural differences in team dynamics are rooted in societal differences in group vs individual orientation (again, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions!). People from group-oriented societies identify as a member of the

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team, see the rights of the group as being more important that the rights of the individual, value group consensus in making decisions, and consider group harmony to be critical to reaching business goals; people from individual-oriented societies are just the opposite, defining themselves by their personal contributions. Neeley (2015) adds organizational structure and power imbalances as factors that affect team dynamics. She proposes the SPLIT framework – structure, process, language, identity, and technology – each of which can be a source of social distance as a method for dealing with dysfunction in multicultural and/or dispersed teams. (See Sect. 4.4.6 for details.)

4.3.7 Facilitation Co-facilitation using facilitators of different genders, races, and/or cultures is a recommended best practice, especially if the participant group is not homogeneous (Porteus et al. n.d.). There is little data in the literature about gender differences in facilitation styles per se, but there are gender differences in communication styles that can affect facilitation. Women’s tendencies toward ensuring equity, seeking synergy, and engaging in dialogue and their nonverbal communication styles, like using emotional facial expressions, paralanguage, and eye contact to create relationships, may give them an edge when facilitating a group. In reviewing research on gender differences in leadership and relating leadership styles to facilitation, Andrews (1992) concluded that women and men have equal potential to facilitate small groups successfully. As has been the case with many of the other professional competencies, cultural differences in facilitation can be understood using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Cultural differences have implications for both the facilitator’s style and participant behavior (Jelavic and Salter 2014). Jelavic and Salter made these observations about facilitation management in the face of cultural differences: • Feminine cultures are more comfortable with participation in group interactions; masculine cultures prefer individual decisions • High power distance cultures see empowering individuals in a group as normal; low power distance cultures see it as unacceptable • High power distance cultures would adopt a hierarchy in managing the facilitation, while low power distance cultures would want an even distribution of managerial authority • Cultures with short-term views focus on starting and ending on time; cultures with long-term views are more flexible regarding agendas and timelines • Low uncertainty avoidance cultures place little emphasis on formal documentation of the group work; high uncertainty avoidance cultures focus on note-taking • Participants and facilitators from a long-term orientation coupled with high uncertainty avoidance culture will do pre- and post-session preparation, while

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those from a short-term orientation and low uncertainty avoidance are likely to feel less need for preparation

4.3.8 Emotional Intelligence Unlike the intelligence quotient, which is relatively stable, EI can be improved (Dunaway 2013). Bagheri et al. (2013) elaborate this point further, noting that some parts of EI are innate and other parts, which are culturally based, can be improved through learning and experience. Meshkat and Nejati (2017) administered the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory to a group of volunteers; they found no gender-based differences in overall EI, but found women to be higher than men on the EI components of emotional self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, empathy, and self-regard. Similarly, Dunaway (2013) used the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Scale to look at the EI of teams. She found that gender plays an important role for EI competencies with females scoring higher with respect to awareness of their own emotions and males scoring higher with respect to management of others’ emotions. In discussing gender differences in communication styles, Goman (2016) lists the ability to read body language and interpret nonverbal cues, good listening skills, and effective displays of empathy as the top three communications strengths for women. She lists being overly blunt, insensitive to audience reactions, and too confident of their own opinions as the top three communication weaknesses for men. Interpreting this through the lens of EI, this would seem to support the idea that women are higher than men on at least some of the components of EI. Although emotions are universal phenomena, the ways in which they are experienced, expressed, perceived, and managed are influenced by culture, through learning and experiences about the structures, guidelines, expectations, and rules for interpreting behaviors (Bagheri et al. 2013). There are cultural differences in how people express emotions, with Asian cultures using tone of voice and Western cultures using facial expressions. High emotional regulation is an important predictor of success in intercultural exchanges because it allows for control of negative emotions during conflict and stress, which Bagheri et al. (2013, pg. 125) say is “inevitable in intercultural life.” Different cultures take different approaches to emotional regulation, with Western cultures encouraging emotional expression and Asian cultures tending to “downregulate” positive emotions.

4.3.9 Coaching and Mentoring In a business context, coaching is distinguished from mentoring, and the literature handles them differently. As a result, they will be broken out separately here.

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Most of the literature about gender differences in coaching focuses on athletic coaching, which is not particularly relevant in a business setting and will not be reviewed here. Bergquist (2016) administered two development of coaches surveys to professional business coaches and found no gender-related differences. He noted that gender-based differences are becoming less important, especially in Western cultures. He also observed that there is a lack of research regarding the potential variations in coaching practices based on the gender of the client. Most of the literature about cultural differences in coaching is about cross-­ cultural coaching, especially in executive coaching contexts. Noer (2005) used a number of different diagnostic techniques, including focus groups and interviews, to compare coaching in Eastern and Western cultures. He found cultural differences in willingness to challenge and confront coaching behaviors that were preventing the person being coached from meeting their objectives, norms related to supervisor-­ subordinate behaviors that he attributed to high power distance cultures, and understanding of what coaches actually do. In a meta-analytic study of gender differences in mentor and mentee-reported experience, O’Brien et  al. (2010) found no gender-based differences in protégé experience or receipt of career development advice, but found that male mentees received less psychosocial support than female mentees. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, men served as mentors more frequently than women. Male mentors reported giving more career development advice than female mentors and female mentors reported providing more psychosocial support than male mentors. Sosik and Godshalk (2000) had similar findings in a study that looked at mentees’ perceptions of the degree of role modeling, psychosocial support, and career development, though their results were moderated by whether the mentor-mentee relationship was homogeneous or diversified with respect to gender. Female mentors in either type of relationship provided more role modeling and less career development than male mentors. Male mentors in homogeneous relationships had lower levels of role modeling than female mentors in either type of relationship; male mentors in homogeneous relationships also offered less psychosocial support than female mentors in diversified relationships. Finally, male mentors in diversified relationships provided more career development than was provided in any other mentor-mentee combination. Most of the literature about culture and mentoring is about mentoring for cross-­ cultural awareness rather than about cultural differences in mentoring styles. There is a lack of research that deals specifically with cultural influences on mentoring (Kent et al. 2013). Presumably Noer’s (2005) results regarding cultural differences in coaching would generalize to cultural differences in mentoring, but that supposition has not been empirically verified.

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4.4 Methods for Improving Competence in the Professional Competencies 4.4.1 Introduction To succeed, systems engineers must possess exceptional professional skills. They must be able to identify the key stakeholders and understand and negotiate the problem space, not only be technically knowledgeable on the topic at hand but be able to coach others in applying that knowledge, be able to manage team dynamics, and be empathetic and able to communicate the message to all types of stakeholders. These are the skills embodied in the professional competencies; they can be learned! Beasley et al. (2019) have noted that self-assessment of one’s proficiency is particularly important for the professional competencies because only if one recognizes the absence of the competency or the need for improvement is one likely to seek development. As Holt and Perry (2011) discuss, individuals can use self-­ assessment against competency frameworks to identify needs for personal and professional development. Presland (2018) cautions, however, that individuals may overstate their own competence in cases where they do not understand the full scope of the competency area and may understate their competence if they are not confident in it. It is suggested that readers perform a self-assessment against the professional competency levels described in the INCOSE Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland 2018) to help them decide how deeply to pursue the resources for improving the professional competencies described in this section. Because the INCOSE Professional Competencies and Soft Skills Working Group’s website (INCOSE n.d.-b) states that there is anecdotal evidence that generalized “soft skills” training is not fitting for training engineers, the focus of the methods provided is engineering-oriented or, at least, believed to be applicable across multiple disciplines. These resources are summarized in Table 4.3 and are described more fully in the following sections.

4.4.2 Communications Bostrom (1989) used the Precision Model of Communication, which is a generalized communication model that draws on communication behavior to facilitate effective communication between system developers and system users, to enhance the ability to develop shared, accurate, and complete system requirements. Meier (n.d.) states that, when people use imprecise language, there is ambiguity about what the real problem is. This, in turn, limits the ability to get actionable insights into the situation.

Coaching and mentoring

Emotional intelligence

Facilitation

Team dynamics

Negotiation

Technical leadership (innovation and creativity)

Ethics and professionalism

Professional competency Communications

Development resources Bostrom, R. 1989, ‘Successful application of communication techniques to improve the systems development process’, Information and Management, 16, 279–295. Meier, J. D. n. d., ‘How to cut through fluff with the precision model’, viewed 29 December 2020 at https:// sourcesofinsight.com/precision-­model-­for-­avoiding-­language-­pitfalls/ The American Society of Mechanical Engineers “Ethics Center” http://www.asme.org/NewsPublicPolicy/Ethics/Ethics_ Center.cfm The Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Engineering Case Studies http://ethics.tamu.edu/pritchar/an-­intro.htm The National Society of Professional Engineers Ethics Resources website http://www.nspe.org/Ethics/EthicsResources/ index.html The INCOSE Code of Ethics https://www.incose.org/about-­incose/Leadership-­Organization/code-­of-­ethics Espy, L 2019, ‘The Osborn Parnes creative problem-solving process’, viewed 30 April 2020, https://projectbliss.net/ osborn-­parnes-­creative-­problem-­solving-­process/ Ideo.org 2015, ‘The Field Guide to Human Centered Design’, viewed 18 August 2016, http://www.designkit.org/ resources/1?utm_medium=ApproachPage&utm_source=www.ideo.org&utm_campaign=FGButton Gadd, K. 2011, TRIZ For Engineers: Enabling Inventive Problem Solving. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. Chichester, West Sussex (UK). Boehm, B. and Egyed, A. 1998, ‘Software requirements negotiation: Some lessons learned’, Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Software Engineering, 19–25, Kyoto, Japan. Neeley, T. 2015, ‘Global teams that work’, Harvard Business Review, October, 74–81. Also, Bostrom and Boehm and Egyed above. Porteus, A., Howe, N., and Woon, T. n. d., ‘Facilitating group discussions’, viewed 12 May 2020 https://web.stanford.edu/ group/resed/resed/staffresources/RM/training/facilguide.html Robbins, T. 2021, ‘The DISC assessment’, viewed 5 January 2021 at https://www.tonyrobbins.com/disc/ Ni, P. C. 2014, ‘How to increase your emotional intelligence – 6 essentials’, viewed 2 January 2021 https://www. psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-­success/201410/how-­increase-­your-­emotional-­intelligence-­6-­essentials Mattone, J. 2021, ‘Executive coaching definition, stages, benefits, strategies and results’, viewed 27 December 2020 at https://johnmattone.com/blog/executive-­coaching-­definition-­benefits-­strategies-­and-­results/ Cox, L. K. 2017. ‘How to Be an Amazing Mentor: 12 Ways to Make a Positive Impact on Others’. Accessed 27 December 2020 at https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/mentor-­tips-­positive-­impact

Table 4.3  Development resources for the professional competencies

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Bostrom’s (1989) use of the Precision Model had a salutary effect on team dynamics, as the developers were better able to establish rapport with users and teams felt more productive and satisfied. Bostrom identified specific behaviors and guidelines to improve the requirements definition process which should, in turn, improve systems engineering effectiveness. These include challenging universals and generalizations (including generalizations about what one should or must do and what one cannot or must not do), clarifying verbs to gain insight into underlying actions, clarifying nouns to gain insight into who or what will be taking action, and challenging deletions such as too expensive, too much, and too many. Meier (n.d.) is a good resource for those wishing to apply the Precision Model, as it contains a mnemonic for remembering the main points. He notes, however, that one must exhibit good emotional intelligence (this author’s words, not Meier’s) by using it only when needed to clarify and not to question another’s every statement, which would create friction within the team.

4.4.3 Resources for Ethics and Professionalism Many resources specific to engineering ethics are available for self-study. Here are a few that this author has found to be particularly useful: • The American Society of Mechanical Engineers maintains an online “Ethics Center” at http://www.asme.org/NewsPublicPolicy/Ethics/Ethics_Center.cfm • The Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at Texas A and M University (TAMU) provides a series of engineering case studies, with commentary by expert practitioners. These are available at http://ethics.tamu.edu • The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) has an Ethics Resources website, which includes a link to real case studies adjudicated by their Board of Ethical Review in reference to the NSPE Code of Conduct, at http://www.nspe. org/Ethics/EthicsResources/index.html • The INCOSE Code of Ethics includes a preamble that addresses the relevance of the code to systems engineering; the fundamental principles that systems engineers must use to uphold and advance the integrity, honor, and dignity of the profession; fundamental duties to society and public infrastructure; and rules of practice for systems engineers. It can be found at https://www.incose.org/about-­ incose/Leadership-­Organization/code-­of-­ethics

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4.4.4 Using Creative Problem-Solving Methods in Technical Leadership Using creative problem-solving techniques has a variety of benefits; it (1) provides a structured approach; (2) results in several possible solutions; and (3) is collaborative and engages multiple stakeholders, thereby helping to ensure buy-in (Espy 2019). And, it is a skill that can be learned. There are numerous examples of creative problem-solving methods. Three of them – the Osborn Parnes Creative Problem-Solving Process (as described by Espy 2019), Design Thinking (Ideo.org 2015), and TRIZ (Gadd 2011) – which are all either specifically developed to address engineering or technology problems or at least applicable in that context, are discussed below. 4.4.4.1 Osborn Parnes Creative Problem-Solving Process According to Espy (2019), in its present instantiation, the Osborn Parnes Creative Problem-Solving Process involves four categories of activities: • Clarify, which involves determining the vision of the goal of the problem-­solving process, gathering the data needed to fully understand the problem space, and generating a design challenge after digging deeper into the problem and finding the root cause or real problem to focus on • Ideate or generate many options for addressing the problem using techniques like brainstorming (which was developed by Osborn) to elicit ideas and affinity diagrams to organize them • Develop, which involves generating solutions and evaluating them against selection criteria to determine which option is best • Implement, which involves developing an action plan to implement that selected solution; the work breakdown structure should include both a responsibility matrix (who is going to do what and when) and a communication plan to help get stakeholder buy-in 4.4.4.2 Design Thinking Design Thinking (DT) evolved from human-centered design, which is a process and a set of techniques used to create new solutions including products, services, environments, organizations, and modes of interaction (Ideo.org 2015). As Blanchard and Fabrycky (1998) note, design is the engine of systems engineering. Design must consider not only the technical aspects of the system, as reflected by the traditional engineering disciplines with their concerns about materials and the forces of nature, but also the needs of people, including economic, ecological, political, social, cultural, and psychological factors that may impose constraints on the design.

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Engineering has always been concerned with design to benefit people (Blanchard and Fabrycky 1998), but engineering and DT have different starting points: engineering starts with technology (concerns with feasibility, technology readiness) and business issues (viability), while DT starts with people, bringing their needs, dreams, and behaviors to the forefront of the design process (Ideo.org 2015). DT involves multidisciplinary teams and is likely to engage social scientists, lawyers, and ethicists in addition to discipline engineers; the inclusion of multiple disciplines is key to achieving the kind of divergent thinking needed to ensure that many possible solutions are explored before converging on a preferred solution (Robson 2002). As explained by Ideo.org (2015), DT includes five phases: (1) empathize, gather and organize data from the perspectives of the people who will be affected by the product; (2) define, distill the background information to identify the issues and develop a clear picture of what the project is and what it must accomplish, (3) ideate, brainstorm, discuss, and sort multiple solutions; (4) prototype, rapidly build a selected design to determine feasibility and proof-of-concept; and (5) test, find the faults and improve the prototype, ideally incorporating direct stakeholder feedback. DT begins with trying to understand the problem space and the stakeholders whose needs must be satisfied using qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups, in addition to reviews of project documents such as the request for proposals or concept of operations, to obtain data about business, system, and stakeholder requirements. A design challenge serves as the initial problem statement, which is reframed throughout the project as the design team gains additional knowledge about the problem. Rather than writing quantitative requirements and developing verification metrics, DT uses content clustering analysis to distill themes and, from them, to develop qualitative vision statements for each class of stakeholders. A synthesized vision statement that addresses the key characteristics or design criteria that a successful solution must meet is the basis for the design. DT uses brainstorming exercises structured around the design criteria reflected in the overall vision statement as the primary method for generating potential solutions. Once all ideas have been exhausted, solutions are categorized into like groups, the list of solutions is reduced by removing those thought to be infeasible, and the remainder are analyzed to identify the best options (Muzio 2011). Design Thinking does not employ formal trade studies, instead using this initial evaluation of solutions followed by rapid evolutions of prototyping and testing to evolve the final design. Design Thinking is not relevant only for “soft” systems. It is relevant in any cases where disruptive technologies have societal impacts. Take ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, which have supplanted taxi companies in many areas (Peppers 2016). Peppers notes that these services will almost certainly be supplanted by autonomous vehicles (AV), but this poses societal questions – like what happens to personal car ownership, how drivers will earn a living, how prospective passengers will assess the safety of the technology, and whether the passengers will be negatively affected by the lack of engagement with other human beings – any of which

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could affect the speed and depth of AV adoption. DT methods could prove useful in evaluating and perhaps mitigating the human impacts of these technologies. DT taps into the technical leadership competency, which involves problem-­ solving and innovation as important skills and which combines the application of technical knowledge and experience with other of the professional competencies as well as skills such as problem-solving, relationship management, accountability, and creativity and innovation. Due to its use of qualitative elicitation and analysis methods, DT relies heavily on the soft skills that are embodied in the professional competencies of communications, ethics and professionalism, negotiation, team dynamics, facilitation, and emotional intelligence (EI). 4.4.4.3 TRIZ The TRIZ methodology, a Russian problem-solving method whose name translates to the “theory of inventive problem solving” in English, provides principles for resolving contradictory requirements (Gadd 2011).2 Whereas conventional solutions typically trade off one contradiction against another, the inventive solutions developed with TRIZ allow one to solve several contradictions simultaneously (Wikipedia 2020). Like the previously discussed creative problem-solving methods, TRIZ requires both creative and logical systematic thinking but that is accomplished very differently in TRIZ than in the other methods. TRIZ is essentially a problem-solving toolkit, developed by engineers for engineers. The main tools are briefly described here. Readers needing “how to” information are referred to Gadd (2011), who provides numerous problem-solving case studies, examples, and exercises. TRIZ was developed from a comprehensive analysis of patents for technical systems to find out how the innovation had taken place. According to Wikipedia.org (2020), while conducting this analysis, Genrich Altshuller, the original developer of TRIZ, realized that a problem requires an innovative solution in cases where there is an unresolved contradiction between parameters (i.e., where improving one parameter harms another parameter). From this observation, Altshuller developed the concept of technical contradictions and, later, that of physical contradictions. His analysis focused on identifying the kinds of contradictions that had been resolved by the invention and how that was accomplished. From that, he developed a set of inventive principles and a matrix of contradictions where the rows indicate system functions or parameters that one wants to improve, the columns contain typical undesired results, and the cells contain the inventive principles that have been most commonly used to resolve the contradiction. The analysis of the contradiction, the search for one or more principles that will help resolve it, and the pursuit of an ideal solution are the key elements of TRIZ.

 All TRIZ references come from Gadd (2011) unless otherwise cited.

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Ideality, which is defined as the sum of all benefits (desired outputs  – needs/ requirements) divided by the sum of all costs (all inputs) and the sum of all harms (undesired outputs) combined, is the aim of all problem-solving. In this context, needs, benefits, and functions and features have specific meanings: a need or requirement refers to the lack or want of something; a benefit is a good output that fulfills a need – a benefit only describes what is wanted and does not offer a solution; functions, features, and resources tell the way benefits are provided. Problem-­ solving, then, is providing the right benefits to more exactly meet needs by providing or improving functions, features, or resources. In defining a problem, one first looks at the ideality of the current system and compares it to the ideality of the desired system. The problem is defined in terms of the gaps between what is wanted (requirements) and what is currently available (system features, functions, and resources). After a problem has been identified and defined, TRIZ involves the application of the “Prism of TRIZ” which takes the factual problem, generalizes the inherent contradiction and compares it to other similar conceptual problems, locates relevant conceptual solutions, and arrives at a factual solution by analyzing and combining the conceptual solutions while systematically “trimming” or simplifying them without losing functionality. Gadd (2011) has shown that this process results in far more solution options than would have been generated using simple brainstorming – use of the Prism of TRIZ provides access to routes to find solutions that are not known to the people solving the problem but are known elsewhere. There are four main tools in TRIZ plus numerous other techniques that help with their implementation. The four main tools are: • 40 Principles for solving contradictions (using the contradictions separations matrices) • Eight trends of evolution, which are used for future system development • Effects, which are the scientific and conceptual answers to questions about how to achieve functions, parameters, and transformations needed to solve the problem; there are about 2500 effects • About 100 standard conceptual solutions to solve system problems; these are based on scientific principles known to have solved similar problems The steps involved in executing the Prism of TRIZ are relatively straightforward: after performing an ideality audit to understand the needs, the problem is stated in simple, nonspecific terms as the function, parameter, or transformation that is wanted: the problem statement is phrased as a question (e.g., How can we…?); the effects database3 is used to find all known conceptual solutions; and, using TRIZ tools like Thinking in Time and Scale, the solutions are sorted into combinations that resolve contradictions, insufficiencies, and harms.

 Oxford Creativity (n.d.) provides a freely accessible effects database at www.TRIZ4engineers. com that returns lists of standard solutions, with definitions, when queried about the function, parameter, or transformation that needs resolution. 3

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TRIZ also includes team building tools (some of which are called creativity triggers) that encourage everyone on a team to generate solutions. One of these, Smart Little People, has team members invent imaginary beings that represent different parts of the problem. These beings are built on empathy, through creating a personal analogy to the little people. As the founder of Oxford Creativity, Karen Gadd has successfully introduced TRIZ to many INCOSE Corporate Advisory Board organizations including Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and BAE Systems. Her book contains case studies from all three companies. 4.4.4.4 Discussion Both the Osborn Parnes Creative Problem-Solving Process (Espy 2019) and Design Thinking (Ideo.org 2015) use a balance of divergent and convergent thinking to arrive at a solution. Both recommend brainstorming as the method of choice for divergent thinking. TRIZ also uses both divergent and convergent thinking, but does so in the opposite order from the other two methods: it first focuses down (converging) from a real factual problem to a simple conceptual problem and then locates conceptual answers that are expanded back (diverging) to a few conceptual solutions and then to all possible factual solutions (Gadd 2011). Altshuller thought that Osborn’s style of brainstorming was useful for simpler problems, those with apparent solutions or those making minor improvements to existing systems, but developed TRIZ tools to structure problem understanding, analysis, and solution for harder problems, those making major improvements, those to develop new concepts (new combinations of technologies to produce new solutions and materials), and those where discovery (new science) is needed (Gadd 2011). All three methods emphasize gaining a thorough understanding of the problem space, framing needs, and identifying gaps before moving into solution space. Recognizing that engineers like to jump to solutions, Gadd (2011, pg. 52) recommends using a “BAD Solutions Park” to capture solution concepts that come up during the problem understanding and analysis phases so that they are not lost. She calls them “bad” because, with the problem not being fully understood, these ideas will likely not completely solve the problem, though they may be useful as part of the final solution. Because Design Thinking (Ideo.org 2015) and TRIZ (Gadd 2011) have a focus on empathy, they might be helpful in increasing emotional intelligence. TRIZ also has tools for improving team dynamics.

