This 2 minute video captures and explains the main points of this blog post. “Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.” Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and the Carpenter Oysters Rockefeller, oysters on the half shell, oyster stew, fried oysters . . . for the appreciative connoisseur, …

It is a widely known principle of systems engineering that the combination of different elements in a system produces results not possible for the elements alone or even in the aggregate. The INCOSE definition follows the general pattern of others in stating “A system is a construct or collection of …

The recent attention to the Zika virus and its potential global spread illustrates once again that the truly important questions occur at the systems level. Without systems thinking the questions can “hide” from decision makers emerging only later as damaging unintended consequences of decisions made without an adequate systems understanding. …

Very often the description of a system takes the form of a physical description of the component parts. For example, my Surface Pro 3 is described as constructed of magnesium, loaded with the Windows 10 operating system, and having a 10.8” widescreen at 1920 by 1280 resolution, 128GB storage, a …