On January 26-29, INCOSE held its annual workshop in Albuquerque, NM. This is the event at which INCOSE working groups and boards do a lot of planning and real work. This meeting was marked by a lot of energy and enthusiasm. There were more than 300 attendees, compared to around 200 in the past. Following are the highlights of many of the meetings that INCOSE-LA members either attended or ran.

Board of Directors (BoD)
Stan Settles, Director for Academic Matters

INCOSE is managed by the BoD in accordance with its bylaws. This was the first meeting of the BoD for Stan, who accepted this appointment a little over a week prior to the IW 08.

Chapters Meeting
Beth O’Donnell and Eric Belle, attendees

The Chapters Meeting was attended by regional representatives and chapter leaders from around the world. The leaders and representatives each gave a summary briefing on the state of their respective chapters along with accomplishments and challenges faced. The leadership of the membership board gave a briefing that including many of the changes presented earlier in the CAB meeting. Three items are of particular note to members:

1. The pending launch of the INCOSE Wiki site (scheduled for March 31) to which any member can contribute.
2. According to the new membership forms, the membership year “is annual based on the date of enrollment.”
3. Membership entitles the member to soft copy only of the SE Journal and INSIGHT. Regular members may buy hard copies of the Journal and INSIGHT at a reduced rate ($30.00 for the Journal and $20.00 for INSIGHT).

Commercial Steering Board (CSB)
Stan Settles, member

The CSB met alone and also met with the Technical Leadership Team and the heads of many working groups, including the new Biomedical WG. There were discussion regarding international meetings focusing on China, Russia, and India. The growing emphasis on industries other than aerospace and defense has been noted. A commercial panel was added for the IS 08 in the Netherlands.

Fellows Committee
Scott Jackson, Fellow

The INCOSE Fellows are a group of INCOSE members who have been shown to have contributed to the advancement of systems engineering. The group is limited to 1% of the membership of INCOSE. In Albuquerque the Fellows met to elect new members to the Fellows Committee and to discuss other initiatives such as a K-12 systems engineering education program and the review of the Systems Engineering Vision document.

Intelligent Transportation and Transit Systems Working Group (ITTS WG)
Mike Krueger, co-chair

The Intelligent Transportation and Transit Systems Working Group (ITTSWG) received a Working Group Award for Outreach, “for exemplifying INCOSE’s outreach effort, by engaging an international ground transportation and transit systems community in promoting the use of systems engineering.” The ITTSWG worked primarily on the IS 08 planning. At IS 08, we will be engaging six to seven senior-level executives from transit systems from the U.S. and Europe. These include the London Underground, the New York City Transit, and the Netherlands, in addition to executives from consultant firms. The Monday of IS 08 will have the key activities for Transportation, including the opening Key Note Speech by the CEO from the Dutch Rail, the Executive Round Table, and a reception. We continue our work on addressing the following four (4) key challenges for the Transportation community:

1. Lack of common Industry SE Processes & Terminology
2. Scarcity of SE resources & SE knowledge within the Rail Transit industry
3. Establishing the SE Value Proposition for Rail Transit
4. SE & Migration of new technology: SE in the application of new technology on operational systems

We closed the working group activities by laying out a schedule of activities that we need to accomplish between these meetings and IS08. These activities are in the areas of Outreach to get a large contingent of key rail and transit practitioners to IS 08.

Cost Engineering Working Group (CEWG)
Beth O’Donnell and Eric Belle, attendees

The CEWG is a relatively new working group addressing cost engineering and affordability topics and processes within the Systems Engineering realm. The working group is continuing to investigate and discuss cost engineering processes of various organizations. Plans for the CEWG include further development of a charter statement and definition, and conducting a gap analysis to determine what needs the group can address within the Systems Engineering processes. Anyone with an interest is encouraged to participate and contribute.