4.4.5 Negotiation Boehm and Egyed (1998) reported successfully using the WinWin negotiation model shown in Fig. 4.2 in requirements development efforts. Win conditions reflect stakeholder needs and concerns with the system under development. Readers

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Fig. 4.2  WinWin Artifact Relationships and Taxonomy. (From Boehm and Egyed 1998)

familiar with the popular games Minecraft, League of Legends, and Clash Royale, to name a few, will be familiar with win conditions as one or more specific strategies to achieve victory. Strategies may be primary, secondary, or backup and may also reflect possible but unlikely sequences of events (Hearthstone 2018). It is not difficult to imagine what the win conditions for these games are. Unfortunately, Boehm and Egyed (1998) did not specify what the win conditions might have been (and the link to the full report, where the win conditions presumably could be found, was broken). Egyed and Boehm (1997), writing about the same exercise, say that they suggested a set of stakeholder goals and implementation options for the participants to use while negotiating a satisfactory set of system requirements, but did not detail what they were. Participants were not bound to use these win conditions and solution options. Presumably, given the nature of the project (a library archiving project addressing a variety of media), the win conditions would be things like “Stakeholders need to be able to search for maps by country, region, and date of issue.” If a win condition is not controversial, it is adopted by an agreement; otherwise, it becomes an issue that documents the conflict (usually involving personnel or other resources) that must be resolved (Boehm and Egyed 1998). Options are alternative solutions, suggested by stakeholders, to resolve issues. The model can be used with either spiral (iterative) or waterfall processes, as it incorporates elements of both of these methods as well as other models. Agreements are used to adopt an option, thus resolving the issue.

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The WinWin model is also linked to a domain-specific taxonomy, structured around the tables of contents of the requirement documents for the various projects, allowing participants to track their artifacts to the taxonomy and ensure that there is adequate coverage of the domain (Boehm and Egyed 1998). Negotiation outcomes were graded against a lifecycle objective (LCO), which included requirements, operational concept, architecture, and lifecycle plan, among other artifacts (Boehm and Egyed 1998). Boehm and Egyed reported the following results: • Most of the win conditions were not controversial (i.e., did not involve issues) and most of the issues were not coupled to other issues and were easy to resolve; this suggests that negotiation models should focus on handling both simple and complex relationships (where complexity is defined in terms of the number/proportion of win conditions involved in issues, the number/proportion of issues with multiple options, and the proportion of win conditions to options and agreements) • The LCO package quality could be predicted by team experience, iterative negotiation, and efficiency in producing artifacts; there was a strong positive correlation between iterative negotiation and LCO grade and a strong negative correlation between a waterfall approach and LCO grade. Not surprisingly, teams with high experience produced better-quality LCO packages, in part because they were more efficient than teams with low experience • The duration of negotiation was negatively related to the quality of the LCO, with teams that took longer having lower-quality artifacts. This is moderated by another variable, the amount of effort put into the negotiation, which was more important than duration to overall quality. This suggests that negotiation schedules can be compressed, with the caveat that there must be sufficient team experience and domain knowledge to support rapid development • Stakeholder engagement varied throughout the projects, with users and customers being most engaged in early stages and developers being more engaged in later stages, suggesting that the use of integrated project teams would be beneficial According to Boehm and Egyed (1998), the WinWin method increased cooperation, focused participants on key issues, and reduced friction (especially if the group norm was to give feedback, have collective responses, and be flexible) and equalized participants, suggesting that the WinWin method improved team dynamics. Following on the observation about using an iterative approach, Boehm and Egyed (1998) suggest using concurrent prototyping and negotiation.

4.4.6 Team Dynamics Neeley (2015) says that the major factor that distinguishes teams that work well from those that do not is social distance; high social distance results in less successful teaming because team members struggle to develop effective interactions. She

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proposes the SPLIT framework – structure, process, language, identity, and technology – each of which can be a source of social distance, as a method for dealing with dysfunction in multicultural or dispersed teams. The structural dimensions that contribute to social distance are the locations and number of sites where team members work and the number of workers at each site (Neeley 2015). Neeley says that the fundamental issue here is the perception of power, with the majority being seen as more powerful than the minority; collocated members of the majority may also have a strong allegiance to one another and not much allegiance to other team members. According to Neeley, to counter power imbalances, the leader must: • Reinforce the message that the team is a single entity and encourage (enforce?) sensitivity to cultural differences • Remind the team of their common purpose and channel their efforts toward business goals • Be available to the team and provide team members with constructive feedback as well as messages reinforcing the point that their contributions matter Empathy helps reduce social distance (Neeley 2015). Leaders must build “deliberate moments” into their processes for virtual meetings to help team members build empathy; these include: • Providing feedback on routine interactions among team members and encouraging “reflected knowledge” or an awareness of how others see oneself (EI again) • Factoring unstructured time into the beginning of meetings and encouraging informal discussions about work and personal matters to allow team members to get to know one another better • Encouraging disagreement about the team’s tasks and the process by which those tasks get done and framing this as an opportunity to contribute ideas (i.e., brainstorming) Multicultural teams are likely to experience differences with respect to fluency with the chosen common language, which can lead to heightened social distance and perceived power imbalances (Neeley 2015). To counteract this, leaders must enforce three rules for communicating in meetings: • “Dial down dominance” of fluent speakers by having them slow their speaking pace; use fewer idioms, slang phrases, and cultural references; limit air time; seek confirmation of the listener’s understanding; and listen actively • “Dial up engagement” of less fluent speakers by ensuring that they contribute, discouraging them from reverting to their native language, encouraging them to seek confirmation that they are being understood, and empowering them to speak up if they have not understood something • Balance participation to ensure equal time for speaking and listening; draw out contributions from all team members, especially from those who are less fluent; and clarify and interpret content People define themselves in terms of many variables – gender, ethnicity, affiliations, etc. – which collectively comprise their identity (Neeley 2015). A person’s

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behavior may mean different things depending on their identity; misperceptions about the meaning of behavior is a major source of social distance and leads to mistrust. Leaders of multicultural teams must avoid making assumptions about what behaviors mean. They should instead ask questions and provide answers as a way of establishing two-way communication, thereby instructing but also facilitating to help team members understand their observations of one another’s behavior and gain insights into their identities. Technology can either increase or decrease social distance (Neeley 2015). As Jelavic and Salter (2014) noted, different cultures have different preferences for modes of communication, with high uncertainty avoiding cultures preferring written communications. In deciding which mode of communication to use, leaders should consider the following three issues, whether: • To use instant communication technologies, which are valuable when trying to persuade others to one’s viewpoint, or delayed technologies, if the purpose is merely to convey information • Multiple platforms should be used to ensure that messages are understood and remembered • The leader models the expected behavior regarding communication technology use and responsiveness to communications for team members Neeley (2015) says that leaders must attend to all five aspects of the SPLIT framework if they are to manage social distance effectively and maximize team performance. She notes that decisions about structure create opportunities for good process, which can mitigate language fluency differences and identity issues. Leaders who do these things while employing technology appropriately to manage team communications are likely to see social distance shrink, resulting in respectful interactions that drive innovation. The DISC assessment (which stands for the four personality factors of dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness) discussed in Sect. 4.4.8 is most often used in a team-based setting (Robbins 2021). Robbins notes that it is beneficial because identifying the communication needs of the individuals on a team facilitates better conflict management and overall stronger cohesiveness.

4.4.7 Facilitation Porteus et al.’s (n.d.) article on facilitating group discussions is a good resource for people who want to improve their facilitation skills. Briefly, they recommend the following: • Preparing for the session, which includes deciding who will facilitate, identifying the goals of the session, and planning the format and physical environment to encourage participants to interact with one another

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• Starting off, including introducing the purpose and organization of the session, doing introductions, and setting ground rules (Porteus et al. provide suggested ground rules) • Getting the discussion started by posing an interesting question or set of questions; questions should be open-ended (i.e., they should require more than a yes or no response) and may be group-oriented, individually oriented, or factual in nature • Self-checking during the session (using EI!) to ensure a neutral stance and to avoid too much lecturing or being put in the position of being “the expert” • Gatekeeping, which includes acknowledging contributions, keeping the focus on the topic and on ideas not individuals, synthesizing statements, and minimizing disruptions including those from people interrupting, inappropriate humor, and side conversations • Encouraging participation by creating a safe environment and reinforcing patterns that encourage participants to speak to one another • Advancing the discussion by asking follow-up questions, encouraging risk-­ taking, paraphrasing what people say, and clarifying what participants have said • Wrapping up by summarizing the major points of the discussion, discussing how the session went, emphasizing the commitment to confidentiality (i.e., non-­ attribution of discussion points), and thanking everyone for their participation Porteus et al. (n.d.) also give tips for troubleshooting during facilitated discussion, including tips for dealing with people who monopolize the conversation or who interrupt; hostility, inappropriate content, or conflict; and running out of time. Additionally, Porteus et al. (n.d.) suggest that the facilitators do an immediate post-session review to reflect on the content and process of the discussion and to document lessons learned to improve future facilitations.

4.4.8 Emotional Intelligence Self-awareness of one’s patterns of behavior and their impact on others is a key aspect of emotional intelligence. The DISC assessment examines how an individual ranks in four areas of behavior – dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness – which everyone has, but at varying strengths depending on the individual (Robbins 2021). People with a high dominance score tend to be direct, results-oriented, competitive, and decisive problem-solvers. Those with a high influence score tend to be persuasive, enthusiastic, and optimistic. Those with a high steadiness score tend to be patient, stable, understanding team players. Finally, those with a high conscientiousness score tend to be analytical, precise, and objective. The assessment provides a common language that people can use to understand themselves and others (Robbins 2021). A free copy of the assessment tool is available at https://www.tonyrobbins.com/disc/

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A Google search on the phrase “How to improve emotional intelligence” yielded over 25 million hits. Many of these were for companies selling training programs, but there were also a large number that give tips for improving one’s EI. Harvard Professional Development ([HPD] 2019) recommends taking a 360-degree emotional intelligence assessment as a way to gain insight into one’s EI components and impact on others. HPD notes that developing one’s EI is an ongoing process (that can continue for as long as the person wants to improve their EI [Stahl 2018]) and one that differs from person to person. HPD offers three creative suggestions of things to do to improve EI: • Recognize one’s emotion and name the feelings, which helps to temper reactivity to the feelings • Ask for feedback from managers, colleagues, friends, and family regarding how well one handles conflict, empathizes, and deals with difficult situations (i.e., the aforementioned 360-degree assessment) • Read stories with complex characters to gain insight into their thoughts, motivations, and actions, which may help improve empathy and enhance social awareness Ni (2014) describes six “abilities” that one needs to improve to effect better EI, with tips on how to improve them: • The ability to reduce negative emotions, such that they do not influence how one feels about a situation by avoiding personalizing another person’s behavior and providing oneself with multiple options for any given situation so that there are strong alternatives for moving forward, is the top priority for those wishing to improve their emotional intelligence. Stahl (2018) also has this as her number one item for improving EI • The ability to stay calm and manage stress, which can make the difference between being assertive versus reactive. Ni suggests splashing cold water on one’s face and getting fresh air as a way to reduce anxiety. He also suggests engaging in intense aerobic exercise when one is fearful, depressed, or discouraged. Stahl (2018) recommends identifying one’s stressors and engaging proactively to have less of them • The ability to be assertive, express difficult emotions, and set appropriate boundaries. Ni describes the XYZ technique for dealing with difficult emotions – I feel X when you do Y in situation Z • The ability to stay proactive when interacting with a difficult person. Tricks for staying proactive include counting to ten or taking a time out before reacting, putting oneself in the other person’s shoes (seeing the situation from the other person’s perspective, which Stahl [2018] calls practicing empathy), and identifying and asserting consequences for the other person if that person does not shift to a more positive position (Ni) • The ability to bounce back from adversity, which Ni says can be accomplished by asking oneself constructive questions based on learning and priorities to gain

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the proper perspective to help tackle the situation at hand. Stahl (2018) notes that how one reacts to adversity either sets up success or creates a failure mode • The ability to express intimate emotions in close, personal relationships and to respond to the intimate person when they do the same. This is key to maintaining the intimate relationship Stahl (2018) includes being mindful of one’s vocabulary and using specific language to communicate deficiencies, which improves the likelihood of addressing the problem, in her tips for improving emotional intelligence. This is just another example of the interrelatedness of the professional competencies – in this case, EI and communications.

4.4.9 Coaching and Mentoring Coaching is another area having a large number of Google search hits, almost all of them for training providers. One exception is Mattone (2021), who provides an outline of the coaching process, which begins with a meeting between the coaching client and the sponsoring executive team to discuss the goals of the coaching relationship, gain context and background information, and discuss the proposed roadmap of how to get there. Mattone suggests conducting a 360-degree assessment with the client’s key stakeholders and having the client also conduct a self-­ assessment of their leadership strengths and areas for improvement. The next step in the coaching relationship is helping the client create a core purpose statement that captures the essence of the leader the client wants to become, which qualities they must develop in order to do so, and what they want to accomplish (Mattone 2021). The client then meets with their stakeholders to share their purpose statement and solicit feedback, which is then used to finalize the client’s leadership development plan (Mattone 2021). The coach provides ongoing support and guidance to help the client measure the progress they are making toward their development goals. The coaching relationship ends when the client reaches their development goals (Keydifferences.com 2018). Cox (2017) offers the following tips on how to be a good mentor: • First, know yourself – think about your own style and readiness and the kind of commitment you want to make • Set expectations with the prospective mentee at the beginning – both the mentor and mentee will have expectations, which need to be clear and congruent if the relationship is to be successful • Get to know your mentee on a personal level – use active listening, ask open-­ ended questions to dig deeper, and act as a sounding board • Know when to wait before giving feedback – if the right information isn’t available or the experience or emotional response is not conducive to giving advice,

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pause to allow time to gather more information, talk to other resources, and formulate an appropriate response Improve your emotional intelligence Do not make assumptions about or apply stereotypes to the mentee Be open to sharing your own mistakes and failures – this helps build trust and makes it more likely that the mentee will share theirs Celebrate the mentee’s achievements Both the mentee and the mentor give to and take from the relationship; mentors should give more than they take Provide resources for the skills the mentee needs to develop Have a long-term mindset Be a positive role model

4.5 Future Research My personal experience combined with the literature on gender-based differences suggest a plethora of research questions relative to the professional competencies that could be pursued in the future. This section describes a few ideas: • Scope of the gender-bias problem in systems engineering – Anecdotal information, including the relatively larger proportion of US female systems engineers (16%; Zippia 2021) than of US women in traditional engineering disciplines like electrical engineering and mechanical engineering (12% and 9%, respectively; Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020), suggests that the gender-bias problem is not as prevalent in systems engineering as it is in other engineering disciplines. This is presumably because women find the broader view taken in systems engineering more attractive than that of traditional engineering disciplines. This question is worthy of systematic study because it has not been borne out in informal conversations with female systems engineers in forums such as INCOSE’s Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering initiative. • Gender-based differences in reactions to unethical behaviors – In this author’s own (unpublished) research, which asked for self-reports of what respondents had done when they actually observed various types of unethical behaviors (e.g., denying co-authorship when it was deserved or falsifying records) or what they expected that they would do should such situations arise in the future, women were more likely to say that they had or would report the behavior up the chain of command, while men were more likely to say that they would act to stop the behavior. Our interpretation of these results is that women were more likely than men to be rule followers (company policy was to report) and to avoid personal risk. It is not known whether these results would generalize beyond the organization in which the research was conducted. It would be interesting to conduct such a survey across a broader population.

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• Team performance in various organizational contexts – Research has shown that in male-dominated professions, like most of the engineering disciplines, gender diversity has a negative effect on team performance (Bear and Woolley 2011). A comparison of the performance of gender-diverse teams and same-gender teams in traditional engineering disciplines versus in systems engineering could aid our understanding of how organizational context influences team performance in these engineering areas. While it would be preferable to do field research on these research questions, that is likely not possible for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that most organizations are reluctant to release results that portray them in a negative light. The first two research topics described above could be explored via surveys. The third research topic would be amenable to exploration in a university research setting, having teams formed using graduate students in, say, electrical, mechanical, and systems engineering work on a problem in either mixed-gender or same-gender teams, using self- and peer assessments of group performance.

4.6 Summary and Conclusions Proficiency in the professional competencies is a critical factor in the overall success of systems engineering efforts. As Beasley et al. (2019, pg. 314) state: Wherever applied, the nature of the systems approach, with its holistic big picture view, means influencing, communicating between and understanding people will always be key. People will depend on their professional competencies as much as their technical ones. The systems engineering profession must recognize that, and look to provide guidance/advice on how to improve/develop them in the individuals in the profession.

Further, because systems engineers have an ethical responsibility to represent a diverse set of stakeholders beyond their clients and employers (INCOSE n.d.-b), the emerging leadership areas for systems engineering – diversity, inclusion, empowerment, equity, and mentoring (Squires, personal communication 2020)  – take on added importance. In looking through a number of websites that provide career advice for engineers, common themes emerged regarding what employers look for in their engineers both when making hiring decisions and when making promotion decisions – things that differentiate them from being “just” an engineer. In addition to technical competence, employers want engineers who are: • Good communicators, able to translate their specialized knowledge into terms that people outside their field can understand • Resilient, exhibiting interpersonal adaptability among different kinds of people, problems, and situations • Team players, able to work collaboratively with others • Technical leaders

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• Problem solvers, able to work creatively to innovate to solve real-world problems As a result, systems engineers have an imperative to develop and continuously improve their competence in the professional competencies. Developing in the professional competencies will result in engineers who are more well-rounded, have enhanced EI and interpersonal skills, and have improved their overall engineering abilities (Ryan n.d.). This should enable the engineer to obtain more interesting and challenging assignments, get along well with their co-­ workers and clients, and perhaps even progress to higher levels in their careers. This chapter has provided promising strategies for how engineers can improve their competence in the soft skills, emphasizing those methods that cross-cut several of the highly interrelated competency areas and/or emerging leadership areas: • Bostrom’s (1989) use of the Precision Model of Communication for requirements development was suggested as a way to improve in the communications and team dynamics professional competencies. • Four engineering-specific websites were provided for development of the ethics and professionalism competency. • Three creative problem-solving methods – the Osborn Parnes Creative Problem-­ Solving Process (Espy 2019), Design Thinking (Ideo.org 2015), and TRIZ (Gadd 2011) – were described in some detail. • Boehm and Egyed’s (1998) WinWin Negotiation Model was provided; this model also improves team dynamics. • Neeley’s (2015) SPLIT framework was also provided to help improve competence in team dynamics. • The DISC model (Robbins 2021) was suggested as a tool for gaining insight into one’s personality traits  – which should help improve emotional intelligence because self-awareness is key to EI – and, if used in a team context, for improving team dynamics. • Tips for improving EI from Harvard Professional Development (2019), Ni (2014), and Stahl (2018) were shared. • Mattone’s (2021) outline of the coaching process and Cox’s (2017) tips for mentors rounded out the development materials. While studying these methods is important, it will not necessarily lead to performance improvements – practice is key! Engineers should look for opportunities to exercise their soft skills. Engineering provides a lot of opportunity in this arena. For example, the empathy component of EI as it pertains to engineering is being in tune with a customer’s needs. In addition, engineering is fundamentally about problem-­ solving, which means finding new ways to apply existing knowledge; this requires creativity and innovation. Because the INCOSE competencies are highly interrelated, developing in the professional competencies might also result in improvements in other competency areas. For example, development in ethics and professionalism, which requires critical thinking, may also result in improvement in the critical thinking core competency. A partial mapping of the interrelationships among the various competencies

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was presented at the 2021 INCOSE International Symposium. That presentation is available upon request from this author.

4.6.1 Personal Observations Regarding the Professional Competencies In my 35 years of experience as a systems engineer, engineering manager, human resources (HR) manager, and project director, I have had the opportunity to use and teach most of the professional competencies. This section contains some of my reflections on those experiences. 4.6.1.1 Personal Experience with Practical Application in Communications I have used Hofstede’s model to explain cultural differences in communication styles when teaching a graduate-level engineering management course (project management plus systems engineering). When I last taught the course, I had three students from Africa. Each expressed appreciation for the model and said that it helped them understand US communication styles, particularly with respect to nonverbal communications. Similarly, Hofstede’s model helped me understand the communication styles of two female Chinese students in the class. 4.6.1.2 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Ethics Resources Part of my job duties while at Los Alamos National Laboratory was providing professional development for engineers. In that capacity, I developed an initial training on engineering ethics that covered the state Code of Conduct, codes from various professional societies, and Laboratory policies related to ethics and professionalism. Because the licensed professional engineers had a requirement to have four Professional Development Units every 2 years, we decided that we should also offer in-house developed refresher training. The case studies found on the TAMU and NSPE websites were valuable resources for developing the refreshers. Each online refresher consisted of five or six cases that would be rolled out in multiple segments about which the trainees were asked to make ethical judgments based on the New Mexico Administrative Code, the NPSE Code, or Laboratory policy to reinforce the initial training on those codes and policies. They could be asked things like what portion of a code applied in the situation, what the priority of elements of the code were in the given situation, or what appropriate next steps

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would be for the people involved in the case. Feedback was given as to the rationale for the “correct” answer. Clark (2010) describes case studies as being of one of two forms. The first type uses short and specific situations in which the problem is apparent. The learner is asked to demonstrate his/her problem-solving ability by applying principles that have been taught previously. The second type is not so much about a problem needing a solution, but about appreciating different perspectives on a situation. This type provides complex information that requires deep analysis and focuses on problem identification as well as finding solutions. The case studies used in the engineering ethics refresher courses are more in keeping with Clark’s (2010) first type, as they are typically short (one page or less) and require the learner to apply the knowledge gained from the initial training experience. Many of the engineering ethics case studies used in the refresher training do, however, share one characteristic of Clark’s second type, namely, the need to consider multiple perspectives on the problem. As the case study unfolds, the learner may be asked to take the position of the involved worker, coworkers, consultants, or managers. The courseware was designed with branching, wherein the learner takes different paths though the material depending upon the correctness of their responses. Selection of the “best” response to a particular feature of the case leads either to consideration of additional portions of the case or to a new case. Selection of a response that is not the best option leads to feedback as to why the response is not the best option and, in some cases, the opportunity to further explore the rationale underlying the “best” response by answering additional questions. The approach of rolling out in the cases in increments proved particularly useful for exploring ethics because it allowed exploration of developing situations, particularly developing situations in which there was ambiguity as to the correct course of action. 4.6.1.3 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Creative Problem-Solving Methods (Exhibiting Technical Leadership) My personal experience with creative problem-solving is limited to the application of Design Thinking; although I am obviously aware of Osborne Parnes and TRIZ, I have not applied either one. I have given a brief lecture (1 h or so) to a mixed gender group of primarily mechanical and civil/structural engineering graduate students attending the Laboratory’s summer schools and have also given an 8-week course to a group of female college-level students participating in a professional development program called Future Female Leaders in Engineering (FFLIE) who were assigned to work on an actual project using DT as the method. In the short sessions with mixed-gender audiences, the women seemed more accepting of DT than the men. This was evidenced in the style used during the

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discussion session, with the males often using challenging language and the females mostly seeking to understand. The goal of the FFLIE student project was to design a product that would allow the Laboratory’s Bradbury Science Museum to continue their educational initiative affordably while promoting quality of learning and student engagement. One of the projects produced several learning modules on Newton’s laws of motion, with easy-­ to-­follow instructions and a fun “mystery project” activity. The other project produced a prototype of a hands-on demonstration of how mRNA works. Both products were devised, prototyped, and tested using the principles and methods of Design Thinking. The Museum Director was impressed by both the solutions produced and the process used for the projects and has invited the FFLIE program back to the museum to do other Design Thinking projects in support of their educational mission. The young women appreciated the process as well and understood it to be like a qualitative version of systems engineering (which they had had a course in during the previous summer). The social components – interacting with the museum director and staff as well as people who served as stand-ins for the children, teachers, and members of the public who would be museum patrons during initial the problem development and the rapid prototype and test iterations – were particularly appealing and a feature that they said was not usually experienced in the course of their discipline engineering work. 4.6.1.4 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Negotiation As a systems engineer I have had many opportunities to negotiate requirements. As a project director, it was negotiations over project scope, schedule, and budget. And, as a manager, I negotiated salaries and promotions for my workers with my manager peers. I must confess, though, that I was unaware of Boehm and Egyed’s (1998) WinWin model until a colleague turned me onto it after reviewing an early version of this chapter. Instead, I have been a devotee of Fisher and Ury’s book Getting to YES (now in its third edition) since it was first published in 1981. Two principles from the book have been especially useful to me in my negotiations: (1) separate the people from the problem and (2) negotiate on interests, not positions. Merle Lefkoff, a consultant who I worked with extensively in the 1990s, visualized the latter as pouring positions into a funnel and asking why at each imaginary spiral movement through the funnel, such that by the end you would get at the underlying interest. I figured that Merle knew what she was talking about – she had been involved in the Serb-Bosnian Peace negotiations among others – and I used this analogy successfully while facilitating negotiations many times over in the course of my career, often facilitating negotiations among very senior members of the organization.

