Knowledge is not enough: What a systems engineer really needs

The almost 500-year-old proverb "Knowledge is power" goes back to Francis Bacon. For centuries, this wisdom has been a good compass for success in life. Nevertheless, in this article I argue that knowledge, while still important for success, is not enough.

More important than knowledge is the ability to produce good results. Incidentally, this statement applies not only to systems engineers, but also to many other knowledge workers. You can find out why this is the case in this article.

Knowledge is free

Just 20 years ago, every better household had an encyclopedia. In the meantime, many publishers have stopped producing them. Today, hardly anyone will reach for the Brockhaus, as the German Wikipedia now has 2 million entries (in contrast to the 300,000 in the Brockhaus). At the same time, knowledge management is a major topic in many companies. Efforts are being made to record the company's knowledge in various ways and make it accessible to employees.

The German Wikipedia is about seven times the size of the Brockhaus

This does not make knowledge any less important, but it does make access to knowledge a matter of course. And it changes the relationship between knowledge and ability. Skill is the successful application of knowledge. The classic example is that you can't learn to swim from a textbook, you have to practise it. Knowledge is merely the prerequisite for ability. In the past, this prerequisite was not available to everyone, but today it is (almost) a matter of course.

Can you really do that?

A related issue today is judging whether someone can really do something. The easiest way to do this is to show your skills. That's why we have the journeyman's certificate or portfolios. However, in some professions it is not so easy to show this. In software development, it has now become established to have candidates write code on a whiteboard (I have done this myself many times).

However, we are increasingly encountering two problems: (1) Demonstrating ability is really difficult for some tasks. And (2) the decision-maker is often unable to assess the skill himself. These problems occur for tasks that have a long duration and are only performed by one person in the organization.

In some cases, the runtime can be artificially shortened: solving a programming task on a whiteboard with eight lines of code is not the same as programming a complex web application. But this approach has proven itself in practice.

Furthermore, competence is best assessed by an expert in the same field: A good programmer can determine quite well in the whiteboard test whether the candidate can really program.

Testing knowledge is easy, but testing skills is difficult

And perhaps a note on the CV here: whether the experience listed there is hot air can at best be checked via references. Certainly useful, but not always reliable or meaningful. As far as training is concerned, this certainly depends on the job. A vehicle builder with a good certificate usually indicates solid training. On the other hand, it is not necessarily clear that someone with a master's degree in computer science can also program: After all, computer science is often taught as a science (Computer Science), and not necessarily as an engineering discipline (software Engineering).

Can the Systems Engineer deliver what he promises?

From a systems engineer (at least as Paul Schreinemakers This role is defined by a systems engineer), there is only one or very few in many organizations. Furthermore, it is difficult to evaluate the competence of a systems engineer in a short period of time. Therefore, in many cases it is the knowledge that is tested, not the skills. But this is the most important thing for a systems engineer. After all, the systems engineer should ensure that the project is a technical success. So how should the skills of a systems engineer be assessed?

This is still difficult when it comes to training, as there are not many degree courses at the moment. In any case, it is questionable whether systems engineering makes sense as an independent course of study, or whether it should rather be aimed at trained engineers as a postgraduate course. This is a Approach that the MIT in the USA, and here in Germany the FH Campus02 in cooperation with oose.

Then, of course, there are certificates that are acquired in a shorter time than a postgraduate course. Here, of course, INCOSE/GfSE are the first port of call, with the SEP certificatesor SE-CERTthe German equivalent.

Training and certification certainly help to assess the skills of a systems engineer. But there is no equivalent of a whiteboard test, and there certainly won't be in the near future. So the only thing to do is to check references carefully and make sure that a competent systems engineer puts potential candidates through their paces.

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