It has been widely said that, “managers do things right; leaders do the right thing.” Stephen Covey tied a more vivid picture to the concept when he observed, “management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” It is …

May I tell you a story about someone I met at this year’s INCOSE conference? This is a true story. I took a few minutes away from the Vitech booth to grab some coffee. As I was trying to get the last few drops of coffee from the urn, a …

Why systems engineering? How can that help? Isn’t it enough to let the engineering disciplines do their work and then put the project together? Systems engineering takes a systems view of the design. It provides more than a simple connection of disparate parts. Systems engineering looks at three systems – …

In his work, On Rhetoric, Aristotle offers instruction on the art of persuasion. He identifies three modes or “offices” of persuasion. In Greek they are ethos, logos, and pathos. In order to cast a persuasive argument, Aristotle posits that we must construct from all three elements. In order to be …