The most alert and knowledgeable readers will have already noticed a contradiction in the title. While “control” is a traditional engineering concept and focus, its meaning in the realm of complexity can best be described as “eroded.” Even that is probably a generous description. A more accurate title statement would …

Last time, in Part I, we discussed what emergent behavior is, where it ultimately originates from, and why unintended emergence is hard to mitigate when not caught early. We also introduced the Cha-Cha-Cha investigative approach utilized primarily in the scientific community and tailored it for use in systems engineering and …

System of Systems (SoS) — A system of systems (SoS) brings together a set of systems for a task that none of the systems can accomplish on its own. Each constituent system keeps its own management, goals, and resources while coordinating within the SoS and adapting to meet SoS goals. …

Photo above: Ron Kratzke (right) displays the “MetaSys Cube” with Vitech colleagues Donna Long and Mark Malinoski in front of the Vitech company booth at the INCOSE International Symposium in Washington, D.C. The International Council of Systems Engineering (INCOSE) held their International Symposium (IS) in Washington, D.C. from July 9-12, 2018. …