Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)

The Vision

To support INCOSE’s vision of being “the heart of the global community creating a better world through a systems approach”, its DEI initiative aims to ensure the organization is globally recognized as a diverse and inclusive systems engineering community that fosters authenticity and advancement through dynamic collaborations that create a better world for all. The DEI mission is to embody, cultivate, and champion DEI as a key organizational value and objective across the systems engineering community and beyond.

Systems Engineering is integral in many spaces due to the varied contexts in which systems engineering can be applied, and the consideration of multiple stakeholder viewpoints at the heart of the systems approach. Systems engineers play a pivotal role in integrating DEI concepts into the team’s composition and approach, and in the system design and development process through:

1. Ensuring that the systems engineering team and its leadership is inclusive, welcomes a diverse range of talent, promotes cognitive diversity and diversity of ideas, and where necessary takes deliberate action to provide psychological safety and communication equity.

2. Ensuring that the systems we realize are as accommodating as possible of the differences within the entire stakeholder community.

Failure to address either of these aspects results in sub-optimal outcomes whether in terms of missed solutions, lower productivity, or delivering a system that does not equitably meet the needs of the full range of the stakeholder community – essentially failing to meet the ultimate goal of delivering a total optimal system.