One of the most important—and often overlooked—aspects of good systems engineering is first principles thinking. In an excellent article on first principles thinking in his Farnam Street blog, Shane Parrish discusses first principles thinking in the context of Julia Child’s French cooking. Arguing that what made her extraordinary television show …

Engineers are regularly tasked with making a case for their work. Whether it is to colleagues considering design alternatives, to management deciding whether to proceed in a particular direction, or to customers choosing whether or not to invest in a solution, the engineer who has invested time and thought in …