Doing instead of talking: The Day of Systems Engineering (TdSE) 2021
Like last year, the Day of Systems Engineering (TdSE) 2021 will only take place virtually this time. Even if we will all miss the personal exchange, this will at least lower the barriers to participation: no travel, a reasonable price, especially for students. We have an acute shortage in systems engineering, so we are urgently dependent on the next generation. I will also be attending TdSE this year.
The tracks of a conference are a good barometer of the mood and show which topics are current. There are four tracks this year. The "Stories" track has by far the most presentations:
Stories: Best Practices, Success, Change & Transformation
There are no fewer than twelve lectures in this track. It is unclear whether this is driven by supply or demand. The program includes experts with decades of experience in systems engineering, such as the presentation by Colin Hood. However, large corporations such as :em and Dassaultas well as some reports from research. It is clear that many participants want to share their experience with the community.
Several virtual systems.camps will be held in gather.town to enable discussions in small groups.
I highly recommend that you at least briefly enter the virtual systems.camp to get a taste of it. I have already attended several virtual meetings with gather.town participated. Such systems simulate the casual meeting of people quite well and enable ad-hoc conversations in small groups.
Collaboration & Agile Systems Engineering
TdSE 2021 offers seven presentations on the topic of agility and collaboration. This got me thinking about how Agility had established itself in software development: In software, the traditional approach (waterfall, etc.) simply didn't work. This gave rise to the agile manifesto.
Déjà vu: Don't repeat the mistakes of software development!
Similarly, we see that traditional approaches in systems engineering are reaching their limits. My personal opinion is that agility certainly helps, but will not solve the problem in the long term.
Digital Twin
There are five presentations on the topic of the digital twin. I'm curious about this track, as I've had little experience of it so far. I'm skeptical because I can't believe that there can already be a positive cost-benefit ratio today. The effort required to create and maintain a sufficiently detailed model is enormous. This is only worthwhile for a few industries, such as aviation. And even there, only for a few companies.
In particular, there are more cost-effective approaches to the digital twin. I am thinking in particular of shortened iterations in development, such as SpaceX shows the way.
Technical Leadership
I was surprised to find only two presentations on the topic of leadership on the program. My impression is that word has gotten around that systems engineering has to start at the strategic level in order to make a sustainable contribution to business success. Well, at least this track exists.