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4.6.1.5 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Team Dynamics Among the most challenging team dynamics situations I ever encountered was when I was serving as one of three project directors on an enterprise planning project that involved Laboratory workers (matrixed from the business units that would be receiving the system’s functionality) and Oracle consultants. We had insisted that the 100 plus person project team be collocated, thinking that that would reduce social distance and reinforce allegiance to the project team and the project’s business goals. It worked, up to a point, but it was not without problems. Although both the Laboratory workers and the consultants were US citizens, there were large cultural differences between them. While the Laboratory employees viewed their time at the Lab as their career and had loyalty of place, the consultants viewed the Lab as a duty station that they would move on from. As is perhaps typical for consultants, they viewed themselves as experts in their disciplines and perceived (quite correctly in some cases) the Lab folks as not having the same level of expertise; this created power dominance issues in which the Lab employees thought that the consultants were working for them and the consultants thought that they were there to direct the work. We countered this by giving feedback on the release teams’ interactions and did individual counseling when needed. In addition, the matrixed nature of the project organization created problems for the Laboratory employees with their home organization. The project office was located in the townsite about 15  min away from the main campus. Because the workers could not get to their home offices easily or often (some no longer even had office space on the main campus), they had increased social distance from the home organization and felt that they were “out of sight, out of mind” which resulted in them feeling that they were not being treated as favorably in terms of salary and promotions as those who had not been matrixed out. The project directors were able to intervene on the salary issue  – we provided performance feedback to the line managers which, in turn, was used in the formula used to calculate salary increases. This worked better for those of us project directors who had a good relationship with the line managers. In my case, among the workers whose performance I was assessing were those responsible for the HR release. I had come to the project from the position of HR Director, so knew those managers well! 4.6.1.6 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Facilitation Presland (2018) indicates that expert facilitators should mentor others in facilitation methods and logistics. While not claiming to be experts, Ann Hodges and I have shared observations gleaned while co-facilitating a pair of INCOSE workshops on integrating systems engineering and program/project management: • Icebreakers and small group exercises are good ways to help people get to know each other, which helps them feel safe and confident, and more willing to take risks and explore new ideas

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• If possible, participants should be assigned to their small groups such that a diversity of perspectives is represented; having coworkers in the same small group often leads to two-way conversations that are organization specific, not generalizable • The use of individual brainstorming followed by group affinity analysis is effective both in terms of bringing out individual experiences and generalizing them and for time management. A go-round debriefing, in which small group members add to the observations of other small groups rather than repeating common points, is also effective for time management • Facilitators need to be flexible to deal with logistical issues on the fly. The timing of both working sessions and breaks needs to be realistic and take into account the physical configuration of the location  – does the configuration enable exchanges among participants or is it classroom style and focused on the facilitator (if the latter, is it possible to quickly reconfigure the space?); how far away are the break area, restrooms, etc.; and will participants be able to get there and back in the allotted time? • It is tempting to leave the flip charts and Post-It™ notes used in the workshop behind, but there is a danger there that we experienced firsthand: If there is a desire to do post-processing of the data after the workshop, the summary information may not suffice. One reviewer of the conference paper documenting the workshops suggested that the outcomes be summarized by ranking the issues or using tables or plots. Without the Post-Its™ and flip charts containing the raw data, it was impossible to do this because there was no way to assess the frequency with which issues were raised 4.6.1.7 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Emotional Intelligence I have used a technique similar to Ni’s (2014) XYZ technique when conducting lessons learned exercises – I would do X again because it got positive result Y in situation Z or I would not do A again because it got negative result B in situation C. Stated in this way, the technique follows Fisher and Ury’s (1981) advice to disentangle the person from the actions or behaviors s being addressed; Ni gives similar advice. Ni (2014) also cites the ability to bounce back from adversity or personal resilience as one of the essential “abilities” for good EI. I agree with this and have written fairly extensively on how improving in the professional competencies helps build resilience (Hahn 2021). My conclusion is that, because of the close relationship between personal resilience traits (as described by Spacey 2017) and the professional competencies, developing oneself in the professional competencies should further the development of personal resilience. This, in turn, should enable the ability to overcome adversity, whether professional or personal.

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4.6.1.8 Personal Experience with Practical Application of Coaching and Mentoring I have served as both an executive coach, a mentor, and a mentee. The executive coaching was with C Suite level people as well as division level managers. The two things I have learned about executive coaching is that it is not a service you can “sell” – the executive has to want it and seek it out – and outside consultants will always be “smarter” than internal consultants. When I was working in the Laboratory Director’s office, a consultant was brought in to “help” the internal staff. One day, in a fit of pique, I looked the Director in the eye and said “I’ve read all the same books as he (the consultant) has.” Fortunately, that didn’t get me fired! I had both formal and informal mentoring relationships with a large number of people ranging from students to supervisory personnel over the years. I mostly gave career advice but also provided emotional support when needed. I found mentoring to be a very rewarding experience, especially in the cases where I was mentoring managers dealing with employee relations issues – I was able to counsel them in ways that I wouldn’t have been able to see when I was in the same situations. My experience as a mentee was much less satisfying than my experiences as a mentor, in part because I thought that my mentor didn’t really take it seriously – she seemed only to be serving as a mentor to further her own career. This motivation was not at all illegitimate – the Laboratory has an expectation that workers aspiring to the highest levels of the engineer, scientist, and manager job titles will mentor others (in fact, failing to mentor is the reason that many engineers and scientists get “stuck” at the fourth level of a six-level progression) – but it didn’t leave me with the feeling that she really cared about me. This was further reinforced by her behavior – she often cancelled meetings with little notice or just failed to show up and often insisted that I bring her lunch!

4.6.2 Conclusions Related to Gender and Culture There is nothing in the literature to suggest that men are “better” at the professional competencies or will be more successful at applying them than women (or vice versa) or that people from one culture are “better” at these competencies than people from another culture. They are just different. In their research on problem-solving styles, for example, Grosse and Simpson (2008) found cultural differences but make the point that one style is not better than another – both have positive and negative aspects. This observation no doubt holds true for gender-related differences regarding the professional competencies as well, suggesting that women and men are equally likely to succeed if they are able to leverage their positives and minimize their negatives when applying them in the

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practice of systems engineering. This makes it all the more important that people assess themselves to understand their strengths and weaknesses relative to the professional competencies. Where gender differences in the professional competencies were manifest, they were mostly attributable to differences in stereotypical psychological traits or qualities. Goman (2016) says that gender-based differences in communication styles emerge from differences in warmth (a stereotypically female trait) and authority (a male trait). Women’s ethical judgments come from a relativistic (relationship-based, typically female) perspective, while men’s come from a justice perspective (based on objectivity and abstraction and typically male) (Stedham et  al. 2007). Stereotypically male agentic behaviors explain the differences between the sexes’ negotiation behaviors (Stuhlmacher and Linnabery 2013). Finally, task (male) versus relationship (female) orientation accounted for differences in a number of the professional competencies, including communications (vomSaal 2005), technical leadership (Lieberman 2017), team dynamics (Bear and Woolley 2011), and coaching and mentoring (O’Brien et al. 2010). Many of the cultural differences regarding the professional competencies for systems engineers can be understood in the context of Hofstede et al.’s (2010) cultural model, which provides a lens to help understand other cultures. In looking at PPU-B’s (2017) description of high- and low-context cultures as regards communication, one sees that there are elements related to individualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence versus restraint embedded within them. As regards technical leadership, Van Duesen et  al. (2002) found that cultural differences were driven by individualistic versus collectivist perspectives. Jonasson and Lauring (2012) attribute cultural difference in ethics and professionalism to individual versus group orientation. Scholtens and Dam (2007) add masculine versus feminine orientation, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance to the list of drivers of cultural differences in this area. Understanding cultural differences is especially important for business ethics, where mismatches between values of countries or industries may make international business difficult (Kerzner 2017). Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity versus femininity all contribute to cultural differences in negotiation (LeBaron 2003). Cultural differences in team dynamics are rooted in societal differences in group versus individual orientation (Solomon 2018) and power distance (Neeley 2015). Jelavic and Salter (2014) note that cultural differences in facilitation come from masculine versus feminine orientation, high versus low power distance, short- versus long-term orientation, and uncertainty avoidance. EI was not explicitly linked to any of Hofstede et al.’s (2010) model elements, but because EI is related to so many other of the professional competencies, it is indirectly linked to many of Hofstede et al.’s elements. Finally, cultural differences in the coaching and mentoring competency are related to differences in power distance.

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4.6.3 Final Thoughts Each of the professional competencies enables one or more of the systems engineering emerging leadership areas. This is because systems engineers must interact with a diverse group of stakeholders, which promotes diversity and inclusion – and this applies to all of the professional competencies. In addition, the ethics and professionalism, technical leadership, team dynamics, facilitation, and emotional intelligence competencies all promote equity. The technical leadership, facilitation, emotional intelligence, and coaching and mentoring support empowerment. As noted previously, because people who are operating at a lead practitioner or expert level in the professional competencies are expected to mentor others, the competencies all support the emerging area of mentorship. The key to successful interactions with individuals of a different gender or culture is using one’s emotional intelligence to recognize these differences and respond to them appropriately. Lieberman (2017) provides several generic tips for overcoming misunderstandings due to gender-specific differences; these include resisting the urge to stereotype, being aware of the gender-based differences in communications styles and of unconscious biases, recognizing that different leadership styles can be effective, being conscious of one’s use of time and space in one’s interactions with others, and, most of all, learning about male and female communication styles and learning to be able to use both. Obviously, many of these tips relate to improving one’s emotional intelligence. LeBaron (2003) provides similar tips related to cultural differences. Lieberman (2017) says that understanding the different strengths that the different genders bring to the organization is key for creating equity in the organization, thus addressing one of systems engineering’s emerging leadership areas. Social diversity in teams – gender, ethnic, racial – enhances creativity because it introduces informational diversity (Phillips 2014). Therefore, using mixed-gender (and multicultural) teams in the innovation process should lead to better outcomes. Bear and Woolley (2011) caution, however, that the effects of gender diversity on team performance must be interpreted in light of organizational context because some research has shown that in male-dominated professions, like most of the engineering disciplines, gender diversity has a negative effect on team performance.

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was Senior Executive Advisor to the Associate Director for Engineering Sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). She was responsible for development of processes and tools to promote engineering capability; professional development of R&D engineers and technicians; and engineering capability assessment. She is the author of the LANL Conduct of Engineering for R&D program; was the developer of and instructor for the R&D Engineering Primer course used to indoctrinate new R&D employees; and was a Visiting Research Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School serving as mentor for a project that developed a systems engineering tool, called the Mission Assurance Support Tool (MAST), for LANL.  She retired from LANL after nearly 25  years of service. Prior to moving to LANL, Dr. Hahn worked at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, serving as a Senior Scientist in the Human Factors Research Unit for five years. Dr. Hahn has authored over 70 refereed papers and presentations for venues including the INCOSE International Symposium, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the World Multi-conference on Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics Conference, where she was a keynote speaker. She holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (Human Factors Option) from Virginia Tech and is an Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP), certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and ABET Program Evaluator (PEV).

Chapter 5

Knowledge Sharing and Mentorship as a Systems Engineering Process: Stories and Methods from Industry Experts Rachel Elliott , Lindsey Beaubien , Gabriela Coe , Amanda C. Muller , Christy M. Predaina , Sara Stiles Lauren P. Toth , and Kena Cline

,

Abstract  In many technical fields, interpersonal dynamics receive less emphasis than technical performance. However, studies show that awareness and influence of the team dynamics by the project lead is a key factor in determining project success. As such, mentoring and knowledge sharing should be incorporated into systems engineering processes with the same level of rigor as technical considerations. This chapter is based on the experiences of systems engineering leaders who enabled technical success by applying systems engineering principles to engineer their team as a system. A cohort of International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) certified Systems Engineering Professionals embarked on a series of interviews with 24 female industry experts to identify common themes in systems engineering leadership and key enablers for project success. The following compounding themes R. Elliott (*) Northrop Grumman, San Diego, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. Beaubien · C. M. Predaina · S. Stiles Northrop Grumman, Linthicum, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] G. Coe Northrop Grumman, Dulles, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. C. Muller Northrop Grumman, Falls Church, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] L. P. Toth Peraton, Pelham, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Cline Parsons, Elkridge, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_5

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were identified during these interviews: (1) systems engineering as an enabler for effective team dynamics and the impact to project success; (2) team dynamics and the importance of communication in creating and maintaining effective systems engineering teams; (3) communication and its role in knowledge sharing and team performance; and (4) knowledge transfer facilitated by mentorship. This chapter discusses the importance of engineering a team as a system and describes how consideration of the human element into aspects such as system design and industry best practices generates favorable outcomes throughout the systems engineering lifecycle.

5.1 Introduction During the era of transition from human computers to digital programming, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) computations were seamlessly performed despite significant technological challenges. What sparked the team’s success in adapting to digital computing versus becoming obsolete? Public awareness of historical figures like Dorothy Vaughan is increasing in part due to the success of the movie Hidden Figures (Melfi 2016). Vaughan enabled orbital human space flight for NASA and revolutionized space technology by performing necessary computations for the 1962 Friendship 7 mission and made significant contributions to the NASA Scout Launch Vehicle Program. Among Vaughan’s many notable accomplishments was teaching herself the programming language Fortran upon realizing digital machine computing technology would disrupt her industry of human computers. However, Vaughan is most celebrated for her work positioning her colleagues to successfully make the same transition by teaching them Fortran and computer programming concepts (McFadden 2018). In many technical fields, interpersonal dynamics are less valued than technical performance despite studies that show these interpersonal dynamics are a key factor for project success (Walden et al. 2015; Dvir et al. 2006; Turner and Müller 2005; Geoghegan and Dulewicz 2008). Systems engineering processes benefit from mentoring and knowledge sharing when incorporated into practice with the same level of rigor as technical considerations. INCOSE has taken a significant step in recognizing this by including professional competencies within the Systems Engineering Competency Framework (Presland et al. 2018). This chapter is based on the experiences of systems engineering leaders who enabled technical success by applying systems engineering principles to engineer their team as a system. Similar to how Vaughan transitioned an entire team of human computers to digital programming, these systems engineering leaders became force multipliers for their teams. They also enabled the growth and personal development of the people around them and enhanced their teams’ systems engineering activities by demonstrating interpersonal acumen, generous mentorship, and bold empowerment.

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The authors of this chapter are an all-female cohort of INCOSE certified Systems Engineering Professionals (SEPs) spanning all three levels: Associate Systems Engineering Professional (ASEP), Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP), and Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP) working at Northrop Grumman. We embarked on a series of interviews with 24 female industry experts to identify common themes in systems engineering leadership and key enablers for project success. Each of the experts has attained either Fellow status (a company title reserved for the highest caliber of scientific, technical, and systems engineering talent) or a Senior Systems Engineering role at Northrop Grumman, a Fortune 100 aerospace and defense firm with a storied pedigree of systems engineering excellence. One of Northrop Grumman’s heritage companies, Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TRW) Incorporated, was founded by Simon Ramo, widely considered the founder of systems engineering (Booton and Ramo 1984; Sugar 2017). A keen focus on systems engineering excellence continues at Northrop Grumman to this day. The interviewees and the author team collectively represent several hundred years of systems engineering experience across a wide range of education and domain backgrounds. The chapter is organized according to the following compounding themes identified during these interviews: 1. Systems engineering as an enabler for effective team dynamics and the impact to project success 2. Team dynamics and the importance of communication in creating and maintaining effective systems engineering teams 3. Communication and its role in knowledge sharing and team performance 4. Knowledge transfer facilitated by mentorship While the stories shared are likely relatable to most engineers, the stories frame challenging interpersonal dynamics as systems engineering challenges rather than interpersonal ones. In effect, applying systems engineering principles to team dynamics results in synthesizing problems logically and positively impacts engineering outcomes.

5.2 The Unwritten Roles of a Systems Engineering Leader What happens when leaders in an industry that builds complex systems and systems of systems only focus on technical skills and neglect the interpersonal dynamics of their team? The information flow between essential components is inefficient or nonexistent, the cohesiveness of the big picture is lost, and the efficiency of the overarching project is degraded. The Aerospace and Defense industry builds complex products that can pull engineering teams into unforeseen circumstances that are impossible to predict (unknown-unknowns). Simple, predictable projects may rely on the heroics of a single individual with the technical pedigree to get the job done, but for complex

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projects that require integration of capabilities owned and developed by separate teams with varied technical backgrounds and team cultures, focusing on individual technical expertise alone is not sufficient for project success. To illustrate this point, we begin with a story from Jackie Sienkiewicz, Director of the Northrop Grumman Space Systems Engineering & Integration Center. Her story demonstrates one of the inevitable effects of unknown-unknowns on project execution, the strain this effect has on team dynamics, and how systems engineering leaders can take active steps to protect productive team dynamics: I was on a project being worked by a distributed set of teams. There was one team responsible for testing design in one location and a team executing integration and test in another. At the time, the integration and test team was already working on a compressed schedule, facing significant pressure, and working long hours. Suddenly the testing design team identified a gap they had missed and recommended that additional test points be added to ensure that the end product was safe and fully functional. The inherently separate nature of the teams, separated by roles and responsibilities, and physical location, put the broader team at risk of an “us versus them” mentality. Initially the integration and test team pushed back stating that there was no room in the schedule to take on additional scope. Without careful handling from engineering leaders, the decision over proposed test points created the risk of one team feeling like they benefitted over the other.

We center on the word “feel” here to highlight that team dynamics are susceptible to how a given situation is perceived and that perception is where engineering leaders can make a difference: Systems Engineering leaders pulled together a trade study between eliminating versus adding the test points. Throughout the exercise, emphasis was placed on understanding which decision would be best for the program. We focused on instilling a strong sense of the broader project team, with success determined by the overarching project as opposed to the constituent sub-tasks of each separate team. Clearly communicating that each separate engineering function team was part of a broader team of teams (“we are all on the same team, working towards the same overarching goal”) helped in fast turnaround for the additional tests, and the rationale was clearly articulated to keep the integration and test team behind it. In the end, integration and test did need to take on additional scope. They understood the rationale and got behind the decision from program management because it was what was best for the program.

This story serves as a great example of considering the teams as system of systems and using a trade study as a conflict resolution tool. It also shows how systems engineering leaders can use systems engineering concepts while demonstrating the unwritten nontechnical aspect of their role in fostering and building relationships between people and teams. Successful systems engineers and systems engineering leaders often serve as facilitators, confidantes, negotiators, and mediators to ensure effective team dynamics. To understand how systems engineering principles can be applied to engineer a team as a system, we first recall the definition of a system of systems principles from the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Walden et al. 2015): The independence of constituent systems in a system of systems is the source of a number of technical issues facing Systems Engineering of system of systems. The fact that a constituent system may continue to change independently of the system of systems, along with

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Fig. 5.1  Applying system of systems principles to team of teams for a typical systems engineering team. (Adapted with permission from INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Walden et al. 2015)) interdependencies between that constituent system and other constituent systems, adds to the complexity of the system of systems and further challenges Systems Engineering at the system of systems level…leading to unexpected or unpredictable behavior in an system of systems even if the behavior of the constituent systems is well understood (Walden et al. 2015).

Figure 5.1 shows how system of systems principles can be extended to team of teams using a typical systems engineering team as an example. If “system of systems ” is replaced with “team of teams” and “systems” with “teams,” a statement that describes the circumstances of the story above emerges. The elements shown in Fig. 5.1 are notional and can be interchanged to fit any team of teams scenario. In the story above, the integration and test team and the testing design team are the two component teams of the broader systems engineering team of teams. In this case the unexpected identification of a gap in the test points led to unpredictable behavior in the broader team of teams. As further illustration, consider the INCOSE definition modified for team of teams: The independence of constituent teams in a team of teams is the source of a number of technical issues facing Systems Engineering of team of teams. The fact that a constituent team may continue to change independently of the team of teams, along with interdependencies between that constituent team and other constituent teams, adds to the complexity of the team of teams and further challenges Systems Engineering at the team of teams level…leading to unexpected or unpredictable behavior in a team of teams even if the behavior of the constituent teams is well understood.

Lisa Happel, Northrop Grumman Fellow, speculates that for systems engineering leaders to successfully perform the unwritten nontechnical roles of their job, they should first acknowledge that challenging interpersonal team dynamics are not only normal but should be expected. Navigating complex team of teams dynamics can be prepared for within each team. Leaders’ awareness of team dynamics places the team in a position for success. One way of viewing team dynamics is with Tuckman’s stages of group development (Tuckman 1965). Tuckman identifies four necessary and inevitable stages of group development to foster team growth, problem-solving, and work planning and to deliver results: forming-storming-norming-performing. In the forming stage, the

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Fig. 5.2  Tuckman’s stages – weathering the storm. (Tuckman 1965)

team is built, and their objectives are identified. In the storming stage the team works through conflict resolution and decision-making. In the norming stage, the team works toward a common goal. Finally, in the performing stage, the team members perform autonomously in their established roles. Every team has a unique journey through Tuckman’s stages, which may include getting stuck at a particular stage, returning to a previously experienced stage, or even skipping a stage with a team that worked together in the past. The focus is on the role of systems engineering leaders in helping the team work through each stage by taking on the unwritten roles shown in Fig. 5.2. These roles can help teams accomplish the success criteria for moving on from each stage. Just like the team’s journey though the stages is unique, systems engineering leaders should ensure that the support the team is receiving from each role is tailored to navigate the journey effectively. During the forming stage, systems engineering leaders can take on the role of a facilitator to build the right team. An effective facilitator will help the team establish touch points and accept healthy conflict and transition to the storming stage. The storming stage is one of the most challenging stages to navigate. Being aware that the storming phases is important and inevitable can help leaders stay level-headed and best help the team “weather the storm.” As conflicts arise across the team, a constructive perspective is to realize that the team has transitioned into the second stage and is making necessary progress. The storming stage is a critical point in team development. Constructive systems engineering leaders will take on both the role of a confidant and negotiator to help in conflict resolution and building trust across the team to shepherd the team into the norming stage. Transitioning to the norming stage, leaders should ensure conflict resolution by-products of the storming stage have not resulted in team members shutting down. Working as a mediator during the norming stage helps ensure the team maintains open discussion, builds respect, and successfully reaches the performing stage. Teams may repeat this cycle when taking on a new set of tasks, so the role of systems engineering leaders continues to be critically important and constantly shifting.

