Who you callin' a Systems Engineer!
I'm not a Systems Engineer.
Okay, actually, I am a Systems Engineer, but Systems Engineering has be come a derisive term. We have the reputation for "Carrying around clipboards and bothering the "real" engineers.", or that we are merely Spec authors or really just "Book Bosses". When did the publication, and "PowerPoint engineering" aspects overcome the engineering?
What Engineering?
I like to ask the questions; What's your Product? What's your Process? What's the point?
It's fine to have a spec as a product. That can be the "right" answer. Requirements are essential to defining and controlling a program and project. Specs, or, more importantly, the requirements database, is a necessary and central element of the program.
But the second question is paramount!
I actually had an, admittedly junior, engineer at a major aerospace company explain the process as, "We had a bunch of smart people sit in a room and come up with it!". Unfortunately, she was serious.
Lack of a systematic process for deriving requirements, and documenting the engineering artifacts of the process, results in the diminution of respect for Systems Engineering. We really do end up carrying around the clipboard and transcribing the thoughts of someone who has actually spent some time pondering some aspect of the system. They may be good thoughts, but they may also be unbalanced with the system and reflect a personal or narrow perspective of a particular discipline. "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." Abraham Maslow
Finally. What's the point?
If we don't understand the point of doing the engineering "the point" becomes generating the document or the presentation. Which misses "the point".
The point is to understand, document and communicate the "necessities" of the system so that it can be designed, built, tested and delivered.
