What keeps systems engineers awake at night - and what they want to discuss at systems.camp Nord

The GfSE systems.camp Nord will take place in Hamburg on October 20. If you want to take part, you should be quick, because Early bird discount ends at the end of the weekOnly €30 for GfSE members (€50 regular). Book now >>

To make the event as relevant as possible, we asked in advance what topics are on your mind - and will certainly be discussed in October. The Survey continuesso please feel free to submit further topic suggestions.

The following is a brief summary of the topics covered so far.

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But first, a request to all readers: please invite your colleagues and interested acquaintances to systems.camp, and share the invitation via the social network of your choice (buttons top right). The systems.camp is based on the work of volunteers, and to keep the momentum going, we want to attract new participants, not just veterans.

I'm going to systems.camp Nord on 20.10. in Hamburg. You too? [tweetthis]I'm going to systems.camp Nord on October 20 in Hamburg. You too?[/tweetthis]

A good dozen topics have now been proposed. As there were some overlaps, these are reformulated somewhat below and in some cases split into several topics:

Modeling

Eleven topics include modeling in one form or another. Modeling for verification, acceptance of modeling, modeling of security, and many more. This makes it clear that nothing works in systems engineering without modeling. Whether this involves SysML models or simple information models is, of course, another question.

Hybrid and networked models

A single model is rarely sufficient, and texts are far from obsolete. This is made clear by the deliberately provocative question: "MBSE vs. purely textual RE - two extremes or hybrid partners in practice?" At least I think I can hear that hybrid system descriptions are the norm and will remain so for the time being. I have simply combined this topic with another one, namely cross-model traceability (about which I already written in the past had). After all, a set of textual requirements is already a model, albeit a very primitive one.

Visualization

Several proposals dealt with visualization, for example of complexity, but also across model and tool boundaries. Even though it is now clear to many that the image is not the model, visualization is still very effective for quickly grasping and analysing relationships.

Here, however, the suggestions were a bit vague: What exactly should be visualized? And more importantly, what is the underlying use case for the visualization? A picture is worth a thousand words, but what should be said? Feel free to comment in the comments section!

The human factor

There were also several submissions on the human factor, for example "Creating acceptance for (model-based) systems engineering in companies/projects." There was also the question of how MBSE can best be introduced, as well as questions about effective collaboration techniques.

Tools and case studies!

There were also several requests for practical reports, for example: "Tool discussion: Jama and modeling - does anyone know any good examples from practice?" Even if the tool is not the main focus, we can no longer do without tools in practice. Even if the tool is (or should be) secondary, it still has a significant impact on working methods and work culture.

Further topics

There were a few topics that were only mentioned once but are still worth mentioning. These include the security mentioned at the beginning. I had actually expected, or at least hoped for, more than just one report in the area of security. What is your experience: Is security now taken seriously?

The Internet of Things (IoT) was also mentioned once. Here, too, I can imagine that interest is higher, but not everyone uses the same terms. For example, the networked car could certainly be classified as IoT, but the term is rather uncommon in the automotive sector.

V&V was also only mentioned once. The question remains as to why this is the case. Is V&V so well established that it is hardly worth mentioning anymore?

Not mentioned were...

And finally, a few topics that I would have expected but were not submitted. This includes openness, be it open source for tools, open source for built-in software or open standards.

Also not explicitly mentioned was the pressure to perform, i.e. better, faster, cheaper. How do practitioners deal with the pressure that is often exerted by management?

Conclusion

The survey is still ongoing, so there is no fixed end to it. We, the organizers of systems.camp Nord, will consider whether and in what form we can incorporate these results into the planning of the systems.camp North 2018 can be incorporated.