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Cristina M. Rojas, Staff Systems Engineer, took on the role of a mediator with her team to actively protect productive team dynamics. In this example the team was at risk of communication breakdowns between team members, impeding teamwork: I was working in a Team of Teams settings, with different engineering teams delivering a customer network. We had a situation with two engineers, one from the Systems Engineering team and the other from the Network Engineering team. When managing network issues, the systems engineer would interface with the customer on the issue but needed to work with the network engineer in order to solve or troubleshoot the problem. The systems engineer often approached the network engineer in a manner that the network engineer found offensive. Consequently, the network engineer wouldn’t respond, which drove delays on the turnaround time for resolving network issues. I stepped into the mediator role to mitigate the negative impact this relationship had on issue resolution timelines. The simple act of coaching each team member went a long way. In this case I explained to the systems engineer that the network engineer won’t respond to their current approach, and I provided alternative methods for communicating what they needed from the network engineer. I also explained to the network engineer that what may come across as offensive is simply a difference in communication style, and not intended to be an affront against them. Being proactive in addressing this initially abrasive dynamic between members of this team of teams helped resolve the issue and successfully shorten network issue resolution timelines.

These stories demonstrate that systems engineering has unwritten roles requiring more than technical skills. Successful systems engineers possess the people skills necessary to interface within teams and on team of teams, just as systems engineering practice unifies a complex system or system of systems.

5.3 Team Dynamics: All the People Who Didn’t Talk to Each Other Team dynamics are pervasive forces that influence relationships between different members of a team and impact team behavior and performance (Myers 2013a). Communication is one of the most influential factors in establishing a team dynamic, whether it be a positive dynamic or a negative one. What impacts do positive team dynamics have on systems engineering outcomes? What about negative team dynamics? Is it possible to alter a team’s dynamic? To answer these questions, we investigated systems engineering experience with team dynamics and how team dynamics can be shaped to improve performance. Gabriela Coe, Northrop Grumman Fellow, recounted the story of her time on a large team with a tight schedule where positive team dynamics led to a positive systems engineering result: We only had a short time to create a concept before our customer decided to go forward with the contract. We had a team that just clicked. Everyone came to the table with an open mind and willing to do the work, because we knew we only had a short time to do it. If we didn’t have this dynamic from the get go, the work wouldn’t have gotten done. This stands out as the best team I’ve ever worked with. Communication was key to keep people motivated and collaborative. I get excited when I think about it, even now.

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A team with positive dynamics and effective communication has a solid foundation to collaborate. Conversely, negative team dynamics can cause duplication of work and time wasted if team members are not communicating or interacting effectively. Not sharing critical support or information results in team inefficiencies. An individual engineer can be seen as a system element of a team when the team is viewed as a system (Fig. 5.1). The elements interface with other elements in the system, with other systems, and with elements in other systems. When dealing with systems and system elements, it is important to make sure that the necessary interfaces are well defined. For instance, the output of System A is the input to System B. If the output of System A is in seconds, but System B assumes it is milliseconds, there is going to be a problem. This same concept applies to teams and individuals. If Individual A must interface with Individual B, but the individuals have clashing communication styles, there is going to be a problem. Our interviews uncovered that when a systems engineering team is self-aware and executing at a high level, everyone is working toward a common goal and understands the context of how their work fits into the big picture. Jackie Sienkiewicz observed that when team dynamics are scaled to a larger project, an additional layer of complexity is introduced. To facilitate a positive team dynamic, it is important to ensure that everyone understands why certain decisions are made so an individual does not feel resentment if their input was not solicited or included. A team with a negative team dynamic has an inherent hurdle to overcome to be successful. Carolyn Fry, Northrop Grumman Fellow, shared about a program she worked where two team members’ interpersonal communication challenges impacted systems engineering outcomes: Both team members were senior engineers and experts in their field, but there was a lot of tension between the two and they were not good at working with each other. Their arguments slowed productivity, which led to the team having meetings without including both engineers. Both engineers had good contributions to be made, but their relationship added stress and negativity to the team. It was extra work to resolve their conflicts, which decreased productivity and team morale. This is a great example of two conflicting personalities impacting not just each other, but the entire team.

Carolyn asserts that more productive systems engineering collaboration and knowledge transfer occurs when a team feels safe to disagree, ask questions, and challenge one another. Within a team of teams, a variety of team cultures can be found within each team. Dr. Amanda C.  Muller, Consulting Artificial Intelligence Systems Engineer and Technical Fellow, shared interaction strategies used in her role as the architect to align the diverse cultures of five collaborating organizations: Human interaction is an inherent part of systems engineering. It’s a systems engineer’s job to put all the pieces together. This includes pulling the team together as well. I once worked as the Architect for the mathematical algorithms of a project. The algorithms for this project were very involved–each had 40 to 50 inputs and outputs, and each algorithm description ranged from five to 50 pages long. And altogether we had five teams ranging in size from one to 15 people creating and maintaining them. The interpersonal dynamics varied with each team. Some teams were very collaborative, while others were more insular, doing their own things and frequently not having time for their deliverables to the broader architecture team.

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Fig. 5.3  Team types and interaction methods This is an example where team dynamics could have easily driven a negative impact on team success. Mitigation came from strong systems engineering. The project needed someone to put the pieces together. A key enabler of success was thinking about what motivates people. Some teams simply needed due dates and an email, while others required daily in-person office visits to stay on track. To be successful in this role, I had to uniquely tailor my interaction with each team.

An example of three types of teams, Dedicated, Disengaged, and Obstinate, is shown in Fig.  5.3. Dedicated Teams produce the best engineering outcomes, Disengaged Teams have some risk of not producing good engineering outcomes, and Obstinate Teams have the highest risk of producing bad engineering outcomes. Systems engineering leaders are more effective in ensuring optimal engineering outcomes when they tailor their communication styles and frequency according to each team’s behavior. Our experts’ experience has shown that with effort it is possible to change a team’s dynamics or even turn a Disengaged Team or an Obstinate Team into a Dedicated Team. Introducing a change agent is an effective way to steer the unconscious forces between team members in a different direction. Dr. Trisha Hinners, Northrop Grumman Systems Engineering Manager, shared some of the difficulties in introducing new concepts and tools to an existing team: When a team has one or more experts, introducing a change like shifting from Waterfall to Model Based Systems Engineering or Agile can be a big cultural hurdle to overcome because people are used to doing things one way and are resistant to change. Those engineers who are resistant to the change tend to cause other people on the team to begin resenting them for slowing progress. Our program introduced the use of Model Based Systems Engineering to document system architecture. There was resistance from some on the team to buy-in to Model Based Systems Engineering. The program decided to introduce a change agent, and brought in a Model Based Systems Engineering engineer with experience modeling large systems. Those who were skeptical saw results quickly and embraced Model Based Systems Engineering. In this case, the change agent was an experienced engineer who produced results quickly which allowed the team to see the value of Model Based Systems Engineering and make progress more rapidly.

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This story demonstrates the power of building advocates or injecting them into a team and shows how introducing a strong team member can transform the dynamics. As shown in Fig. 5.3, identifying the best communication methods to use for a particular team can have a strong impact on team integration. The anecdotes are supported by S.P. Myers’ work on Impact of Team Dynamics on Performance (Myers 2013b). According to Myers, team dynamics can significantly affect team performance and company revenue due to mistrust and lack of motivation. Our industry experts agreed that team dynamics have a strong impact on systems engineering outcomes – whether they be positive (like Dr. Trisha Hinners’ story of successful Model Based Systems Engineering adoption) or negative (like the slowed productivity from the argumentative team members in Carolyn Fry’s story). Team dynamics can be transformed with effort, with a focus on open communication, and rallying the team around a common goal.

5.4 Communication: All Those Meetings Where We Said a Lot But Communicated Little Communication skills are essential for engineers to present concepts, demonstrate designs, elaborate on requirements, discuss interface points, and execute elements of the systems engineering process. Yet sometimes it is a challenge for teams to communicate effectively. Effective communication skills include absorbing, sharing, and understanding the information presented and engaging others respectfully. Effective communication is important in a small team setting and that importance is magnified in a large team or team of teams environment. Effective communication is inherently complex and necessary for team success. During interviews we discussed the concept of using a systems engineering artifact, an interface control document (ICD), as a communications plan format for teams. Just as a traditional engineering interface control document specifies interfaces between system elements, a communications interface control document specifies communication interfaces between team elements or people. Such an interface control document could be used to manage the inherent complexity of effective communication within a team of teams environment. Using the communications interface control document approach defines how a systems engineering leader should specify how communication occurs. The outcome is a communication cadence with clear and concise requirements that ensures an understanding of how knowledge is shared. Ashley Grafstrom, Systems Engineering and Integration Project Manager, emphasized that applying communication to the interface framework is about being concise and clear on setting expectations: It is essential to define what we need from team members to make the overall mission a success, and revisit that often. Having a clearly defined rhythm on how often we talk, see

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that the teams are developing systems as we expect, and making tweaks along the way can contribute to identifying problems early in the development cycle rather than later when is more costly. Maintaining that rhythm of communication even when there isn’t much to communicate is important to maintaining that intimacy across the teams. Through those discussions, sometimes you realize there are things that you should have known about or were overlooked. Working on a small team, it is much easier to know what the people are doing and how they fit into the bigger picture. When I am talking to an element of the system (such as the Ground Element of a large space system) it is a little harder to stay on top of everything that is going on, because there are millions of lines of code and stations around the world. The way that you try to solve that is maintaining the relationships all the way down the line. My Integration Lead works side by side with the Ground Element Chief Engineer. You have to instill that teamwork mentality all the way down to the working level to make sure there are not unforeseen consequences across the interfaces that the leaders would not be able to see.

Our experts, however, caution against having just one specific and rigid way to communicate. For example, in the communication interface control document method, the document would prescribe inputs and outputs: exactly whom to communicate with, what to communicate, and how often. While a regular cadence of communication is a good thing, informal ways and different modes of communication are also key to sharing knowledge. Roshawn Bowers, Northrop Grumman Fellow, suggested identifying ways to set up an environment where people can innately communicate, collaborate, and innovate outside of a scheduled interaction: I schedule regular tag-ups where my team has the opportunity to bring things up, but I also have informal communication—run-ins and unplanned opportunities for collaboration and sharing ideas that are not always obvious. Part of that is setting up an environment where those collisions can happen, where I can run into someone in the hall and mention a new idea or create spaces that foster innovation and where people with different backgrounds can have those interactions. Getting to talk to people is an important part of developing a good understanding of where we are and where we’re going and setting up that network so that if you do encounter something, you can reach out to that other person.

Not everyone communicates the same way just as not everyone effectively receives communication the same way. Understanding the “Send” and “Receive” mechanisms for each system element is necessary for a complete interface control document defining communication within a system. Knowing how individual team members communicate is essential for successful communication within a team. Systems engineering leaders need to understand individual communication styles, adapt to accommodate those styles, and consider various modes of communication to ensure that communication is optimized and everyone understands the common goal. All experts interviewed resonated with the need to have multiple modes of communication to successfully get a message out to different members of a large team. Kathryn Williams, Manager of Systems Engineering, recommended including different communication modes as a requirement in the communications interface control document:

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The communication mode depends on the importance of what is being communicated. If it is critical that everyone needs to know, you need to get it out in all the formats. Email does not work for everything!

Kathryn observed a recent time where she sent an email of an important topic to a colleague. After a day or so, it became clear that her colleague had not seen the email, so Kathryn reached out via Instant Messaging and learned that her colleague had been away from the office for a few days and not yet read that email. Kathryn realized that she could not rely on emails as a primary communication mode for this colleague. Subsequently, she followed up with that colleague if the topic was time-­ sensitive to confirm the message had been received. By understanding the “Receive” function, Kathryn updated the “Send” function of her communication interface control document and created an effective communications interface. In their book, Small Group and Team Communication, TE Harris and JC Sherblom suggest that teams evolve by allowing their discussions to be flexible or complex based on their environment (Harris and Sherblom 2018). Team interaction plays an important part in the overall mission success. Regardless of the method, frequency, and mode, our experts agreed that communication was a key element of the knowledge sharing that is essential to systems engineering success.

5.5 Knowledge Transfer: All Those Bad Habits We Taught Ourselves Systems engineering leaders play a role in enabling effective team dynamics across their engineering team and wider team of teams. Once the team has finished forming, storming, and norming in Tuckman’s first three stages and finally reaches the performing stage, how do leaders ensure the team has the necessary skills to successfully perform? Our experts theorized that interplay between mentorship and knowledge transfer is key to systems engineering a team for success. A systems engineering approach should regard mentoring and knowledge transfer functions in a similar manner as proper handling of systems engineering “ilities” which are specialty engineering fields such as cyber security. A key trait of how specialty fields should be addressed includes incorporating these functions up front. Knowledge transfer and mentorship should be folded into team building across the systems engineering lifecycle. As an example, we share a story from Kathryn Williams, Systems Engineering Manager, which showcases the longevity of experiential mentorship and highlights the importance of providing a safe space to fail: I will never forget this. About 10 years ago, I was leading a team and we were getting ready for a test event with external organizations. We had prepared and were ready to go. Shortly before we were going to load our commands to the test vehicle, one of our analysts brought up a point where we would lose our data. This test was so important, and we had to follow our process. However, following our process would not allow us time to change our test setup. My boss left the decision to me to see if we could run it faster. I decided we were

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going to run the test with what we had. Our data stopped the exact time the analyst said it would. Because of how we set it up we did not get that data. I learned so much. My boss let me kind of bomb it in a way. The next time around, I worked with the team to find a way to change the test setup and test it more quickly following our process and it worked beautifully. That was one of the best lessons of my whole career and I still appreciate being given the space to learn it.

A reoccurring theme in the stories shared by our experts is the effectivity of learning by experiencing something that goes wrong. In this case, Kathryn was empowered by her boss to decide on running the test as is, or making a last-minute change, and breaking their process. Throughout a career in systems engineering, there are many opportunities to make hard decisions, driven by late breaking information, and these opportunities grow in increasing numbers for systems engineers taking on leadership roles. Our experts consistently emphasized the importance of learning through experience and being given a safe space to fail. Consequently, the most effective way to learn how to make decisions is to be empowered to completely own making one. This means sometimes making the wrong decision as part of that experience. How can members of a team be enabled to potentially make the wrong decision in a constructive way? This is where having a safe space to fail comes into play. Systems engineering best practices for introducing new components to a system can also be applied to growing talent and identifying safe spaces for people to fail. Best practice dictates connecting a new component to a system in a way that will not damage the system. The new component would be checked out individually and tested in isolated environments, first confirming that the component functions as intended and then verifying that it operates appropriately in isolation and does not cause harm to the surrounding components or drive unwanted emergent behavior. Only after isolated verification should the component be integrated into the wider system. These isolated tests are essentially safe spaces for these components to fail, with incrementally increasing introduction to the wider system and increasing opportunity for the component to impact more of the system of interest. For experiential knowledge transfer, it is important to provide engineers experiences with ownership of their work, including decision-making, and expand those experiences with opportunities to make an increasing impact on the team. Similar to how new components would not be introduced to the system in a way that could harm the entire infrastructure, an engineer working their first job would not be placed in a position where, if they make a wrong decision, the entire project would be compromised, or cancelled. Instead, a safe space to fail would be introduced enabling the engineer to make decisions with real consequences on a much smaller scale, so they can learn from the experience. These lessons experienced along the way are retained, as shown by Kathryn who still remembers the experience of making this choice 10  years later. This provides engineers the experience needed to make decisions with increasing impact in the future. This is an incremental and iterative process of employee development that is further enhanced when incorporating a feedback loop where mentors provide constructive feedback throughout the learning process. This process is shown in our agile learning lifecycle illustrated in Fig. 5.4.

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Knowledge Transfer Scrum Daily Scrum 24 H

Sprint 1-4 weeks Product Development Owner Team

Sprint Review and Retrospective

New Skill Stretch Assignment Needed Skills Skills Gap Addressed

Product Sprint Plan Meeting Backlog

Sprint Backlog

Finished Work

Mentor Feedback Development Cycle Complete

Trainee Performance Ready Assessment for Stretch Assignment

Fig. 5.4  Applying agile Scrum principles to knowledge transfer. Traditional Scrum diagram reproduced with permission from Scrum, Inc. (2021)

Mentors strengthen experiential knowledge transfer by providing oversight and feedback in each developmental cycle. Not all mentorship relationships are the same. Some relationships are formal, while others evolve organically. In organic mentorship, a less experienced engineer may spontaneously connect with a more experienced engineer which consequentially form a mentorship pair. In formal mentorship a structured program arranges mentors and protégés in mentorship pairs. When discussing both mentoring categories with our experts, the following themes comparing organic versus formal mentorship were identified: Organic mentorship • Innate trust • Short-term goals • Candid feedback • Individual attention

Formal mentorship • Structured framework • Long-term goals • Cohort network • Broad exposure

One of the challenges with formal mentorship programs is that protégés may be paired with a mentor with who they have little in common. This can be beneficial in terms of broadening the horizon of the protégé with exposure to ways of thinking and parts of their professional network they would not naturally gravitate toward. Having little in common can also impede the trust and chemistry needed for the protégé to ask for help or impede the mentor providing candid feedback and attention. Rectifying this impedance mismatch, just as one would in an interface control document, is essential to creating a mentoring partnership. This concept is demonstrated in Fig. 5.5. As reflected in the interface control document of a system, the content of the “receive” function must be readable and implementable by System Element 2. Similarly, in a communication interface control document, the information to be received has to be understood by Person 2, creating a functional interface between a mentor and protégé.

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Fig. 5.5 Applying interface control document principles to mentoring and communication. (Adapted with permission from INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (Walden et al. 2015))

Formal mentorship programs have other benefits that organic mentorship arrangements do not have: a structured framework for development and clearly defined objectives. Formal mentorship programs also help expose the protégé to a wider network of other protégés in the mentoring program. Organic mentorship characteristics might better support protégés in meeting short-term goals, while formal mentorship programs support protégés reaching long-term goals. Each approach to mentorship has merit and effective systems engineering leaders should make room for both in their organization. Carolyn Fry describes how a productive group culture that supports knowledge transfer and mentorship, both formal and informal, led to key contributions to her project: I have led large teams made up of various levels of experience. I noticed over the years that a number of team members were inclined to just want a quick description of what they are looking for and be done. They were reluctant to invest the time to deepen knowledge sharing across the team. To counteract this behavior, I instituted a number of practices. One practice was encouraging participation in end of day “get together chats” to promote knowledge sharing. Another practice was development of an introductory course to provide background of valuable subject matter for my team. Since everyone learns differently, there were different degrees of success from learners. Some got a lot out of it, others better benefit from alternative learning mechanisms. Having a variety of developmental opportunities was key to fostering a learning environment to reach team members who learn differently. Another practice was building a buddy system. We suggested that employees talk to other buddies in other areas with relevant domain knowledge, but physically located such that interaction between these team was unlikely without a forcing function for members to interface with one another. It never hurts to call up colleagues in different, but related domains. You have nothing to lose and lots to potentially gain. It turns out that one of the suggestions from a buddy that was part of this informal arrangement contributed to significant success for my project.

The stories from our experts are substantiated by the research performed by Uta Wehn and Carlos Montalvo in Knowledge Transfer Dynamics and Innovation: Behaviour, Interactions, and Aggregated Outcomes (Wehn and Montalvo 2018). In their research, Wehn and Montalvo emphasize the importance of knowledge transfer to innovation and organizational success. Effective knowledge transfer is essential to the function of systems engineering teams. A systems engineering approach applied to knowledge transfer can enable team success.

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5.6 Conclusion All interviews with industry experts revealed that ambitious and complex systems engineering endeavors can only be successful with effective team dynamics, team dynamics can only be successful with strong communication, and communication can only be successful when it results in knowledge transfer. We also find that mentorship plays an important role in enabling knowledge transfer. Just as a systems engineer ties together elements of technically complex systems, it is the systems engineer’s unwritten role to bring together the interpersonal elements of a team to enable project success. Skills related to managing people are usually not explicitly taught in engineering schools. Managing interpersonal relationships, team dynamics, and communication styles may seem daunting to an engineer if these skills do not come naturally. However, as our interviews demonstrate, the same skills that make a successful systems engineer can also be applied to the human elements of a team. Systems engineers have all the right tools to empower and build their teams. When systems engineers are empowered by a supportive and inclusive organizational culture, the results can be incredible. While the examples in this chapter came from Northrop Grumman, these lessons can apply anywhere systems engineers are working. Even if a systems engineer is working as part of a larger integrated project team, or as the lone systems engineer on a project, the skills of managing relationship, team dynamics, and communication apply. Acknowledgments  We are grateful to all the women who shared their systems engineering expertise with us in support of this chapter. Just as Dorothy Vaughan used interpersonal skills to enable her team’s success in reaching the moon, these women work every day to support their teams and build technology previously thought impossible. Each of them provided valuable insights that contributed to the themes and concepts discussed in this chapter: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Roshawn Bowers, Northrop Grumman Fellow Dixie Branch, Stores Management Technical Fellow Gabriela Coe, ESEP, Northrop Grumman Fellow Emma Deegan, Systems Engineer Carolyn Fry, Northrop Grumman Fellow Ashley Grafstrom, Systems Engineering and Integration Project Manager Tamara Hambrick, ASEP, Director of Systems Engineering Lisa Happel, Northrop Grumman Fellow Christy Haworth, Systems Engineering Manager and Model-Based Systems Engineering Lead Dr. Trisha Hinners, Systems Engineering Manager Lisa Hritz, Staff Systems Engineer Catherine Mehta, Systems Engineering Architect and Technical Fellow Dr. Amanda C.  Muller, CSEP, Consulting AI Systems Engineer and Technical Fellow

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Perri Nejib, ESEP, Northrop Grumman Fellow Anuradha Pal, Chief Architect Jenny Rogers, Manager of Systems Engineering Cristina Gonzalez Rojas, Staff Systems Engineer Jackie Sienkiewicz, Space Systems Engineering and Integration Center Director Arti Baldwin, Program Manager Jonica Tramposch, Senior Principal Systems Engineer Jiwanjot Tulsi, Technical Fellow and Systems Architect Amy Virdine, Director of Project and Systems Engineering Kathryn Williams, Manager of Systems Engineering

We also want to acknowledge Jennifer R Geissler for providing creative services support for our visualizations; Emmet (Rusty) Eckman, ESEP, for being an advocate for our chapter writing team; Andrea Yeiser as our executive sponsor; and Ann Rickle for her advocacy for our team and service as our INCOSE corporate advisory board representative.

