Webinar 111 – Sillitto – 17 April 2018 – What is a System

A special initiative was started by the INCOSE Fellows in summer 2016 at therequest of the INCOSE president and President Elect, to review INCOSE’sdefinitions of ‘system’ and ‘systems engineering’, and if necessary improve them toensure they are fit for purpose, both now and looking forward towards theaspirations expressed in INCOSE’s Systems Engineering Vision 2025.The webinar will discuss: INCOSE’s current definition of “system”, and why it needs to change toaccommodate the wider vision for SE presented in INCOSE’s Vision 2025 Our review of SYSTEM definitions The (at least) seven different worldviews on “system” that exist within theINCOSE community A taxonomy summarizing the range of system types we identified in theliterature How this taxonomy relates to the seven worldviews The complex system challenge for INCOSE – “systems with minds of their own” Current challenges and proposed direction of travel towards (a) newdefinition(s) Current challenges and possible direction of travel towards a “system ontology”