Motor Sports Working Group (MSWG)
Stan Settles, member

The purpose of the MSWG is to use a broad range of motor sports as a means of introducing systems engineering in courses. The WG has adopted a charter and is in the process of specifying a syllabus for a course. Stan presented his experience of driving at 206 MPH on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2007.

Public Interest Applications Sector
Scott Jackson, Assistant Director

The Public Interest Sector oversees working groups who address issues of public interest, such as natural and human-made disasters, the environment, and anti-terrorism. There are three working groups within the sector: the Resilient Systems Working Group, the Anti-Terrorism Working Group, and the GEOSS (Global Earth Orbiting Systems of Systems) Working Group. All three groups met in Albuquerque and planned future activities.

Resilient Systems Working Group (RSWG)
Scott Jackson, Chair

The RSWG studies system resilience, which is the characteristic of a system that enables it, in the face of a major disruption, to avoid catastrophic failure, to survive a major disruption, and to recover from the disruption. In Albuquerque we had a lively discussion on the differences between resilience and agility, system safety, and robustness and sustainability. The RSWG has already published an annotated bibliography. The next product will be a lexicon of resilience.

Space Systems Working Group (SSWG)
Chris Delp, Communications Coordinator and Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Grand Challenge (MGC) Team Lead

SSWG has many exciting projects in the works. We are submitting a panel of very prestigious people from the space industry for IS 08. SSWG is also putting together a special issue of INSIGHT on Space Systems. The SSWG has also entered the MGC with a Space Systems domain entry. The team is quite diverse; however, we have lots of room for anyone interested in MBSE and Space Systems.

Specialty Engineering Enabling Group
Ray Hettwer, Chair

The Specialty Engineering Enabler is one of the six SE Enablers in the INCOSE Technical Matrix. In Albuquerque we met to review progress and status against the roadmap established at IW 06. Working Groups currently sponsored by this Enabler are:

1. Human System Integration (HSIWG)
2. System Security Engineering (SSEWG)
3. System Safety (SSWG)
4. Cost Engineering (CEWG)

Systems Engineering Certification
Mike Krueger, Member

The certification program has gained a great deal of momentum this past year leading up to the international workshops. The following are a few of the key initiatives that have been ongoing this past year and that were formalized at IW08:

1. The new Core Exam questions were beta-tested at IW 08. These are the questions that are based on the new Systems Engineering Handbook Version 3.1. The rollout of the exam is targeted for July 2008.
2. The Department of Defense (DOD) Acquisition extension to the Certification Exam: this is an exam specific to the DOD Acquisition based on the new Defense Acquisition Guidebook(DAG), Chapter 4. Candidates that specialize in this area must pass both the Core Exam – Version 3.1—and an additional set of questions to test knowledge on the DAG chapter 4. The certification will be based on both the exam and individual experience. Once a candidate passes the exam and his or her qualified experience is vetted, he or she will be awarded CSEP with an Acquisition Supplement. This will be rolled out with the new exam in July 2008.
3. A new certification classification has been established targeted for systems engineering students or candidates new to systems engineering. This will be called the Associate Systems Engineering Professional (ASEP). This is an exam-only certification where candidates are awarded an ASEP certificate when they pass the exam. The intent is for the candidates to continue in the systems engineering field until they obtain the requisite experience to become a CSEP. ASEP status is valid for only 10 years, and the candidates will need to maintain their INCOSE membership during that period to retain the ASEP.

The Certification Advisory Group (CAG) is the managing body for the certification program. Dave Walden is the Program Manager. At IW the leadership changes were voted upon and approved. During this past year Michael E. Krueger was the CAG Chair with Karl Geist as Secretary. At IW 08 the CAG Chair was passed to Dr. Kevin Forsberg, with Eileen Arnold as Co-Chair, and Dr. Dan Surber as Secretary.

Technical Leadership Team (TLT)
Scott Jackson, Member

The TLT oversees all working groups and their products. The major issue of discussion at Albuquerque was how to help working groups form, work, and interact with each other.