References Booton RC, Ramo S (1984) The development of systems engineering. IEEE Trans Aerosp Electron Syst AES-20(4):306–310 Dvir D, Sadeh A, Malach-Pines A (2006) Projects and Project Managers: the relationship between Project Managers’ personality, project types, and project success. Proj Manag J 37(5):36–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280603700505 Geoghegan L, Dulewicz V (2008) Do Project Managers’ leadership competencies contribute to project success? Proj Manag J 39(4):58–67 Harris TE, Sherblom JC (2018) Small group and team communication. Waveland Press, Long Grove McFadden C (2018) Dorothy Vaughan: NASA’s “Human Computer” and American Hero. https:// interestingengineering.com/dorothy-­vaughan-­nasas-­human-­computer-­and-­american-­hero. Accessed 15 Feb 2020 Melfi T (2016) Hidden figures. Twentieth Century Fox, Beverly Hills Myers SP (2013a) Definition of team dynamics. https://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/team/dynamics/definition/. Accessed 15 Dec 2021 Myers SP (2013b) The impact of team dynamics and performance. https://www.teamtechnology. co.uk/team/dynamics/performance-­impact. Accessed 15 Dec 2021 Presland, I, Beasley, R, Gelosh, D, Heisey, M, Zipes, L (2018) INCOSE systems engineering competency framework. INCOSE Technical Product Reference: INCOSE-TP-2018-002-01.0 Scrum, Inc. (2021) How Scrum works: Scrum framework. https://www.scruminc.com/scrum-­ framework/. Accessed 15 Feb 2020 Sugar RD (2017) Simon Ramo memorial tribute. In: Memorial tributes: national academy of engineering, vol 21. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, p 330 Tuckman BW (1965) Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychol Bull 63(6):384–399 Turner JR, Müller R (2005) The Project Manager’s leadership style as a success factor on projects: a literature review. Proj Manag J 36(2):49–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280503600206 Walden D, Roedler GJ, Forsberg KJ, Hamelin RD, Shortell T (2015) INCOSE systems engineering handbook: a guide for system life cycle processes and activities, 4th edn. Wiley, San Diego

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Wehn U, Montalvo C (2018) Knowledge transfer dynamics and innovation: behaviour, interactions and aggregated outcomes. J Clean Prod 171:S56–S68, ISSN 0959-6526. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.09.198 Rachel Elliott  is a Senior Principal Cyber Systems Engineer for Northrop Grumman in San Diego, California. She currently serves as the Systems Engineering Lead and Principal Investigator for a portfolio of Internal Research and Development (IR&D) projects in the Strategic Growth organization within the Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems Sector. As the Systems Engineering Lead, she is responsible for the planning and execution of all Systems Engineering and Integration and Test activities for this portfolio including modeling and simulation assessments, lab testing, anechoic chamber testing, ground test events, flight demonstration, and operational analysis. As the Principal Investigator she is responsible for developing the roadmap and strategic vision to introduce new technical capabilities to end users and customers. Prior to her current role, Rachel served as an Electronics and Payloads Engineer in the Autonomous Division of the Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems Sector. In this role, she performed integration and test in the lab and worked directly with pilots, operators, and maintainers during flight test events for a variety of airborne synthetic aperture radar, electro-optical/infrared, and multi-­spectral sensor systems. She was also responsible for the imagery analysis of sensor data products for verification of image quality requirements. Rachel is a 2018 graduate of the Northrop Grumman Future Technical Leaders (FTL) program. In the FTL program, she completed three rotations performing a broad range of roles in Systems Engineering, Research and Development (R&D), and Corporate Engineering Strategy across Northrop Grumman Sectors and Divisions, and across the United States. Rachel has been an active member in several employee resource groups over the course of her career. She has volunteered for Engineer’s Week since 2019, introducing and leading the Make-a-Motor activity, an event designed to stimulate youth interest in engineering through outreach with local middle and high school students. She has also volunteered as a judge for the Coding Queens Hackathon since 2016, a coding competition for local middle and high school girls where the creativity and technical feat showcased in the final products and presentations consistently inspire her. In 2020 she was a panelist at the Society of Women Engineer’s WE21 conference. Also in 2018 she organized the company’s Simon Ramo Award for Systems Engineering Excellence, the most prestigious engineering award throughout the corporation. Rachel’s path to a STEM career began with a strong liberal arts foundation at the Park School of Baltimore where staying after school to complete woodworking projects taught her the rewards of tenacity and the effectiveness of rapid prototyping, deep reflection on papers for her civil liberties class taught her critical thinking skills, and meditation and mindfulness practiced during dance class taught her how to empathize with others and establish trust in ways that continue to serve her today. Growing up, conversations with her Uncle Bruce (a PhD Physicist) on quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity planted the seeds of interest that led Rachel to pursuing a degree in Physics. Rachel completed her graduate studies at Virginia Tech where she received a Master of Science in Physics with a focus in Astrophysics after completing her Bachelor of Science in Physics, Bachelor of Science in Math, and an Astronomy Minor from the same university. She is an International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Associate Systems Engineering Professional (ASEP). Lindsey Beaubien  is a Systems Engineering Manager for Northrop Grumman in Baltimore, Maryland. She currently serves as a Systems Engineering, Integration and Test (SEIT) Lead within the company’s Space Systems Sector. In her Systems Engineering Management role, she is responsible for employee development, ensuring good Systems Engineering practices and processes are being used across programs and championing mentorship and knowledge sharing. As SEIT Lead, she is responsible for the planning and execution of all Systems Engineering and Integration and Test activities within her work area. Outside of her primary role, Beaubien serves as the Business Conduct Advisor for the Payload and Ground Systems Division at the Baltimore and Linthicum, MD, campuses where she is responsible for promoting company values and ethical culture as well

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as providing guidance to employees and management on company policies, procedures, and the Standards of Business Conduct. Previously, Beaubien served as Deputy SEIT Lead facilitating Airborne Radar Integration & Test. Lindsey has served in various cybersecurity roles including Database Engineer, Systems Engineer, and Deputy Lead Systems Engineer on a large system component. Lindsey is a graduate of Northrop Grumman’s Systems Engineering Associates (SEA) program, having completed four rotations across company’s business areas and supporting domestic and international capture efforts. Beaubien showed an interest in STEM early in life, taking apart old radios and clocks to see how they worked. While she always enjoyed doing puzzles and working out logic problems, her true love of STEM began in high school when she took a computer programming class and realized that she could solve puzzles every day. This led her to pursue a career in technology. Beaubien was accepted to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) where she was an AT&T Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) Scholar. Beaubien entered a combined Bachelor’s/Master’s program of study and now holds both a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in Information Systems from UMBC. Beaubien is an International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP). She has participated in panels at the Society of Women Engineer’s WE21 conference and the 11th annual oSTEM conference. She was awarded the Dale Carnegie Highest Award for Achievement in 2018. Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense, and cyberspace to meet the ever-evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our 90,000 employees define possible every day using science, technology, and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products, and services. Gabriela Coe  is a Fellow at Northrop Grumman. As a Senior Technical Advisor, she serves as a change agent for her organization driving adoption of systems engineering and software development discipline across the enterprise. Her areas of focus include Digital Transformation and Software Modernization and Sustainment. In this role, she is a Subject Matter Expert (SME), leading her organization into the digital transformation journey. She applies her systems engineering expertise to systematically assist programs in the adoption of industry methodologies. She developed winning proposal solutions, adopting industry methods to solve customers’ challenges. During her time with Northrop Grumman, Gabby has worked on a ­variety of complex projects and held various systems engineering leadership positions supporting the Department of Defense (DoD) and civilian agencies of the federal, state, and local governments, and the United Kingdom. Gabby attributes her interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to loving and excelling in math and science subjects early on. This led to a college major in engineering and a career where she has enjoyed helping solve tough customer problems both nationally and internationally. Persevering through many challenges has been instrumental in Gabby’s nomination and selection to NG Fellow, the highest technical level within her organization and an achievement she is very proud of. Gabby mentors early and mid-career engineers in their professional development. Gabby also mentors students to stay motivated and focused on their STEM education journeys through her personal podcast, Keys to the Future. Gabby holds a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Miami. Gabby was the recipient of the 2019 Invention of the Year Award for her work in advancing the adoption of software development best practices. She has received the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP) and serves as the INCOSE Training Working Group Chair focusing on members training members on Systems Engineering topics of interest. She co-presented the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Systems Engineering Handbook (SEHB V4) Tutorial at the 2021 INCOSE Symposium which was awarded the INCOSE 2020 Product of the Year Award. Gabby served as an active duty officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Dr. Amanda C. Muller  is a Consulting Artificial Intelligence Systems Engineer and Technical Fellow based in Northern Virginia. Dr. Muller currently serves as the Responsible Artificial

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Intelligence Lead for Northrop Grumman. In this role, she coordinates the strategy, policy, and governance efforts related to Artificial Intelligence across the Northrop Grumman enterprise. As a Mission Systems Technical Fellow specializing in User Experience and Human-Systems Integration, she also serves as a subject matter expert on proposals, program reviews, and research efforts. Prior to her current role, Dr. Muller worked for Northrop Grumman Space Systems in Redondo Beach, California, as a Systems Engineer. She led the User Experience teams for several restricted space programs, conducting user research in operational environments around the world. Previously, Dr. Muller served as a Systems Engineer on State Health and Human Services programs, as a Human Factors Engineer in Aurora, Colorado, and as the Human-Systems Integration lead for airborne platforms in Melbourne, Florida. Dr. Muller is a 2013 graduate of the Northrop Grumman Systems Engineering Associates (SEA) program. During her time as an SEA, she completed rotations as an Airborne Systems Engineer for the intelligence community, as a government relations representative at the Corporate Analysis Center, as a Solutions Architect in Business Development, and as a Technical Lead for Medicaid Eligibility and Enrollment Systems proposals. In addition to her program roles, Dr. Muller has been a mentor in the Mentoring the Technical Professional program for over seven years. Dr. Muller’s interest in STEM began from a young age, manifesting in activities like taking her calculator apart to examine the inner workings, and regularly calculating and reporting to her high school track and field teammates the percentage of total laps completed in their workouts. Her interests, however, varied widely, and she entered Sarah Lawrence College upon high school graduation to take advantage of their permissive liberal arts program. After a year of courses in Buddhism, politics in education, ballet, and calculus, she made up her mind to focus in math and science, and transferred to Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. The hands-on, project-­based engineering curriculum challenged and excited her, and she graduated with both BS and MS degrees in Biomedical Engineering. She immediately entered the PhD in Engineering program at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and graduated in just three and a half years. Upon graduation, Dr. Muller joined Northrop Grumman as a systems engineer, and ever since has continuously found new ways to apply her engineering skills to complex and interesting problems. She has continued formal education through earning a graduate certificate in Design Thinking for Strategic Innovation from Stanford University. She also became a Certified Systems Engineering Professional and a Professional Scrum Master, and was the first Northrop Grumman Employee to earn a certification in Professional Scrum with User Experience. She is proud that her work builds technology that works for people and for the benefit of humanity. Christy M. Predaina  has a long legacy of engineering leadership, from her Society of Women Engineers (SWE) student section, through years of technical leadership and program management, to her present position as an executive at Northrop Grumman. Christy is specifically known for her leadership in program management and systems engineering, and as a champion for diversity and inclusion. As the Director of the Vertical Lift Operating Unit Christy has profit and loss responsibilities for a line of business that engineers and manufactures multi-function sensors for rotorcraft applications. She also serves on the Board of Directors of a joint venture overseeing all production and sustainment activities for the Apache Longbow Fire Control Radar. This role demonstrates Christy’s breadth compared to her assignment immediately prior where she was a campus lead executive and general manager of a business focused on engineering and manufacturing advanced power systems and digital control systems for maritime applications. Christy has long demonstrated a natural penchant for technical excellence and leadership at Northrop Grumman, first exemplified by her promotion to Program Manager of a successful multimillion dollar program portfolio at age 25. She has led teams through complex engineering problems in hardware design and manufacturing, software, technology research and development, systems integration, engineering process improvement, mission operations, and led multinational programs of importance to global security and effective program performance across a diverse multibillion dollar global portfolio. Her reputation as a technical problem solver at Northrop Grumman has been recognized with numerous awards and invitations to multiple highly selective professional development

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programs, furthering her maturation as an engineer and female technical leader. The foundation for her breadth of engineering leadership roles and interest in STEM started in middle school when she managed her school’s Science Olympiad team. This experience inspired Christy’s lifelong journey of pairing her natural predilection for servant leadership with her passion for science and engineering. While at the University of Colorado she led multiple student organizations while earning two degrees: a BS in Computer Science and BA in Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. Furthering her education, she attained an MS in Engineering Management from George Washington University and graduate certificate in Project Management and Leadership from UCLA.  She is also a certified PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) and INCOSE Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CESP) and has completed executive education at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Christy is deeply committed to making a difference in her workplace and community, volunteering to lead several employee resource groups and engineering strategic initiatives across Northrop Grumman throughout her career. She connects thousands of employees to professional development opportunities, technical presentations, mentorships, job rotations, social and philanthropic activities, and has enabled the sponsorship of hundreds of SWE memberships at Northrop Grumman. She is an inspiring speaker who encourages the engineering leadership aspirations of students and professionals through keynotes, panels, and workshops with audiences across the country, including a feature role in DiscoverE’s Girl Day national social media campaign during National Engineers Week. She is an advocate for science, technology, engineering, and math education, annually engaging congressional delegations to support the National Space Grant College. Christy is a proud Senior Life Member of the Society of Women Engineers and recipient of the society’s prestigious Emerging Leader Award. In 2017 she organized a company-wide Systems Engineering Symposium, and she presently serves her company as the executive sponsor for the global Northrop Grumman Women’s International Network. Sara Stiles  is a Chief Engineer at the Northrop Grumman Mission Systems (NGMS) campus in Linthicum, MD. She currently serves as the Systems Engineering Lead for multiple airborne radar programs in the Tactical Fighters Business Unit (BU). In this role, Sara is responsible for driving Systems Engineering process and executing as a Scrum Master to ensure the success of multidiscipline radar mode development teams. Prior to her current role, Sara worked as a Systems Engineer for the NGMS Communications BU in San Diego, CA. She was a Responsible Engineer and Supplier Manager for a restricted Comms program. Previous to these roles, Sara graduated from the Systems Engineering Associates (SEA) developmental rotation program in the class of 2016. During her time in the SEA program, she completed rotations as a Corporate Internal Auditor, as an Integration and Test (I&T) Engineer for the Combat Training Center – Instrumentation System (CTC-IS), as a Systems Engineer for the Joint National Integration Center Research and Development Contract (JRDC), and as a Requirements and Verification Lead for the Republic of Korea (ROK) Global Hawk (GH) program. Sara began her NG career in the Electronic Systems sector as a Reliability Engineer, then worked as a Radar Systems Engineer before being selected for the SEA program. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has been integral to Sara’s development, beginning with her interest and strength in mathematics. Quickly mastering the Thousand Board in Montessori, and needing her own Algebra textbooks in middle school, evolved into earning college credit for Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus and AP Biology courses while in high school. Passionate high school mathematics and science teachers, classmates, and annual workshops with NG engineers inspired Sara to envision a profession in STEM. Her interest in mathematics and science strengthened throughout college while studying alongside influential professors, classmates, and other members of the Pi Mu Epsilon honorary national mathematics society. Sara completed her undergraduate mathematics major in three years. The accelerated pace allowed her time to take honors science courses and earn minors in physics and computer science. Sara’s passion for mathematics and science, paired with her natural tendency for servant leadership, has positioned her for a variety of technical and engineering leadership roles. Sara is constantly inspired by her engineering colleagues to tackle new challenges in her STEM career. Outside of her primary role, Sara has led other NG employees in earning International

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Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Systems Engineering Professional (SEP) certification through rigorous preparation cohorts. She has volunteered for a variety of NG initiatives and committees, including the role of Vice Chair of the Electronic Systems Symposium in 2014. Since graduating from the NG Radar Systems Engineering Course (RSEC) in 2011, Sara mentored the RSEC group project and continues to support annually. Sara is a 2017 protégé of the Mentoring the Technical Professional (MTP) program and has been a mentor through the Mentoring Matters program since 2018. Sara earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from Hood College, a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Science degree in Applied Physics from the Johns Hopkins University, and a Certificate in Project Management from the University of California Irvine. She holds six NG Trade Secret Awards for intellectual property disclosures. Sara is a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) recognized by INCOSE. Dr. Lauren P. Toth  is a Senior Principal Systems Engineer for Peraton in Brooklyn, New York. She currently serves as the data migration lead within a large federal biometrics program, where she is responsible for ensuring that large amounts of critical data are moved completely and accurately from the legacy to modernized system. Prior to her current role, she served as a software engineering project manager. She oversaw the development of a software component within a large federal system. She managed a team of 20 engineers; served as the primary interface with the customer; and was responsible for staffing and task planning and execution. Before the divestiture of Northrop Grumman’s services business to Peraton, Lauren also served as a Northrop Grumman solution architect and capture manager supporting the public safety market. Lauren is a 2018 graduate of the Northrop Grumman Future Technical Leaders (FTL) program. In the FTL program, she completed three rotations across various industry verticals: (1) personalized healthcare, as a subject matter expert in bioinformatics and genetic engineering; (2) secure mobile communications, as the principal investigator in the development of a secure mobile device capable of storing and transmitting classified data; and (3) public safety, as a deputy program manager for Northrop Grumman’s New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN) program, which provides a secure wireless network for first responders and city agencies. Lauren received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering with a double major in Biology from MIT and a Doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. Dr. Toth’s research at Duke centered on gene therapy, gene editing, and regenerative medicine, and it involved the design and development of optogenetic tools that can control cellular gene expression and behavior in response to blue light. Using advanced genomic technologies, including CRISPR/Cas9 and TALE transcription factors, she engineered unique systems for organized muscle growth and blood vessel formation. Lauren has always had an interest in STEM and engineering because of her father’s work as a Marine Engineering Contractor in Miami, FL. From an early age, she visited her father’s job sites full of heavy machinery, such as cranes and backhoes mounted on barges, and she listened in awe to job experiences fixing draw bridges, building artificial reefs, and laying pipes underwater off the coast of Miami. He fostered her love of engineering through father-daughter projects throughout her childhood, such as building a birdhouse from scratch and building a regulation softball infield in their back yard. Kena Cline  was introduced to STEM by her mother, a high school science teacher. She had many opportunities to accompany her mother to observe chemistry labs, dissections, and field trips to the Maryland Science Center, Baltimore Aquarium, and 4H clubs focused on environmental consciousness. Although ultimately ending up in the technical realm, the introduction to biology and science piqued Ms. Cline’s interest in overall STEM. After graduating with a B.S. in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh, Ms. Cline completed her Master’s in Systems

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Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University shortly afterward. Ms. Cline remains in STEM because of the diverse and unique opportunities available. For instance, she supported a space program that receives just “one shot” at a successful launch. She served as the Information Systems Security Manager (ISSM), ensuring secure controls were implemented on a network used by the U.S.  Air Force to connect flight simulators across the world to perform virtual training (aerial formation, aerial refueling, combat missions). Ms. Cline currently supports DoD programs performing Cyber Network Operations (CNO) and ensuring systems remain secured against Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). While serving as a Systems Engineering Department Manager, she was responsible for managing a team of over 60 Cyber, Network, and Systems Engineers and Engineering Managers. In this capacity, Ms. Cline is most proud of having the ability to give back—mentoring new hires and summer interns, nominating team members for industry awards/ conferences, and helping to bring non-traditional talent (non-technical/non-degreed) personnel onboard through certification programs and on-the-job training. In 2016, Ms. Cline was elected as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) National Professional Executive Board (PEB) Public Relations Chair. She had been a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) organizations. In her free time, she enjoys international travel, jogging, cycling, and Latin dancing.

Part III

Focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Chapter 6

Gender Diversity in Systems Engineering Product, Project, and Services Life Cycle Leadership: It’s Not Just Counting the Women Erika Palmer

and Heather J. Feli

Abstract  With an increasing focus on women in engineering and gender diversity policy, it is important to realize that gender diversity is more than the business case for diversity. Gender diversity is not counting the quantity of women in an organization. While percentages of women in an organization is a diversity metric, it is not gender diversity. Gender diversity in an engineering context is the interaction of gender systems and engineering systems. Concepts at the core of this are socio-­ technical complexity and feminist engineering ethics. The lack of seeing gender systems as part of the engineering product life cycle is a problem space that is discussed less in the discussion of gender diversity. Gender diversity is important in systems engineering and leadership to increase the likelihood that gender issues in the product life cycle will be noticed and addressed. This chapter highlights examples of how the system life cycle of products, projects, and services are affected by the lack of gender diversity in systems engineering and leadership. Examples include motor vehicle collisions, engineering failures, artificial intelligence, and challenges to women’s health outcomes. Inherent bias affects the system’s design, development, and management. Increased gender diversity brings more views to the table, which balances inherent bias. Tools and techniques that can be applied to approach to gender diversity are described, including a modified version of a complexity primer. Examples show why systems engineering leadership must go beyond thinking of gender diversity as the number of women in the organization because gender diversity in systems engineering saves lives! E. Palmer (*) Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] H. J. Feli INCOSE, Hartford, CT, USA email: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_6

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6.1 Introduction The word ‘female,’ when inserted in front of something, is always with a note of surprise. Female COO, female pilot, female surgeon — as if the gender implies surprise … One day there won’t be female leaders. There will just be leaders. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and Founder of Leanin.org (Schnall 2013)

Diversity is a generic term that is often charged with meaning and emotion. Gender is one diversity category that garners a large amount of attention in organizations, especially in the era of the #metoo movement. Contrary to popular belief and organizational practices of reporting statistics, gender diversity is not “counting the women.” While percentages of women in any organization is a performance metric of diversity, it is not gender diversity itself. What do we mean when we talk about gender diversity and systems engineering? There are many topics related to this theme, for example: • • • •

Value added to the organization/business case (Squires et al. 2019) Workplace behavior (Bastalich et al. 2007) Social justice (Slaton 2015) United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Stephens et al. 2018)

This last point concerning the Sustainable Development Goals is particularly important given that systems engineering leadership is giving a greater focus to systems engineering’s contribution to tackling the “Grand Challenges” and meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (El-Haloush et  al. 2019). The Sustainable Development Goals are a network of interconnected goals used as a reference for the international community in working toward sustainable development (Pradhan et al. 2017). Although Sustainable Development Goal 5 is Gender Equality, the interconnected network of Sustainable Development Goals means that gender is relevant to all Sustainable Development Goals. In other words, gender as a system is connected to the system of Sustainable Development Goals. Everything is connected, and yet different. When we discuss gender issues in systems engineering, different topics arise (such as those listed above), but they are all rooted in the same fundamental concepts. To make plans and policies to increase gender diversity in systems engineering, we need to understand not only what those concepts are but work toward an ontology for a systems engineering context. Using a social science perspective together with engineering ethics, we conceptually outline what gender diversity is in a systems engineering context. This is the start of a larger conversation on the concepts, relationships, and rules in a social systems ontology. Gender is itself a social system and interacts with other social systems, such as organizational systems. The interaction of gender, and social and organizational systems, is the conceptual foundation for many gender diversity problem spaces in systems engineering. In addition, we argue for the value of gender diversity in systems engineering using a feminist engineering ethics approach. We explore feminist engineering ethics in a life cycle perspective of engineering products, using examples from car safety, artificial intelligence, and software/simulation.

