As is often the case, it is the neglect of fundamental principles that is at the root of poor performance. Sports coaches often stress the return to fundamentals—the “blocking and tackling”—as the key to improving team performance. This is a recognition of the powerful effect that adherence to sound fundamental …

Complexity poses a greater and greater challenge for the system designer/problem solver. The classic approach to problem analysis and solution calls for the problem and its solutions to be broken apart into their constituent parts until those parts are simple enough to be clearly understood. From there, the parts—whether of …

The Vitech team was proud to learn Monday at the International Council of Systems Engineering’s International Symposium in Washington, D.C. that Jim Long, influential mentor and longtime leader at Vitech, was honored with the Posthumous Pioneer Award. The award recognizes an individual who has made an outsize contribution to the …

The systems engineering tool “Analysis of Alternatives,” or AoAs, impacts a broad range of concepts in systems engineering. In my experience, the inception of a project revolves around smart people—often program managers, technical directors, or business developers—discussing what they’ve heard or read or seen as an opportunity to do something …