Rethinking system engineering

System engineering is out of fashion. It needs rebranding even before we understand how to use it in today's projects.

System engineering is the discipline of collecting requirements and track system level connections. It's vital for systems involving hardware and software, but seldom adopted in startups.

How come? 

Agile shortens products feedback massively. Although this is a good thing for developing what matters, the requirements for the system keep shifting. 

The stark contrast between holding on to a requirement list and changing requirements through feedback seems to be the main problem fencing people off from system eng.

Moreover, it is old, slow and clunky. Too much process goes into it, we must be fast!

However, the topic has evolved throughout the years with new models (e.g. modular system engineering) surfacing and software. The discipline has adapted to accommodate new problems, but it is still hard to find acolytes.

Similar to the conversion to agile for SW, we need to find the best way to marry a flexible system engineering with our prototypes and early developments, so we don't have to redesign everything when we need to support our first client!

I guess I'll be waiting for the right rebranding, and in the meantime, I'll be the advocate for system level thinking where I can :)