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The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to a larger conversation about what gender diversity means in the context of systems engineering and what value gender diversity adds to systems engineering leadership and the field of systems engineering. Before policies can be developed to increase gender diversity in systems engineering leadership, it is important to establish a conceptual understanding of what gender diversity is, how it operates as a social system and interacts with and adds value to the field of systems engineering. With an increasing focus on women in systems engineering leadership, through groups such as Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) at the International Council for Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the desire to develop policy to increase gender diversity in systems engineering on every level not just leadership, it is important to realize that gender diversity is more than the business case for diversity or diversity for diversity’s sake. While percentages of women in any organization is a performance metric of diversity (“counting the women”), it is not gender diversity itself. Gender diversity in an engineering context is the interaction of gender systems and engineering systems. Concepts at the core of this are socio-technical complexity and feminist engineering ethics. Socio-­ technical complexity is the system complexity arising from interaction of technical and social systems. Feminist engineering ethics can be simply described as the identification of any place in which gender is a relevant system to an engineered artifact. The lack of seeing gender systems as part of an engineering product life cycle is a problem space that is less often represented in the discussion of gender diversity in systems engineering. A key reason why gender diversity is important in systems engineering (especially in systems engineering leadership) is that increased diversity makes it more likely that gender issues in the product life cycle will be noticed and addressed. This chapter highlights examples of how the system life cycle of engineering products, projects, and services are affected by the lack of gender diversity in systems engineering. In studies of motor vehicle collisions, engineering failures can occur when there is a lack of gender system inclusion in the product life cycle. One study identified a 73% higher risk of female fatality in front-end motor vehicle collisions of belted passengers due to a lack of female body type crash test dummies (Forman et al. 2019). In an example regarding artificial intelligence, we see a multitude of challenges from the lack of seeing gender systems in the product life cycle (Caliskan et al. 2017). Artificial intelligence is only as value free as the human intelligence on which it is based. Though methods are being developed to identify gender biases and account for them, biases in artificial intelligence are found in technologies in widespread use. For example, because of biases in the data sources, artificial intelligence used in healthcare presents challenges to health outcomes for women. Trends in systems engineering leadership are leading to the inclusion of more women in leadership positions. While this is a positive development, the system life cycle examples indicate the need to widen the focus of the gender diversity perspective to include how systems engineering leaders practice what their increasing “women in leadership percentages” preach. Inherent bias affects the systems and

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services we design, develop, and manage. Increased gender diversity in systems engineering teams and leadership brings more worldviews and perspectives to the table, which works to balance inherent bias. Systems engineering leadership can manage the value of this balance to have positive outcomes for women who use the products and services we are engineering. Examples like those mentioned above are why the systems engineering community must go beyond thinking of gender diversity as the representation of women in engineering and the value that has for organizations and teams – gender diversity in systems engineering saves lives!

6.2 Gender Systems in the System Life Cycle Before we begin with examining how gender systems interact with an engineered system/service life cycle, we need to understand what gender systems are. In this examination, we are applying social science concepts in systems engineering and vice versa. Bringing social science disciplines together with engineering is emerging now as a sub-discipline of systems engineering, called social systems engineering. A systems approach applied in the social sciences is not common, but several examples are starting to emerge (Palmer 2017a). Research on communications in the social sciences is the area in which we can see a systems approach (Luhmann 1993; Stichweh 2000; Görke and Scholl 2006). There are many offshoots of general systems theory, including sociological systems theory. Sociological systems theory was developed by Niklas Luhmann (1993) and understands systems as self-­ referential operations that influence their environment, and a fundamental concept in this relationship is functional differentiation. Through the lens of functional differentiation, the world is seen as many operationally closed, autonomous, communicative systems, coexisting, each with their own specific functional purpose. Examples of these social systems include law, economy, politics, art, education, science, religion, love, medicine, and mass media. According to Luhmann (1993), modern societies are polycontextural. This means that they are social systems with many unique, overlapping functional logics, which are influenced by their own historical evolution. These contextures develop, adapt, and change, and a major part of their evolution is the communication between different contextures. Each system individually (e.g., education, science, etc.) is monocontextural and views the world according to its own binary code. These systems overlap and interact and form a polycontextural society. To illustrate this with an example, we can understand education as a polycontextural construction. The notion of education, with schools as a structural entity in a functionally differentiated society, has changed with the development of society. Biological systems (the human body at the school) is polycontextural in itself. The body can be seen as a chorus of voices, each singing its own wants and needs. These voices in children (or anyone being educated) in the structural entity (the school) communicate to other polycontextural constructions (teachers, administration), which interact with many other social and technical systems (economic systems),

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while all these systems are trying to have their wants and needs fulfilled. In this example, we can begin to see how polycontexturality plays out on the societal level, each system interacting to contribute to larger, more complex social systems (such as national education policy systems).

6.2.1 Gender Diversity and Gender Systems In general, diversity refers to policies and practices that pursue the inclusion of people who, in various ways, are considered as different from traditional members, for example, within an organization (Herring 2009). According to Herring (2009), “diversity aims to create an inclusive culture that values and uses talents of all would-be members.” While gender and race often are the focal points within diversity policies, diversity may include all kinds of individual differences, whether it comes to personal, demographic, or organizational characteristics (Herring 2009; Herring and Henderson 2011). The value-in-diversity perspective argues for a diverse workforce rather than a homogeneous one, as diversity in general is considered beneficial for business, including corporate profit and earnings (Swann et al. 2004). This is based on the assumption that growth and innovation depend on people from different backgrounds who work together and capitalize on their various qualities. Although there is a risk that differences also lead to some negative group dynamics, diversity is viewed as beneficial for creative processes and for the quality of products developed by the work group (Herring 2009). Herring and Henderson (2011) point out how critical diversity involves more than embracing and appreciating cultural differences that exist between groups: “It also includes examining issues of parity, equity, and inequality in all forms. It confronts issues of oppression and stratification that revolve around issues of diversity.” Alongside race and class, gender represents one of the central dimensions of inequality in modern societies. Diversity is a result of differentiation processes, and gender is differentiated in several ways (Bührmann 2014). The differentiation of two biological genus groups emphasizes how the female body differs fundamentally both physiologically and psychologically from the male body. The differentiation between sex and gender highlights that individuals develop certain characteristics or behaviors through gender-­specific socialization processes. The differentiation within the genus groups clarifies the importance of not only considering the interests of white heterosexual middle-class women, but also to include the interests of women of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ), and/or working-class women. Gender-based discrimination may be observed at different levels (Schmitt et al. 2003). At the macro level, women are disadvantaged in relation to men when it comes to various work-related parameters. At the micro level, as individuals, women experience discrimination when it comes to employment, earnings, and ability to influence strategic decisions. In addition, women are also more exposed to sexual

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threats and physical violence. Men can also experience discrimination at the micro level if they deviate too much from hegemonic masculinity, for example, if they are not considered masculine enough or not sufficiently successful. At the meso level, organizations are as key arenas for the production and reproduction of differences between genus groups. Depending on the organizational culture and structure, organizations often provide gender-specific task allocations and job descriptions as well as gender-specific expectations regarding abilities and knowledge. Gender is a system that operates together with organizational systems, fostering problematic behavior seen on these different organizational levels. Gender as a social construct is not the same as being male or female. Males and females are biological systems interacting with socially constructed gender systems of men and women, which are built from other interacting social and cultural systems. The elements that make up gender systems in a given society is what we mean when we discuss gender as a system (Palmer 2017a). Because of this, gender systems change over time because the social systems on which they are based change over time.

6.2.2 Organizations as Social Systems Organizations are a type of social system that is consciously constructed to realize certain goals and conducting experiments to ensure their survival (Achterbergh and Vriens 2009). Organizational theory is concerned with how organizations work. The aim of such theory is to describe and explain how individuals and groups think and act within the frames of their organizations (Jones 2013). Different ways to organize workplaces affect the employees’ attitudes and behavior at work. We can use organizational theory to explore unexpected organizational behavior, to identify measures to improve organizational behavior, to assess potential outcomes, to develop strategy, and to evaluate results of reform (Jacobsen and Thorsvik 2002). Communication, decisions, learning, and change are key elements in organizational systems. Sociological systems theory applied to organizational systems describes them as polyphonic. Polyphony, also referred to as heterophony, refers to the fluidity of the relationships/links between the function systems (Knudsen and Vogd 2015). On the organizational level, many function systems interact, and the interaction between these systems is not static. In large organizations, for example, universities, educational, economic, legal, scientific, and ethical systems interact (among others), the relationships between them evolve over time, and there is a constant state of change. People working in organizations, especially those at the interface of different function systems, are most subject to problems arising. The individuals working in these organizations are part of their own social systems outside of the organizational system. Everyone belongs to gender, racial, cultural, and socioeconomic systems that interact with their role in the organizational system. In terms of gender diversity, where we see low gender diversity in organizations, it is because of structural integration failure of organizational and gender

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systems. In sociological systems theory terms, these polycontextural constructions (gender, organizational, technical) did not interact in a way that the wants and needs of the disparate entities were fulfilled. From a sociological perspective, this is the conceptual foundation of the various gender diversity topics that are discussed in systems engineering (such as those listed in the introduction). The business case/added-value argument is the argument for increasing gender diversity in systems engineering (because it is beneficial for organizations and women); it is not the “how to” argument (because it does not show how to increase gender diversity). The theoretical concepts discussed in this section are the foundation for developing a “how to” argument.

6.2.3 Feminist Engineering Ethics and Systems Engineering The value of increasing the number of women and having them represented in leadership positions in systems engineering was in sharp focus in the October 2019 INCOSE Insight Diversity issue. This issue highlights commonly cited examples of how increased gender diversity increases the value to, for example, collective intelligence/performance and positive workplace environment behavior (Dove 2019) and ideas and innovation (Hoverman et al. 2019; Morgan 2019). This chapter takes the problem space of a lack of gender diversity in systems engineering leadership further in that we apply feminist engineering ethics to the systems engineering life cycle. A lot of the discussion around gender diversity in systems engineering focuses on organizational systems. Engineering workplaces present specific challenges to women that show not only limited recruitment but also atrociously high attrition rates for women in engineering positions. The average length of time for women to stay in an engineering position before switching fields is 5 years after their education is finished, with many already having left during their studies because of experiences on student project teams and internships (Palmer 2017b). This system behavior (limited recruitment and high attrition of women) is the problem space at the interface of gender systems and organizational systems in an engineering context. There is more however to the gender diversity problem space in engineering than the interaction of these social systems. 6.2.3.1 Engineering Ethics A brief explanation of engineering ethics is necessary because engineering ethics can easily be misinterpreted as only the ethical behavior of the engineer, using the line of thinking: “if I am a good person, then I don’t need to worry about ethics.” While one part of ethics focuses on the behavior of the engineer, there is much more to it than a binary evaluation of good/bad behavior. In addition, there are other types of ethics that are critically important in engineering, which the examples we highlight below illustrate. Figure 6.1 shows the three main types of ethics, each with a

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Virtue Ethics

Consequentialist Ethics

Deontological Ethics

• Behavior-based • “It is the right thing to do if the actions reflect that I am a person of high integrity and moral value” • This is often where the ethics conversations end

• Consequence-based • “It is the right thing to do if there is a net positive benefit to society” • Critically important area for engineers to evaluate; basis for discussion in this paper

• Duty-based • “It is the right thing to do if my duty requires it” • For example, Prime Directive from Star Trek

Fig. 6.1  The three main types of ethics. (Crisp and Slote 1997; Scheffler 1988; Alexander and Moore 2008)

Concept

Design

Development

How are my decisions in design going to affect those that do not reflect my world-view

Testing

Operations

End of Life

Consequences of design decisionmaking on society

Fig. 6.2  Basic product life cycle highlighting design as an area of ethical concern

brief description. We will not discuss each of them in this chapter, but we want to highlight one, consequentialism ethics, as this is crucially important for systems engineers to understand when working with gender diversity. Consequentialist ethics in an engineering context can be thought of as the life cycle management of ethics. An engineering team designs and builds an engineering product, it is used, and it has an end of life. At each point of this process, there are ethical implications and ethical questions that need to be discussed. Using simulation modeling as an example of an engineering artifact, Palmer (2017b) evaluates life cycle ethical consequences that go beyond the proximity of the engineer’s influence yet can be evaluated by the engineer in the beginning of the product life cycle. Figure 6.2 presents a simple system life cycle. At each point of the life cycle, there are ethical implications (though we highlight design in this example). In

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consequentialism ethics of the life cycle of engineering products, we evaluate the downstream consequences of engineering decision-making in an upstream stage of the life cycle. Figure 6.2 shows this with decision-making in design. The decisions made in design by an engineer who is “behaving ethically,” in the sense that they are of high integrity and uphold good moral values, can lead to consequences for society in other parts of the life cycle when the engineering product is beyond the hands of the engineer. Yet the engineer can reflect on how their worldview affects design decisions, even if the downstream societal consequences cannot always be controlled. The designing, building, and use of engineered products is embedded in social systems. It is from social systems that this complexity seeps into engineering processes. The known and unknown complexity increases the further the product travels in the life cycle because the product is further from the engineer’s hands. The engineering product can become part of unintended social systems and gain unintended uses (Watson et al. 2019) and could possibly be used with ill intent whether consciously or not (Palmer 2017c). It is the ethical consequences in life cycle management where the systems engineer can influence the social impact of engineering products. Practical ways of making this happen through inclusivity and gender diversity of engineering teams in product design are starting to get attention (Winchester 2019). 6.2.3.1.1  Feminist Engineering Ethics: Interaction of Gender Systems and Engineering Systems Feminist engineering ethics can be simply described as the identification of any place in which gender is a relevant system to an engineered artifact (Riley 2013; Palmer and Wilson 2018). The lack of inclusion of gender systems in the evaluation of the life cycle of an engineered artifact is the problem space that is less often represented in the discussion of gender diversity in systems engineering. A key value of gender diversity in systems engineering and systems engineering leadership is that increased diversity makes it more likely that gender issues in the product life cycle will be noticed and addressed. Figure 6.3 further details the ethical life cycle to indicate where identification of gender issues takes place in a product life cycle.

Concept

Design

Development

-Low gender diversity in engineering teams -Unconscious bias -Unknown or not accounted for downstream consequences for women

Testing

Operations

End of Life

Consequences for women: -Motor Vehicle Safety -Artificial Intelligence -Policy Simulators

Fig. 6.3  Basic product life cycle: feminist engineering ethics examples

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6.2.3.1.2  Motor Vehicles Feminist engineering ethics is where gender issues are analyzed as threaded through the life cycle of engineering products. Engineering failures can occur when there is a lack of gender system inclusion in the product life cycle. A deadly example of this is with a study that identified a 73% higher risk of female fatality in front-end motor vehicle collisions of belted passengers (controlling for collision severity, occupant age, stature, body mass index, and vehicle model year) (Forman et al. 2019). The reason for this is because of crash testing uses male body-type dummies, which influences safety design, and motor vehicle safety standards do not require female body types in testing. Seatbelt design also fails to account for pregnancy, where standard seatbelts do not accommodate for 62% of third-trimester pregnancy (Perez 2019). Without a systemic inclusion of gender systems in engineering systems failures like this are possible. This is why systems engineering must go beyond thinking of gender diversity as the representation of women in engineering and the value that it has for organizations and teams. The automotive industry in this example or any industry that employs one gender more than the other and has no system in place to account for gender systems in the engineering life cycle will see problems with engineering artifacts that affect gender systems. The argument in this example is that if engineering teams, especially among systems engineers and systems engineering leaders, increase gender diversity, design and test failures of this nature would be less likely to occur. Although there is no conscious ill intent from the automotive industry or at the engineer level, to make cars less safe for women, unconscious biases in individuals and non-diverse team worldviews create situations like this. The less diverse the team and leadership, the lower the diversity represented in the final products. 6.2.3.1.3  Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare, and Medicine Another example where feminist engineering ethics is showing relevance is in artificial intelligence (Gjengedal 2019). Regardless of country, we are all living in a gender-biased society. Using machine learning to derive artificial intelligence will bring these biases out in the engineering product wherein artificial intelligence is applied. Using textual data sources that reflect a society’s culture with machine-­ learning algorithms produces stereotyped biases. Artificial intelligence is only as value free as the human intelligence on which it is based. Though methods are being developed to identify these biases and account for them (Caliskan et  al. 2017), biases in artificial intelligence are found in technologies in widespread use. For example, because of biases in the data sources, artificial intelligence used in healthcare presents challenges to health outcomes for women (Pley et al. 2019). Though not specifically related to machine learning itself, a good example of gender issues in artificial intelligence are in digital assistants, such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana. With few exceptions, digital assistants have feminine traits, voices, and names. The name for Microsoft’s Cortana is based on a highly sexualized female

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character from the video game series, Halo (Muller 2019). Additionally, these same digital assistants based on male-biased voice data are less effective/accurate for females due to voice pitch differences (Perez 2019). Engineers are human, and like everyone else in their daily life, they will project unconscious biases onto the work that they do. We all have a worldview and biases that come with that, and these biases get into systems. For example, heart attack symptoms differ between male and female physiology; males typically experience chest pain and left arm pain; female symptoms typically include breathlessness, nausea, and fatigue (Perez 2019). If healthcare artificial intelligence systems are based on male symptomatic data only, females experiencing a heart attack could be misdiagnosed with indigestion, not receive lifesaving treatment, and die. Pley et al. (2019) highlights examples in the medical system where gender diversity was missed when general anesthesia and medications were only in male populations despite known physiological male and female differences. The original licensing and release of the sleeping pill Ambien highlights another dangerous example. Only after Ambien was licensed was it determined that Ambien metabolized faster in males. Females taking Ambien, and unknowingly metabolizing it slower, were still under the sleeping pill’s influence after waking and going about their day. A female Ambien user was found unconscious in her car at the bottom of an exit ramp with no memory of the incident. Afterward the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved dose was reduced for females (Pley et al. 2019). “If a drug affects half the population differently, we need know about it but gender bias in science and medicine has often led to men being treated as the norm and women treated as ‘atypical’ men’. The results of this bias can mean life or death for women” (Pley et al. 2019). Artificial intelligence systems learn from the data they are built on. If healthcare artificial intelligence systems are unconsciously built upon gender-biased and unbalanced data, the gender-biased inequities which present life or death risk to female physiology will persist (Pley et al. 2019). Increased gender diversity in engineering teams brings more worldviews to the table. Systems engineering, with a holistic view on the engineering product processes, has the opportunity to manage how these biases seep into systems. “Inclusive products can only be created if everyone is included in design and decision making” (Pley et al. 2019). 6.2.3.1.4  Software Products and Simulators One further example that is important to highlight is how engineering products directly influence public policy. Policy simulators are custom software products developed for policymakers and politicians to facilitate policy decision-making. They rely on economic and demography data which are then fed through a variety of model types (e.g., agent-based, system dynamics, discrete event). These simulators are also increasingly making use of machine learning. The simulators are built with a user interface, where the policymaker can interact by flipping switches, changing values, which are equivalent to them changing/developing a policy. This

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then forecasts system behavior in a variety of graphs that show the effect on different areas when they change or make policies. At face value, it is easy to see the many ways in which this can go badly for policy development if gender systems are not included in the design of a software product of this nature. One way in which this can go wrong in a feminist engineering context is given by Palmer and Wilson (2018) in a study on policymakers developing policy to increase a country’s total fertility rate, using tools that fail to represent gender systems. The resulting policy will fail if gender is not included in the simulator design. In addition, if a policy simulator relies on machine learning, as discussed in the artificial intelligence digital assistants example, we will see all the related gender biases that are already inherent in society further underlined in policy development. The value of gender diversity in systems engineering should be expanded to mean the systemic inclusion of gender systems in the engineering product life cycle. The value of this inclusion, illustrated in the examples above, means that engineering products and systems can have a reduced negative social impact for women. We argue that the increased gender diversity of women in systems engineering, especially in leadership roles, can be the means in which to enable this. When there is greater gender diversity in a systems engineering team, the more diverse worldviews that come with this diversity will be reflected in the life cycle social impact of the engineering product or system.

6.3 Where Gender Lives in Systems: Socio-technical Complexity Making progress with how systems engineering leadership addresses the issues outlined in the previous section requires more than identifying the problem areas of how gender interacts with the life cycle of engineered products and services. We need to understand how these problem spaces operate, for example,where gender lives in these systems, which is where socio-technical complexity plays a major role.

6.3.1 Socio-technical Systems Though there are a few specific definitions, there are many ways in which the term “socio-technical system” is used depending on the specific engineering or scientific domain. There are also different approaches for considering socio-technical systems depending on the life cycle stage and the specific systems engineering challenge.

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6.3.2 Socio-technical Systems: Concept and Theory The concept of a socio-technical system describes the interrelationship between humans and machines, and the motivation behind developing research on socio-­ technical systems was to cope with theoretical and practical work environment problems in industry (Ropohl 1999). Socio-technical systems theory has been developing over the past 60 years predominately focusing on new technology and work design (Davis et al. 2014). This theory has developed into socio-technical systems thinking, and research has concentrated in several key areas: • • • •

Human factors and ergonomics (Carayon 2006) Organizational design (Cherns 1976) System design (Clegg 2000; van Eijnatten 1998) Information systems (Mumford 2006)

6.3.3 Socio-technical Systems: Design Approach As a design approach, socio-technical systems design, socio-technical systems bring human, social, organizational, and technical elements in the design of organizational systems (Baxter and Sommerville 2011). While Baxter and Sommerville (2011) refer to computer-based systems in their definition of socio-technical systems thinking as a design approach, the generic term “technical system” is also applicable: “The underlying premise of socio-technical systems thinking is that system design should be a process that takes into account both social and technical factors that influence the functionality and usage of computer-based systems” (Baxter and Sommerville 2011).

6.3.4 Socio-technical Systems: Systems Engineering Context In a systems engineering context, it has been argued that all systems are socio-­ technical systems (Palmer et al. 2019). However, socio-technical systems in a systems engineering context are not well defined though the topic has gained traction in recent years (Donaldson 2017; Broniatowski 2018). There are examples in systems engineering literature, where the term socio-technical system is used to refer to a system where social and technical elements are relevant. These include studies of agent-based modeling of socio-technical systems (Heydari and Pennock 2018), insurance systems as socio-critical systems (Yasui 2011), and interdisciplinary systems engineering approaches to influence enterprise systems (Pennock and Rouse 2016; Wang et al. 2018).

