Systems Engineering Camps in Erlangen

I'm particularly pleased about this week's post because it's about a new event that took place for the first time. Today Goran Madzar reports on the first Systems Engineering Camps in Erlangen. This is an event that will now take place every 2-3 months.

The event and results are presented below - peppered with many flipchart pictures and other analog materials. The camps are presented both via the MedTech Blog as well as via the usual channels on Xing, etc. The next camp is expected to take place in October. Have fun reading!

Guest article by Goran Madzar

The first Systems Engineering Camp took place on 28.06.2018 in Erlangen and was a complete success. This article provides a brief summary for anyone who missed the event.

The idea for the camp

The basic idea behind the event was to establish a regular, regional exchange on the topic of systems engineering in the northern Bavaria region. To this end, the format of the Barcamps used. In contrast to the previous Systems Engineering BarcampsInstead of an all-day event, an evening event was organized. This made it possible for participants to attend the event without having to take a vacation or use the weekend. The idea for the camp originated, how could it be otherwise, at another Systems Camp. Daniela Kaiser (Krones AG), Jan Vollmar (Siemens AG) and I (Goran Madzar) wanted to exchange ideas more regularly without having to travel long distances. We organized the event together.

The participants

With 23 participants, the first Systems Camp in Erlangen was well attended. The participants were able to write down information about themselves on a flipchart.

The agenda

The official part of the event ran from 18:00 - 21:00. After the welcome with the organizational aspects, the topics for the sessions were then defined together. The first session was reserved for presenting how the regular regional exchange on systems engineering is intended. The other two sessions were determined by the participants. Finally, there was a retrospective and farewell.

The topics for the sessions

The participants had the opportunity to make suggestions and these were collected and grouped on a wall. Each participant was then able to vote on which two topics were of most interest and so the two sessions were selected.

Session 1 - Working Group Systems Engineering Bavaria Northeast

A regular exchange about systems engineering without long journeys and on a regular basis. This idea was at the forefront of the first session. Such an event could take place 4-6 times a year. The participants were in favor of an evening event. The majority of participants said that it should start at 17:00 - 18:00.

Session 2 - Dealing with changes / inconsistency management

The topic of dealing with changes to the system and consistency checks was rated as very interesting by the participants. We therefore dealt with this topic in session 2. First of all, it was established that there are intentional and unintentional changes to the system. Intended changes can be planned and can therefore be well understood, e.g. through test cases, use cases and misuse cases, by implementing interdisciplinary teams and a sufficiently good definition of the system engineering system. Wikispeed was cited as a good example of interdisciplinary, agile teams. Unwanted changes cannot be planned and must therefore be made manageable in order to make the effects on processes and technical components visible. An important preparation for this is the adaptation of the company's infrastructure. The possibilities for traceability should also be used and good stakeholder management should be established.

In order to be able to handle the changes, it is essential to record, validate and verify requirements at the start of a project. A change can affect various systems in the company - technical, physical or organizational systems.

Session 3 - Systems engineering design techniques

In session 3, design techniques for system models were discussed. The participants expressed a desire for a construction kit for models with proven solution approaches. A good way to visualize such patterns and establish them in the company is to use posters on which the components of the toolkit are collected. One important aspect was that the models should not just remain in the tools (e.g. Enterprise Architect), but should be printed out on the walls.

Models out of the tools and up on the walls (SE Camp Erlangen) [tweetthis]Models out of the tools and up on the walls (SE Camp Erlangen)[/tweetthis]

Models are not an end in themselves and are best when they are created in a team and used by the team. There are also methods for integrating the customer without the need for SysML background knowledge.

However, it has also been established that detailed models harbor a danger. The architect falls in love with his architecture and perceives the customer or the developers as a disruptive factor if they make changes that affect the architecture. The danger is that the model is seen as the "truth" and is not questioned.

The connection between architecture and agility was also discussed. Architecture is particularly important for agile projects. Even with an agile approach, you have to ensure that the architecture does not change if possible. Because then you might have to start development from scratch (e.g. airplane instead of car). It is therefore important that the architecture deals with aspects that are difficult to change.

There were two literature recommendations in the session:

• Design It!: From Programmer to Software Architect by Michael Keeling
• arc42 in action: Practical tips for architectural documentation by Gernot Starke and Peter Hruschka

Feedback from the participants

The participants' feedback was collected with the help of a Starfish Diagram.