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Based on the work that the systems engineering community has produced thus far, the working definition of the term socio-technical systems in a systems engineering context is simply: Socio-technical systems: Systems operating at the intersection of social and technical systems. (Kroes et al. 2006)

6.3.5 Gender and Socio-technical Complexity  Engineered products and technology (cars, computers, the internet, airplanes, smart phones) do not perform functions alone. They rely on people, social structures, and organizations. The interaction of people and organizations with technology in constantly changing environments is complex (INCOSE 2016). The socio-technical complexity arises from the interactions between the engineered products and technology with the regulations, usage practices, market, cultural meanings, and production systems put in place by humans, society, and organizations using it (Geels 2005). Social interactions include the consumer and their society norms, behavior, belief systems, collective groups, networks, as well as the environment, politics, economies, media, and resources: “…we often call something complex when we can’t fully understand its structure or behavior; it is uncertain, unpredictable, complicated, or just plain difficult” (INCOSE 2016). When a system includes people, it automatically interfaces with gender and diversity. Gender itself is complex. Gender is more than the biological sex we are allocated at birth. Gender is not binary (male or female). Gender can be considered a fluid spectrum between masculine and feminine varying with time, race, nationality, class, geography, individual identity, and other social aspects (Palmer and Wilson 2018; Wade and Ferree 2015; Fausto-Sterling 2000; Jeanes et al. 2012). Figure 6.4 allows visualization of socio-technical systems as a complex system of systems. “A system of systems is a collection of independent systems, integrated into a larger system that delivers unique capabilities. The independent constituent systems collaborate to produce global behavior that they cannot produce alone” (INCOSE 2018). People, shaped by education, gender, environment, race, and culture, all interacting with each other across the globe form a system. The government, at varying sizes of local, state, federal, or international levels, all with varying policies, taxes, laws, economies, or police or military, is a system of systems. Technology, perhaps a more obvious system of systems, consists of communication, infrastructure, banking and commerce, information, transportation, robotics, artificial intelligence, or entertainment systems. People experience and interact in the world differently, and this interaction changes throughout one’s life due to experiences, age, and education. This interaction also changes because culture and societal norms change and as the subsystems interact with each other. For example, a person’s risk tolerance might change as their financial stability changes; those finances are likely impacted by both gender and education level and the risk

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Fig. 6.4  Socio-technical system represented as a complex system of systems

tolerance, financial stability, gender, and education all impacting the decision-­ making process. Each person’s interaction with the other systems (government, education, healthcare, technology, environment, or economy) varies on a complexity scale based on their perception and where they are on life’s spectrum. All of the subsystems shown in Fig. 6.4, people, government, technology, environment, economy, and healthcare interacting with each other, results in behavior they do not create alone. Thus it forms a complex system of systems which varies infinitely as the combinations of systems change, evolve, and interact. We live in a world today where the systems being designed go beyond basic consumerism. Systems and technology created today affect how we interact and function in the world: transportation (Uber, self-driving cars), food supply (grocery delivery), banking (apps on a cell phone using facial recognition), security screenings (facial recognition, two factor authentication), communication (voice activation or recognition), education (online learning), work (remote work), healthcare (apps to schedule vaccines, online medical record access), and smart appliances, including the policies around these technologies which are social systems where gender plays a part. The gender spectrum needs to be considered in the system design to allow all genders to live, interact, and function safely and equally. Complex system behavior is often impossible to predict due to the multiple interacting elements, structures, states, views, scales, relationships, environments, feedback loops, perturbations, and boundaries (INCOSE 2016). For example, consider the interacting elements and environment in 2020 leading up to the US 2020 election: #metoo movement, social media, previous rumors of Russian election hacking,

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Black Lives Matter and racial injustice movements, continued Brexit negotiations, SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) global pandemic leading to a global recession, global warming, continued Australian wildfires, “murder hornets,” and the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. With all of that happening, would you have predicted toilet paper availability becoming a critical topic? Proving that the emergent behavior and patterns of complex systems are not easy to understand or predict (INCOSE 2016). We can then begin to understand how something as multifaceted as gender and gender diversity interactions within systems engineering and organizations with the related policies, regulations, human resources and interactions, customers, organizational culture, and politics might also be complex.

6.3.6 How Can Systems Engineering Leadership Embrace Socio-technical Complexity The approach to addressing a complex system requires balance between simplifying versus engaging. The is trade-off between making it easier to understand and potentially missing the root of the problem being addressed or being impossible to solve. We learn from INCOSE’s Complexity Primer (INCOSE 2016) that more advanced tools and techniques are needed when dealing with complex systems because of the risk associated with oversimplifying. A three-part approach is recommended: 1. Identify the system and environmental complexities present. 2. Use guiding principles and approaches to evaluate the complexity from different angles. 3. Continue to evolve the methods (INCOSE 2016). The following is a modified version of INCOSE’s Complexity Primer applying an approach to gender diversity within systems engineering. • Identify the system and environmental complexities present: –– A new developmental technology or product –– Gender diversity of the following: engineering team, stakeholders, leadership team, review boards, targeted end users, customer, customer leadership team, customer review boards –– Environmental context: global pandemic, global recession, widespread childcare and school closures leading to children being at home, large percentages of employees working remotely from home resulting in dispersed teams, added stress and anxiety, employees experiencing continued global and political unrest and racial violence and injustice –– Identify the socio-technical system layers present (Lucid 2021): Organizational Social Business processes

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Hardware Data management and communications Applications –– Data context: are all data sets (requirements, design, testing) representative of all genders? –– Use guided principles and approaches – consider the influencing factors, use patterns, consider desired or undesired side effects, collaborative approaches: Influencing factors  - Existing systems can be difficult to change due to sunk costs, behavior patterns, and infrastructure (Geels 2010). Expanding this to workplace and systems engineering influences already hired personnel and their existing position within the organization, organizational hierarchy and structure, policies and procedures and culture, chain of command or decision-making processes, onsite or virtual work arrangements, and employee benefit packages. Use patterns and desired or undesired product or service side effects: systems engineers and systems engineering leadership must consider and document gender differences explicitly (voice pitch or tone, facial features, physical body sizing), user behavior, user safety, useability, accessibility, maintenance, and fit. Collaborative approaches: “participatory visioning exercises, multi-­ stakeholder learning process, societal debates” (Geels 2010). Consider complexity in stakeholder relationships and interactions that might look like critical questions addressing gender explicitly: • How might stakeholder gender impact end use of this system (physiological differences)? • How might stakeholder gender and life stage interactions (pregnancy, elderly) impact end use of this system? • How might stakeholder perspectives or patterns of this system differ between genders? • How is stakeholder gender being considered and accounted for during design and testing? • What risks might be present for different gender stakeholders? What about gender varying life stages? • Was stakeholder gender and perspectives considered in all use cases, voice of the customer, trade studies, and final requirements generation? –– How might we need to correct for lack of gender diversity at the customer to prevent unintended stakeholder impact misses? • Does the engineering team assigned to this product design have the gender diversity required to address the stakeholder diversity in requirements, design, testing, verification, and validation? • Does the leadership team and review board (change control boards, system requirements review, preliminary design review, critical design

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review) have the gender diversity required to adequately review this product, system, or service? –– How does the gender diversity of the systems engineering and leadership team compare to the gender diversity of the stakeholder population? What changes need to be made to bring them closer in alignment? • Is the socio-technical system too large or complex for the leadership team to understand or manage? (Lucid 2021) • What organizational changes might be needed due to the complexity or uncertainty of the system? (Lucid 2021) We know that complexity goes beyond the system being designed. It includes the people, organizations, and environments that will also interact with the product being designs. There is a layer on top of that which includes diversity of gender, culture, and social behavior. INCOSE’s complexity primer can be modified to include approaches for gender as shown in Table 6.1.

6.4 Path Forward and Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to contribute to a larger conversation about what gender diversity means in the context of systems engineering and the value gender diversity adds to systems engineering leadership and the field of systems engineering. The key argument is to have diverse leadership. Carol Reiley (2016) points out a “Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media found that white men viewing a crowd with 17% women perceived it to be 50–50, and when it was 33% women, they perceived it to be majority women. A simple overestimation like this illustrates how difficult it can be to see the world from another’s perspective.” As we illustrated in the Gender Systems in the System Life Cycle section, diverse perspectives are critical in the development of technology. “White middle-class men from America simply cannot be aware of the needs of all of humanity. And so the tech that they develop will inevitably be biased towards white middle-class men from America” (Perez 2019). Gender itself operates as a system and interacts with organizational systems. This interaction is complex and threaded with cultural and social values. Many INCOSE working groups in addition to Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) can help in increasing gender diversity, and we hope that this chapter can be used as a conceptual foundation, inspiration, and a call to action for working groups that want to contribute to this effort. The INCOSE Complex Systems Working Group (CSWG) has explored from a complexity perspective the sociological dimensions in systems engineering (Watson et  al. 2019), which was covered in the Where Gender Lives in Systems: Socio-technical Complexity section. This theme was also given attention in a 2019 INSIGHT issue on the theme of the “Future of Systems Engineering” (Watson 2019). The 2019 Diversity issue of

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Table 6.1 INCOSE complexity primer candidate approaches addresses system/solution complexity modified for gender perspective in socio-technical systems (INCOSE 2016) Requirement elicitation and derivation Complexity in Elicit system design requirements from multiple and Development perspectives of gender diverse (general) stakeholders. Understand objectives and desired outcomes for all genders Include a Emergent requirement for properties or a system behaviors in feedback loop solution based on gender system or emergent gender trends. Elicit requirements from multiple gender stakeholders

Complexity in system deployment and operation

Identify gender-based constraints and requirements. Capture gender scenarios, life stages,and mission threads

Solution architecture and design Trade studies Select elements Robust gender robust enough to representation. account for Gender diverse gender and stakeholder trade study buy-in. Gender socio-technical system changing diverse data sets boundaries

Build in a loop enabling feedback from society and gender diverse stakeholders/ users. Enable system continuous improvement based on co-evolution of the system with environment, users, and subsystems Design Consciously study trades to include and scenarios accurately represent inclusive of all vital social elements genders. in a dynamic model Trial stakeholder experience for (such as gender) all genders when they are an important part of the considering all conditions system of interest (Palmer and Wilson (pregnancy stages) using 2018) modeling/ simulation. Use modeling tools that include female and male populations

Trade on reliable gender-inclusive data. Include and make gender requirements and considerations accessible to prevent blind spots

Development process Approach system as a changing system of systems

Development activities include all layers: organizational, societal, business, hardware, data and communications, application

Differing gender users interacting with the system. Differing gender users interacting with each other (same gender, different genders)

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190 Table 6.1 (continued) Requirement elicitation and derivation Complexity in Requirements for co-evolution system evolution and of the stakeholder support gender, environment, subsystems

Trade studies Resilience and robustness criteria accounting for gender and environment evolution

Solution architecture and design Include feedback mechanisms enabling system to adapt to gender evolution

Development process System resilience in the face of gender co-evolution of the stakeholders, environment, systems

INSIGHT (Squires et al. 2019) has authors from many different INCOSE working groups coming together to discuss organizational systems and gender and cultural systems. A new INCOSE working group, the Social Systems Working Group, emerging from Complex Systems Working Group, has members evaluating gender and organizational systems together with social scientists. These are just a few examples, as there are many working groups that are contributing (or could contribute) a chapter to the complex story of gender diversity in systems engineering. The term gender diversity in a systems engineering context encapsulates much more than counting the number of women in an organization. While increasing gender diversity is best practice for normative reasons alone, there needs to be a more general understanding in the systems engineering community about what gender diversity is conceptual. As discussed, we need to widen the lens in which we view the value of gender diversity to include the life cycle of engineering products. INCOSE has made strides to improve inclusivity, and there are several INCOSE organizational structures that aim to build an inclusive environment that fosters gender diversity. The working group, Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering, is part of this structure. Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering’s initiatives, with panels and workshops at INCOSE events and external science and engineering professional/academic organizations, aim to develop solutions while keeping the conversation going on how to include more women in systems engineering and support them in leadership positions. INCOSE also has a diversity category (promoted by Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering) for its International Symposium that gives papers a home with reviewers sensitive to fostering an inclusive environment for women and other underrepresented groups. We would like to leave you with a final thought, remember: “every time you step into a vehicle, you’re putting your life into the hands of the people who made the design and engineering decisions behind every feature. When the people making those decisions don’t understand or account for your needs, your life is at risk” (Reiley 2016). The future will bring new systems and technologies, likely of greater complexity, leading to even more multifaceted human-technology interfaces and more complex system of systems. The question is: Will systems engineering leadership recognize socio-technical complexity in these systems to ensure safety for all genders?

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Knudsen M, Vogd W (2015) Systems theory and the sociology of health and illness. Observing Healthcare. Routledge, London Kroes P, Franssen M, Poel IVD, Ottens M (2006) Treating socio-technical systems as engineering systems: some conceptual problems. Syst Res Behav Sci 23(6):803–814 Lucid Content Team. The importance of sociotechnical systems. https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/ sociotechnical-­systems. Accessed 8 May 2021 Luhmann N (1993) Risk: a sociological theory, communication and social order. Transaction Publishers, New Jersey Morgan J (2019) Harnessing the diversity of ideas for competitive advantage. Insight 22(3):21–25 Muller J (2019) Why we really need to be thinking about AI and gender. Towards Data Science, viewed 8 November 2019, https://towardsdatascience.com/ why-­we-­really-­need-­to-­be-­thinking-­about-­ai-­and-­gender-­e2f96219f61c Mumford E (2006) The story of socio-technical design: reflections on its successes, failures and potential. Inf Syst J 16(4):317–342 Palmer E (2017a) Systems engineering applied to evaluate social systems: analyzing systemic challenges to the Norwegian welfare state. PhD dissertation, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Palmer E (2017b) Keeping women in systems engineering: gender dynamics in the field. INCOSE Int Symp Proc 27(1):1327–1339 Palmer E (2017c) Beyond proximity: consequentialist ethics and system dynamics. Nordic J Appl Eth 1:89–105 Palmer E, Wilson B (2018) Models with men and women: representing gender in dynamic modeling of social systems. Sci Eng Eth 24(2):419–439 Palmer E, Presland I, Rhodes D, Olaya C, Haskins C, Glazner C (2019) Social systems-where are we and where do we dare to go? Panel Discussion. 29th Annual INCOSE Symposium, Orlando, Florida Pennock MJ, Rouse WB (2016) The epistemology of enterprises. Syst Eng 19(1):24–43 Perez CC (2019) The dangers of gender bias in design, viewed 20 February 2022, https://www. evoke.org/articles/july-­2019/data-­driven/deep_dives/the-­dangers-­of-­gender-­bias-­in-­design? Pley C, Dhatt R, Keeling A (2019) Gender bias in Health AI  – prejudicing health outcomes (or getting it right!). Women in Global Health, viewed 8 November 2019, https://www.womeningh.org/single-­post/2019/09/11/ Gender-­bias-­in-­Health-­AI%2D%2D-­prejudicing-­health-­outcomes-­or-­getting-­it-­right Pradhan P, Costa L, Rybski D, Lucht W, Kropp JP (2017) A systematic study of sustainable development goal (SDG) interactions. Earth’s Future 5(11):1169–1179 Reiley C (2016) When bias in product design means life or death, November 16, 2016, https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/16/when-­b ias-­i n-­p roduct-­d esign-­m eans-­l ife-­o r-­ death/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&g uce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGgN7Eye3LuDDe-­X JZznkafhXsY9J1FE2I7wQvoxUpD Tav5vcJsakbHSiwjsaW5KKpJ4lnpVkI5MfUv3-­3 4x6qFaslF7j323eaL0VU1k-­Yija-­ tUz3iXkxHjl4YuFfA0XnWaDTmn2QgrBK6LOjLh6kPEt3WxSJUseqLADMEeftKl Riley D (2013) Hidden in plain view: feminists doing engineering ethics, engineers doing feminist ethics. Sci Eng Eth 19(1):189–206 Ropohl G (1999) Philosophy of socio-technical systems. Soc Philos Technol Q Electron J 4(3):186–194 Scheffler S (1988) Consequentialism and its critics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Schmitt MT, Ellemers N, Branscombe NR (2003) Perceiving and responding to gender discrimination in organizations. In: Haslam SA, van Knippenberg D, Platow MJ, Ellemers N (eds) Social identity at work: developing theory for organizational practice. Psychology Press, New York, pp 277–292 Schnall M (2013) What will it take to make a Woman President?: Conversations about women, leadership and power. Hachette, London

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Slaton AE (2015) Meritocracy, technocracy, democracy: understandings of racial and gender equity in American engineering education. In: International perspectives on engineering education. Springer, New York Squires A, Hoverman L, Long D (2019) Diversity in systems engineering. Insight 22(3):1–58 Stephens A, Lewis ED, Reddy S (2018) Towards an inclusive systemic evaluation for the SDGs: gender equality, environments and marginalized voices (GEMs). Evaluation 24(2):220–236 Stichweh R (2000) Systems theory as an alternative to action theory? The rise of ‘communication’ as a theoretical option. Acta Sociologica 43(1):5–13 Swann WB Jr, Polzer JT, Seyle DC, Ko SJ (2004) Finding value in diversity: verification of personal and social self-views in diverse groups. Acad Manag Rev 29(1):9–27 van Eijnatten FM (1998) Developments in socio-technical systems design (STSD). In: Drenth PJ, Thierry H, de Wolff CJ (eds) Handbook of work and organizational psychology, vol 2, pp 61–80 Wade L, Ferree MM (2015) Gender: ideas, interactions, institutions. W. W. Norton and Company, New York Wang H, Li S, Wang Q (2018) Introduction to social systems engineering. Springer, New York Watson M (2019) Future of systems engineering. Insight 22(1):1–56 Watson M, Anway R, McKinney D, Rosser LA, MacCarthy J (2019) Appreciative methods applied to the assessment of complex systems. INCOSE Int Symp Proc 29(1):448–477 Winchester W III (2019) Inclusive and consequential by design: “futurefying” new product development (NPD) through vision concepting. Insight 22(3):49–51 Yasui T (2011) A new systems engineering approach for a socio-critical system: a case study of claims-payment failures of Japan’s insurance industry. Syst Eng 14(4):349–363 Dr. Erika Palmer  was constantly asking “why” questions about everything as a child. Her curiosity for so many different things made STEM a natural choice to investigate the world around her. Dr. Erika Palmer is a systems engineer specializing in social and socio-technical systems, with a PhD in Systems Engineering and Social Policy from the University of Bergen, Norway. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Systems Engineering Program at Cornell University. Dr. Palmer is active in the International Council for Systems Engineering (INCOSE) community, where she is the founder of the Social Systems Working Group, regional lead for Empowering Women Leaders in Systems Engineering (EWLSE) and part of INCOSE’s Technical Leadership Institute. Heather J. Feli  came to engineering to shape the world and make the world a better place. These continue to be the driving forces behind her career today. Heather is the Product Engineering Leader in Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense’s Electronics Center of Excellence. Her career spans 19 years in the aerospace and defense industry working in a variety of roles: Propellant Design Engineer on the Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motors, Systems Engineer, Project Engineer, Program Manager, Senior Development Engineer, and now in operations leading Electronics Manufacturing Engineers. Heather’s speaking engagements include panel moderator for INCOSE International Symposium (2020) “Everything You Want to Know About Technical Leadership but Are Afraid to Ask”; STEMfems (2019) teaching hands-on rocket science and positive female role modeling for middle school girls; panelist at the 2016 INCOSE International Symposium on Empowering Women as Leaders in Systems Engineering; and teaching Rocket Science for Sixth Graders (2016) Mr. Hall’s 6th grade class at Reed Intermediate School. In 2008 her “outstanding contributions to the Nation in advancing space science and technology for the benefit of humankind” were recognized for her work on the Space Shuttle Booster Separation Motors (BSMs) with a Rotary Stellar Award nomination. In 2009 she received a Program Manager’s Flight Commendation for her dedicated support of the successful Ares I-X flight. In 2016 her out-

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standing leadership working on the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) was recognized by Lockheed Martin with an opportunity to visit White Sands Missile Test Range to witness a Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile test. Heather was inducted into the INCOSE’s Technical Leadership Institute (TLI) in 2020. She is a co-author of an INCOSE International Symposium 2020 paper titled “Experiments in Leading Through Influence: Reflections from a Group of Emerging Technical Leaders.” Heather leads Ensign-Bickford’s campus engagement team for her alma mater Clarkson University. She is co-creator of Clarkson University’s annual oktoBAJAfest, a unique exhibition race for mini baja vehicles.

Chapter 7

A Critical Analysis of the Systems Engineering Leadership Pipeline: Closing the Gender Gap Caitlyn A. K. Singam

Abstract  The processes through which new leaders in systems engineering are nurtured and developed – what are frequently referred to, collectively, as the systems engineering “leadership pipeline” – are integral to supplying the systems engineering community with its members and ensuring the continuing success (and, arguably, existence) of the systems engineering discipline. Given its significance, it is vital that the systems engineering leadership pipeline (much like any system) adheres to its requirements and demonstrates a high level of performance quality in its intended role. However, what has been observed in terms of the pipeline’s operational behaviour is far from ideal. Fewer than 10% of systems engineers and engineering project managers are women, a far cry from the value of around 50% that would be expected with all things being equal. This disparity highlights a fundamental imbalance in how the systems engineering pipeline processes the “inputs” it receives (in terms of students) and suggests that there may be further underlying problems in the systems engineering pipeline that may be affecting its performance and quality. This chapter strives to analyse the issue of the systems engineering gender gap through a quantitative lens, using quality management techniques to characterize current performance, isolate areas of the pipeline that merit further improvement, and describe concrete means by which engineering leadership and other engineering professionals can enact and measure positive change in systems engineering and broader fields under the umbrella of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

C. A. K. Singam (*) University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 A. F. Squires et al. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, Women in Engineering and Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08950-3_7

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7.1 Introduction 7.1.1 Technical Background It is an inescapable, if inconvenient, truth of systems engineering that an operational system is not, in any way, guaranteed to be a functional one. A system cannot be assumed to be fully adherent to its requirements simply based on its mere ability to demonstrate a fundamental level of comportment (Eckhardt et  al. 2016; Glinz 2007), and by corollary, it cannot be taken that usability constitutes proof of overall quality. Indeed, the full behaviour of a system cannot necessarily be observed until it is fully functional; as articulated by Simone de Beauvoir, “capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized” (de Beauvoir 2010). What is significant for a system, however, is its composition. A system, by definition, is beholden to its elements (IEEE 2015; SEBoK Authors 2021; von Bertalanffy 1968) for begetting the structure and behaviours that so characterize it, to the extent that a system’s ability to exist in a given identity is arguably dependent on the presence of the components that comprise it. (Consider, for instance, the manner in which the chemical character of a molecule is determined by its atomic structure.) While design processes might favour the construction of form from desired function (Rinderle 1987), the functionality of the realized system, regardless of intended design, nonetheless remains forcibly bound to the enacted form, rather than to any visions of desired behaviour that might have been had. With this perspective in mind, the system that is the systems engineering community itself, odd as that concept may be, provides an intriguing case for study. Its meta-structural nature relative to its systems engineer observers – who also double as its components  – notwithstanding, the systems engineering community is undoubtedly critical to the broader discipline it serves. Systems engineering – being, as it is, an inherently sociotechnical and empiric discipline (INCOSE 2015) – thrives on the contributions of systems engineering practitioners, and in particular leaders, as the lifeblood that both enables its application and propels its development and progress. The field of systems engineering is thus underpinned by the merit and quality of those same individuals (Holzer 2005): they set the rate at which the discipline progresses forward, and without them, it barely exists at all. There is a shared criticality, then, to ensuring that the processes which supply the systems engineering community with its leaders – which can be said to be collectively represented as a metaphorical pipeline (Chang 2002) of sorts (Fig. 7.1) – are reliable, robust, consistent, and rigorous. It is expected, and to some extent assumed, by the systems engineering community that the pipeline performs its objective suitably well: specifically, that the pipeline is able to nurture the academic potential of eager-minded students and shape those students into becoming the innovative leaders needed to drive the systems engineering community forward (Walter and Walden 2010). Certainly, the pipeline has demonstrated itself to be sufficiently operable, in that there are, at present, a sizeable community of systems engineers and a steady supply of new individuals continuing to join the community (Islam et  al. 2017).

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Fig. 7.1  Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers (SIPOC) diagram for the systems engineering pipeline as presented in this chapter. The relationships between the general population/society, systems engineering community, and other groups are highlighted, as well as the relevance of those actors as both drivers of pipeline inputs and recipients of pipeline outputs. (Source: generated by the author based on general insights from the works referenced in this chapter)

However, for a pipeline that forms the essence of an entire discipline, more than mere utilitarian adequacy is needed.

7.2 Approach to the Systems Engineering Pipeline 7.2.1 The Gender Gap as a Quality Issue Perhaps one of the most fundamental tests that can be performed to assess whether a system is performing in a consistent, quality manner – regardless of what specific objectives the system may be tasked with – is to determine whether or not the system handles input consistently. In the case of the systems engineering pipeline, where users are desirous of having a high output or yield of systems engineers from an inputted group of students, the two key metrics of interest are (1) the number of systems engineers produced and its related metric (2) the ratio of systems engineers exiting the terminus of the pipeline to students entering the pipeline. If one should take a group of students A1 from the same geographic region and socioeconomic profile as a second set of students of equal size, A2, it should be expected that the pipeline should convert comparable numbers of individuals from the A1 and A2 samples into systems engineers. It has, after all, been shown in the literature that this type of comparison can and does hold for educational outcomes just as well as it does for traditionally engineered systems once direct determinants of educational

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access are controlled for (Caldas and Bankston 1997; Perry and McConney 2010; Walpole 2003), so there is no reason to expect a system to fail this test other than for reasons associated with suboptimal system quality. Gender1 is one such criterion which can be used to split the pool of individuals who travel through the systems engineering pipeline as part of a sample comparison between the groups A1 and A2. As a cross-cutting variable, it is an ideal candidate for study as it is not inherently tied to differences in ability, geographic location, or other factors that can externally skew the outcome of talent development processes. Labour data across various engineering and non-engineering occupations does not show a clear trend (rate of change = −0.07) or any sort of statistically significant association (R2 = 0.05) between gender and other indicators of diversity, such as race (Fig. 7.2), that divide the population into uneven segments, demonstrating gender to be a viable independent variable for study. Male/female biological differences have also been explicitly demonstrated in modern academic literature to be independent of intellectual ability (Colom et  al. 2000; Selkow 1985), with neurological variation seen along a continuum rather than on a dimorphic basis (Joel 2011), thus permitting the reasonable assumption that gender does not inherently have an effect on academic or professional outcomes in an unbiased environment. Furthermore, gender has the additional benefit of providing an even split of the pool of individuals entering the systems engineering pipeline, with the population averaging between

Fig. 7.2  Racial diversity relative to gender diversity across occupations in the United States, expressed in terms of each occupation’s relative deviation in demographics from population means for the percentage of women and percentage of Caucasian/white individuals. (Source: generated by the author from publicly available data (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015))

 Note that “gender” is used here interchangeably with the concept of “biological sex”, as the datasets used for this chapter do not generally differentiate between the two. The term “gender” is used preferentially in this text to maintain consistency with the terminology used by dataset providers to describe disaggregation criteria and with the bulk of academic literature referenced herein. 1

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49% and 51% female (The World Bank 2021e; United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) 2020), regardless where a sample is obtained globally. It should be reasonable to expect, then, that if one takes two groups of students – A1 and A2, where A1 represents female students and A2 represents male students – and compares the proportions of each group that successfully train as systems engineers and obtain employment as systems engineers, the outcomes reported from groups A1 and A2 would be near-identical or, at the very least, without statistically significant differences. This is, alas, not the case. Though the systems engineering pipeline is able to produce a substantial number of systems engineers – nearly 4000 engineers are currently certified by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), an organization whose program targets both early- and mid-career systems engineering professionals (Lipizzi et al. 2015; Walter and Walden 2010) – only a small fraction of those engineers are women. Based on the existing list of currently registered INCOSE-certified systems engineering professionals (INCOSE 2021), it is estimated that 15% (±3.5%) of certified systems engineering professionals are women.2 Across the entire United States, the number of employed systems engineers regardless of certification status is even lower and has been consistently around 10% women on average (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015) over the past few decades (Fig. 7.3), indicating a statistically significant disparity from the expected approximately 50:50 split between men and women one would expect from an unbiased system. The bias in the systems engineering pipeline has also propagated into an even greater absence of women from positions of systems engineering leadership. With women being outnumbered in the general systems engineering community at an

Fig. 7.3  US women in systems engineering (recorded as “engineers, all other”) and engineering management from 1995 to 2020. Gaps in the data reflect periods for which data was not available. (Source: generated by the author from publicly available data (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015))

 Estimate obtained by identifying the most probable gender for each certified individual based on registered first name; margin of error calculated based on the number of gender-neutral/genderambiguous names. 2

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Table 7.1  Overview of the percentage of women at each level of leadership in various systems engineering authority groups, including the SEBoK development team, INCOSE handbook development team, IEEE Software and Systems Engineering Standards Committee (SSESC), and IEEE Systems Council

SEBoK developers

INCOSE handbook developers

Top-level leadership Governing board (6): 33.3% (current), 15.0% (prev. 20 members) Editors (5): 0%

Second-level leadership Lead editors (8): 20%

Third-level leadership Assistant editors (17): 23.5%

Support personnel Student editors (1): 100%

Version leads (9): 11.1%

Section leads and authors (52): 19.2% –

Named reviewers (29): 13.7% –

Committee chairs (16): 18.7%

–

IEEE SSESC Officers (3): 0%

Elected executive committee (6): 33.3%

IEEE Systems Council

Member society representatives (26): 18.7%

Executive committee (9): 11.1%

Citation SEBoK Editorial Board (2021)

INCOSE (2015)

IEEE Computer Society (2021) IEEE Systems Council (2021)

Each group’s title for a particular level of leadership is included alongside the number of positions at that level (in parentheses) and the percentage of women in those levels (in bold). Source: statistics calculated by the author using data from publicly available sources (cited in the far-right column) at the time of writing, in late 2021

estimated ratio of 9:1,3 the dictates of probability alone mean that the majority of selectees for systems engineering positions of influence, even if chosen purely based on random chance, will be men. This is reflected in the composition of the editorial boards for major systems engineering reference materials such as the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK), and standards produced by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), where the number of women credited as being in leadership positions dwindles as one ascends the ladder of authority (Table 7.1).

7.2.2 Impact of the Gender Gap This gender imbalance in systems engineering leadership is not without tangible impact. As highlighted earlier, system functionality and quality are inherently reliant on the composition and interaction of system elements, and the systems  Obtained based on the 10% female/90% male demographics reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and referenced in this text. 3

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engineering community is no exception. Currently, the demographics of the systems engineering leadership community mean that consensuses on systems engineering knowledge, the canonization of practices into policies, and the development of industry standards are all being largely driven by men. The overwhelming prevalence of men at the uppermost echelons of the systems engineering community – positions which typically hold veto power over the creation of new initiatives and over the actions of other members of leadership – also means that the future of the engineering community, particularly the adoption of novel design/engineering practices, etc., is being shaped from a largely homogeneous perspective as well. Such imbalances in gender dynamics have been shown to have palpable results on the collection of scientific knowledge and on how systems are engineered, particularly in the realm of consumer products (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission 2013). Examples have been documented in the literature of how male-dominated design teams have, for instance, created safety equipment and city infrastructures that are customized for men and inadvertently inconvenience (Bailey and Hall 1989) or endanger female users (Ceccato 2017; Cullen et al. 2021; Larmour and Peters 2010; Linder and Svensson 2019; Loukaitou-Sideris 2014). Broader studies outside the realm of engineering have also shown that diverse teams also perform better across innovation and problem-solving metrics (Jones et  al. 2020; Lorenzo et al. 2018; Wang et al. 2019), which suggests that the systems engineering pipeline’s bias towards gender homogeneity in its output is to the disadvantage of the overall systems engineering community. Even from a purely dispassionate perspective, the mere fact that the current operation of the systems engineering pipeline suffices for the systems engineering community’s needs does not render the issue of the gender gap any less urgent. There is a documented desire to maximize the number of systems engineers obtained via the pipeline, regardless of gender, in order to meet growing requirements for engineering professionals (U.K.  Science and Technology Committee 2013) and increase productivity measures (House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee 2014). The reduced number of systems engineers from the female cohort represents an empirical loss of resources (Peters 2002), on the order of 35% to 40%. Losses of that magnitude across a key metric in an engineered system would warrant an examination, if not a redress of the causative inefficiencies, and there is no reason that the systems engineering pipeline should be an exception. The question, then, is not whether there is a gender gap in systems engineering or if it is in critical need of addressing. Rather, based on the available evidence, it is inarguable that the present gender gap is to the detriment not only of the women who are omitted from the systems engineering community, for not having the opportunity to have a hand in shaping the present and future of engineering design, but to the systems engineering community, for not having the opportunity to benefit from those insights and a larger, more diverse workforce. It is thus an issue of imminence to all members of the systems engineering community, both male and female. Instead, then, the key question is why such a gap exists. In fairness to the systems engineering community, it is not a question that has gone unasked; the literature has extensively pondered this matter as it relates to the systems engineering community

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as well as, more extensively, to the broader fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and general leadership. STEM as a whole has historically suffered from a substantial gender gap (Buffington et al. 2016; Chang 2002; United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) 2020; US National Science Foundation (NSF) 2013) long before systems engineering acquired popularity as its own discipline, and as a result, a surfeit of literature has been written on the topic of asking (and attempting to answer) questions of where  – and why  – the women have gone from the STEM pipeline (Binkerd and Moore 2002; Brower and Cornachione 2001; Davies and Camp 2014; Preston 1994).

7.2.3 Current Perspectives on the Gender Gap The quest to tackle what has been somewhat crudely termed by some academics as “the woman problem” (Boring 1951; Lagesen 2006; Madden 1972) has resulted in the literature consistently framing the issue as precisely that: as a problem with the women entering and traveling through the pipeline, rather than one with the pipeline itself. When framed from the perspective of women being the system components requiring change, the issue of the gender gap becomes a matter of attempting to craft women to be more akin to the paragon of the standard male engineer. In comparison with men, women (as a collective group) often appear to differ from men in terms of certain parameters associated with success in the workplace, such as interrupting during meetings (Kennedy and Camden 1983), which frequently leads to the erroneous conclusion that women can somehow vault past the glass ceiling on their own initiative by crafting their personas with sufficient care. However, despite advice from pundits that women adopt more masculine behaviours in the workplace (Kellaway 2017) and evidence that adopting masculine behaviours improves the probability of women attaining management positions and satisfying levels of income (Lipińska-Grobelny and Wasiak 2010), such recommendations do not take into account the existing penalties that women face for succeeding in a male-­ dominated environment (Heilman et al. 2004). Furthermore, attempts to structure the gender gap as a “woman problem” almost exclusively place the burden of change on women (since the male standard is framed as a static performance benchmark) and ignore the intrinsic issues of the engineering pipeline that lead to traditionally masculine characteristics being associated with professional success. Nonetheless, a substantial amount of the literature has remained unfazed by the problematic aspects of framing women as the elements requiring change and still treats the root cause of the gender gap as being a mere preference on the part of women to “opt out” of the pipeline (Diekman et al. 2010) for non-engineering educational paths and professional opportunities. General dissatisfaction with the field (Callister et  al. 2009) and the decision to have children (González Ramos et  al. 2015), among other factors, have also been cited as explanations for how women’s choices are primary drivers behind the exodus of women in engineering,

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particularly for women past 45 years of age (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2021), even though evidence militates in favour of unequal pay and other pipeline-intrinsic problems as being greater drivers (Hunt 2016). Regardless, in lieu of addressing the root causes of disparate experiences in engineering, proponents of the “preferential opt-out” view of the gender gap have suggested myriad means of equalizing outcomes in engineering preferences across gender, with some positing the need to rebrand engineering as a “caring” profession (Capobianco and Yu 2014) in order to make it more appealing to “feminine sensibilities” and others suggesting that women require additional assistance in building the “confidence” needed for succeeding in engineering that men do not (Arastoopour et al. 2014). Recruitment and attrition reduction initiatives prevalent in engineering have been largely structured around this philosophy, with the aim to minimize social stigmas stemming from stereotypes and other factors that might skew women’s preferences away from engineering (Cadaret et al. 2017; Cheryan et al. 2015). However, while such programs have succeeded in increasing the number of women entering engineering compared to decades prior, recent data shows that despite an increase in the prevalence of diversity initiatives, the proportion of women in engineering has started to stagnate (Schreuders et al. 2009). Meanwhile, other studies on retention in engineering have shown that “few factors distinguished between women and men who persisted [in the engineering field], or between women and men who did not” (Jackson et al. 1993), with the primary predictors being gender-neutral success criteria such as grade point average. An absence of inherent differences between both successful and unsuccessful men and women in engineering indirectly explains the observed stagnation in female recruitment into engineering by suggesting that what differences exist between men and women in terms of interest and behavioural traits have already largely been made negligible through the efforts of recruitment initiatives. These results do therefore lend credence to the approach of focusing on the engineering pipeline being the root cause of the gender gap and to analysing the gender gap with an eye towards changing the pipeline rather than the women who pass through it. The logic of a pipeline-­ centric approach also holds from a systems engineering perspective: if one is trying to improve the performance of a system, it stands that one should attempt to correct any flaws internal to the system (which are within the purview of the quality management personnel) before seeking to make changes to the external inputs. Systems are, after all, equally capable of promulgating disproportionalities as they are in reflecting existing ones (Singam 2022).

7.2.4 Analysis Methodology Having now established that there is in fact a quality control issue with the systems engineering pipeline (in the form of gender disparities) based on a firm foundation of data, and having reached the conclusion that the root cause likely lies with or within the pipeline itself, there is the small matter of applying the appropriate

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methodology to analyse the issue. Systems engineering dictates that when faced with a quality management problem that involves processes relevant to a system of interest, techniques such as the Six Sigma quality improvement methodology can be utilized (Sanders and Hild 2000). In this particular instance, since the objective is to analyse the performance of the process by which systems engineers develop their talents and reduce the cost of poor quality within that process, the Six Sigma approach – and in particular the define-measure-analyse-improve-control (DMAIC) methodology – is well-suited to the task (de Mast and Lokkerbol 2012; Prashar 2014). 7.2.4.1 Data Availability The Six Sigma approach has in fact been employed at least once before to the task of improving engineering retention rates (Hargrove and Burge 2002), though only in the context of a novel data collection endeavour and not before in the context of a systems engineering-specific, pipeline-spanning meta-analysis such as the one presented herein. The reason for this is that data availability issues have largely stymied large-scale studies of trends in gender patterns, particularly since finding datasets which simultaneously meet the criteria of (1) being disaggregated by gender (Ahuja and Filmer 1995; Standing 2000), (2) having a sufficient number of data points from which to perform trend analysis,4 and (3) being specific to the systems engineering field is highly unusual. In particular, the relative novelty of the formal systems engineering profession (Badiru 2005; Gorod et al. 2008) compared to other engineering disciplines and its comparatively small community (U.S.  Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015) mean that there are significantly fewer studies specific to the systems engineering pipeline and that  in those studies systems engineering is often  classified in the ambiguous category of “other engineering”, separate from related disciplines such as industrial engineering (U.S.  Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015). Furthermore, even fewer datasets are collected on an international level and can provide worldwide portraits of the systems engineering pipeline. Large datasets tend to be collected on a national level (Francis and Michielsens 2021; Giofrè et al. 2020) rather than an international one, particularly those that provide sufficiently detailed resolution to isolate engineering education and employment data from data associated with other STEM fields. Data availability is also predominantly centred about Western nations, particularly the United States and Europe (hence why many of the figures presented in this text had to be restricted to those regions). INCOSE certification statistics, for instance, report that 60.7% of certified systems engineers are from the United States, with another 24.6% hailing from nations across the European Union (Fig.  7.4). Data availability therefore cannot be automatically

 A large amount of available data on the gender gap is reported in terms of summary statistics rather than as raw data; see, for instance, reports such as the ones cited here (European Union Statistical Office 2021; Zweben 2011). 4

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Fig. 7.4  Resident locations of all INCOSE-certified systems engineers (n = 3956) for whom registration/certification information was available at the time of writing (August 2021). (Source: generated by the author from publicly available data (INCOSE 2021))

assumed to represent the actual distribution of practising systems engineers independent of certification. Consequently, when analysing the systems engineering pipeline, it behoves one to utilize broader, international-level datasets to discuss trends and to contextualize national-level data and findings of individual studies within those trends when possible, though the Western-centric nature of systems engineering-specific data does favour the use of US or European data for more detailed analyses. Most international data on the gender gap focuses on women in the workforce and women in STEM/engineering, rather than on systems engineering in particular, and thus largely highlights larger-scale causes of the gender gap. Even so, such insights can be readily extended to systems engineering. By virtue of being a specialty under the broader umbrella of STEM, systems engineering largely shares the same early-­ phase talent development pipeline as other STEM fields and can be assumed to share causative factors with regard to the gender gap. It is still necessary, though, to define and examine the requirements and structure of the systems engineering pipeline in order to fully develop an understanding of the precise nature of its interactions with its context and broader environment (i.e. the STEM pipeline and general workforce).

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7.3 Defining the Systems Engineering Pipeline 7.3.1 Fundamental Requirements of the Systems Engineering Pipeline Systems engineering has a complex relationship with the broader world of STEM, due to it being a discipline which combines aspects of both project management and technical engineering. Specifically, systems engineering is reliant on practitioners taking a holistic approach to reconciling project management objectives with technical needs in interdisciplinary contexts (INCOSE 2015) and is associated with a specific problem-solving approach (“systems thinking”). The unique and interdisciplinary nature of the profession has had a salient impact on the skills, experience, and training required of successful engineers and has in turn shaped the requirements imposed on the talent development pipeline that produces those engineers. Table 7.2 presents an abbreviated overview of the key requirements that the systems engineering pipeline needs to meet based on stakeholder requirements for professional development established in the literature (Fisher 2006; INCOSE 2015; Lipizzi et  al. 2015; Sage 2000). A substantial portion of the requirements set  – including requirements 2.2.4 (Yield), 2.2.4.1 (No bias), 3.3 (Accessibility), 3.5 (Impact on input), and 3.6 (Environmental impact), which are of particular relevance in contextualizing the need to address the gender gap – is arguably shared with the general STEM pipeline, reflecting the shared need in both systems to minimize gender disparities in outcomes. Nonetheless, the set of requirements seen in Table 7.2 does still demonstrate some major differences from the general requirements for other talent development pipelines. Unlike the STEM pipeline, the pipeline for systems engineering is largely focused on practical and applied skills (requirement 2.2.2, Table  7.2) demonstrating core competencies as opposed to being centred around knowledge of theoretical concepts. The systems engineering pipeline also requires additional time for extensive on-the-job training experiences (requirement 2.3, Table  7.2) that are not typically required of other technical professions.

7.3.2 Structure of the Systems Engineering Pipeline These unique demands have impacted the high-level structure of the systems engineering pipeline (Fig. 7.5), rendering it somewhat atypical compared to most other talent development pipelines. As aforementioned, the extended length observed in the systems engineering pipeline is one major factor that makes the pipeline structurally unusual compared to the training pathways of other highly skilled professions. Even when compared with the training pipelines for other skilled disciplines in both the technical and non-technical sectors, e.g. the medical field and law, which require doctoral-level/professional degrees and on average 5–10 years of

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Table 7.2  Abbreviated requirements list for the systems engineering pipeline ID 1

Title Scope

2 2.1 2.2

Functional requirements Input Output

2.2.1

Competencies

2.2.1.1 Systems engineering skills 2.2.1.2 Project management skills 2.2.1.3 Technical skills 2.2.1.4 Current trends 2.2.1.5 State-of-the-art technology 2.2.2

Experience

2.2.2.1 Technical experience

2.2.2.2 Systems engineering experience 2.2.2.3 Technological experience 2.2.3

Competitiveness

2.2.3.1 Compliance with qualification standards 2.2.3.2 Proportion of output in compliance 2.2.4 Yield 2.2.4.1 No bias 2.3

Time to completion

3

Operational requirements

Requirement The pipeline shall encompass the entire talent development process for systems engineers The pipeline shall produce systems engineers The pipeline shall accept students as input The pipeline shall produce individuals qualified for systems engineering careers as output The pipeline shall train individuals in core competencies needed for success in systems engineering careers The pipeline shall train individuals in the use of systems engineering methodologies and terminology The pipeline shall train individuals in project management methodologies The pipeline shall train individuals in technical engineering skills The pipeline shall provide individuals with a comprehension of current trends in systems engineering The pipeline shall train individuals in the use of state-of-the-­ art technological tools for performing systems engineering tasks The pipeline shall produce individuals with on-the-job systems engineering experience The pipeline shall produce individuals with experience applying technical knowledge across the entire lifecycle of practical engineering project(s) The pipeline shall produce individuals with experience applying systems engineering knowledge across the entire lifecycle of practical engineering project(s) The pipeline shall produce individuals with experience utilizing technological tools to aid systems engineering activities in all phases of the systems engineering lifecycle The pipeline shall produce individuals who are competitive for employment in the systems engineering sector The pipeline shall produce individuals who meet 100% of minimum qualification standards for entry-level systems engineering positions The pipeline shall only produce individuals who meet the qualification standards set in requirement 2.2.3.1 The pipeline shall maximize the yield of output from supplied input The pipeline shall exhibit no differences in yield across social categorization parameters The pipeline shall take no more than 40±10 years to complete from start to finish The pipeline shall operate autonomously (continued)

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Table 7.2 (continued) ID 3.1

Title Input interface

3.2

Output interface

3.3

Accessibility

3.3.1 3.4

Availability for operation Maintenance

3.5

Impact on input

3.6

Environmental impact

Requirement The pipeline shall have an input interface at the primary school level The pipeline shall have an output interface with the systems engineering community The pipeline shall be accessible to 100% of students at the primary school level The pipeline shall operate continuously with 100% availability The pipeline shall support structural and architectural changes supplied by the systems engineering community The pipeline shall cause no harm the individuals who pass through it The pipeline shall not harm individuals external to the system

Source: developed by the author based on stakeholder needs expressed in the academic literature

Fig. 7.5  Key pathways by which individuals acquire the combination of skills and experience needed to fill systems engineering leadership positions. (Source: generated by the author based on general insights from the works referenced in this chapter)

experience, the 10–20 years of experience typically expected as part of the eligibility requirements for entry-level systems engineers is quite substantial (Table 7.3). Additionally, in contrast to the linear flow seen in most fields, the systems engineering pipeline is branched in nature, reflecting the greater variety of options for individuals to acquire the experience necessary to succeed in systems engineering. Individuals can, for instance, use a combination of professional experience and certification (Chittister and Haimes 2011) as a professional engineer or similar equivalent (obtained by passing a knowledge-based examination) as a substitute for college technical degree (National Society of Professional Engineers 2021) when qualifying for certain technical engineering positions in industry. Similarly, both research-­ based and application-based technical experience, obtained through employment in either academia or industry, are generally considered as sufficient for satisfying experience qualifications for systems engineering positions. Graduate degrees in systems engineering are also gaining support among members of the systems engineering community as another potential means of meeting entrance requirements for systems engineering jobs (Fabrycky 2012).

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Table 7.3  Minimum required years of education, years of experience, and gender composition for selected skilled occupations both in STEM and non-STEM disciplines, as compared to systems engineering Occupation Systems engineer (entry-level) Systems engineer (leadership) STEM disciplines General engineer Project manager (engineering) Staff scientist (biology) Staff scientist (physical sciences) Software developer Medical physician Non-STEM disciplines Airline pilot Journalist Educator (post-secondary) Attorney

Min. years of education (post-secondary) 4–6

Min. years of experience 5–20

Women in occupation