SEBOK Overview of System Science
James Martin
We need your comments by Nov 21st so I can integrate these into a single submission to the SEBOK author team in early December. Please make changes in the attached Word version with Revisions mode turned on.
Please return a marked up Word document to me by Monday, November 21st.
This article is located here: http://www.bkcasewiki.org/index.php/Overview_of_System_Science
--
James
Jack Ring
At least they should acknowledge George Friedman's work, especially Constraint Theory.
--
The SysSciWG wiki is at https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/ .
Notifications on web activities can be sent from https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/isss-incose.
Contributions to the discussion are licensed by authors under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
<Overview_of_System_Science.doc>
James Martin
I have Metcalf reviewing this article so he can pull from his white paper as appropriate (https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/projects/ss-se-white-paper).
Do you know anyone who can provide a couple sentences to describe George's Constraint Theory?
James
James
Jack Ring
joseph simpson
There are volumes of systems science and scientific management
practices that are not mentioned in this work. A complete list would
be quite long.
Wymore's work is not listed.
The intersection of references from Wymore's work and Warfields work
are not listed.
The intersection of references from Wymore's work and Friedman's work
are not listed.
The work of George Klir is not listed.
The work of Kent Palmer is not listed.
The work of the Rand Corporation is not listed.
The work of Charles S. Pierce is not listed.
The work of Flagle, Huggins and Roy is not listed.
The work of John Casti is not listed.
The work of Francis Heylighen is not listed.
The work of Clausing is not listed.
The work of Herbert Simon is not listed.
The work of Sage is not listed.
The work of A. Bogdanov is not listed.
The list goes on....
And of the authors that are referenced, some important works are
missing..
In addition, there are some references listed that are not
appropriate.
The list just goes on and on..
The document as it stands appears to be limited to a small subset of
actors.
In it current state this document is embarrassing.
How can this effort be taken seriously?
Joseph and Mary Simpson
On Oct 24, 9:44 pm, Jack Ring <jri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Other than reading George's book (recommended)
> there is Warfield's Book Review
>
> and here is my two sentences
> Tempering the growing reliance on modeling and simulation is Constraint Theory in which Friedman warns that a) models constrain the kinds of questions that can be asked of them, b) as model detail increases the spectrum of allowable questions decreases even as run time drastically increases and c) as the model is incrementally 'enhanced' to respond to new questions the likelihood of erroneous responses increases. This highlights the importance of thoroughly anticipating the likely spectrum of questions before formulating the model and strongly warns about a new mode, Questions In, Garbage Out.
> On Oct 24, 2011, at 4:03 PM, James Martin wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I have Metcalf reviewing this article so he can pull from his white paper as appropriate (https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/projects/ss-se-white-paper).
>
> > Do you know anyone who can provide a couple sentences to describe George's Constraint Theory?
>
> > James
>
> > On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Jack Ring <jri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Why not suggest they use the Metcalf white paper?
>
> > At least they should acknowledge George Friedman's work, especially Constraint Theory.
>
> > On Oct 21, 2011, at 12:04 PM, James Martin wrote:
>
> >> I would like to get your comments on this article titled "Overview of System Science" from SEBOK draft version 0.5.
>
> >> We need your comments by Nov 21st so I can integrate these into a single submission to the SEBOK author team in early December. Please make changes in the attached Word version with Revisions mode turned on.
>
> >> Please return a marked up Word document to me by Monday, November 21st.
>
> >> This article is located here:http://www.bkcasewiki.org/index.php/Overview_of_System_Science
>
> >> --
> >> James
>
> >> --
> >> The SysSciWG wiki is athttps://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/.
>
> >> Contributions to the discussion are licensed by authors under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
> >> <Overview_of_System_Science.doc>
>
> > --
> > The SysSciWG wiki is athttps://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/.
>
> > Contributions to the discussion are licensed by authors under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
>
> > --
> > James
>
James Martin
This is draft 0.5. This number should tell you the expected state of maturity. It is out for worldwide review right now. They are expecting comments like you just provided to help improve its content. It is going through two more drafts before release in a couple of years. Then INCOSE and IEEE will take ownership of SEBOK and continue to mature this document.
Some of the references you listed are listed elsewhere in SEBOK (eg, Sage). (By the way, I was not aware that Sage wrote anything on systems science. Can you provide a reference for this?)
We are already thinking of splitting this article into two separate articles, one on systems science and the other on systems methodology. This will give us more room to add additional references like those you listed. Each article is limited to 2000 words. And since it is a "guide" to the SEBOK these are not expected to be tutorials but rather summary of key concepts and pointers to key references.
It would be more desirable if you and others provide the actual proposed text changes to this article rather than a list of what's missing. We also wouldn't mind recruiting key authorities as co-authors of this article. Are you game?
James
Notifications on web activities can be sent from https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/isss-incose.
Contributions to the discussion are licensed by authors under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
--
James
Jack Ring
Quite so. Any fixes?
Even if none, TKU for the pointers.
Note that the document is not a SysSciWG product. It is a draft of a section of the SEBoK.
> Notifications on web activities can be sent from https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/isss-incose.
James Martin
Yes, this SS section of SEBOK is not a product of SSWG. But when INCOSE takes over SEBOK in 2013 this section will likely "become" a SSWG product. It would make sense for us to eventually become the caretaker (or custodian, if you will) of this article.
It would be nice if SSWG could produce a Systems Science Overview white paper of about 20-30 pages. Any takers?
If we had such a product then the SEBOK article could then reference that product as a place to go for the "definitive" description of SS as it relates to SE.
Furthermore, when we get the final reports published from Jack's and Len's projects then these reports could be summarized in the SEBOK article and can then reference these INCOSE reports.
James
James
mary simpson
The Sage reference is Methodology for Large Scale Systems, published by McGraw-Hill in 1977.
Mary
David Ing
Sam
It is a good basic overview of SS, but for me it misses a number of
my favorites, especially newer ideas and coverage of the humanists
side. It appears to me to be a history more from the engineer's
orientation only. Part of the problem, I think, is that the line
between SS and philosophy is thin, for example Habermas? Russell? are
they talking about systems?
For example, Midgley (below) talks about the 4 waves of systems
thinking, I can't remember exactly but something like mechanism to
systems thinking, observation to intervention, theories of everything
to theoretical pluralism. Last time I looked "power" was a big
concern, see Ulrich - Critical Systems Heuristics. Not including
Bateson feels strange to me, I mean he goes from the Macy conferences
to inventing family systems therapy. Schwartz and Olgelvy (sp?) in
Lincoln and Guba book is foundational from a critique of scientific
beliefs and presentation of an alternative approach that leads to the
foundation of many systems approaches.
Man I don't know, there is so much to include. Maybe its best to
change the title to something like "Overview of Engineering-Oriented
System Science".
Sam
Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice, Gerald
Midgley, Kluwer Academic, 2000
Naturalistic Inquiry. Lincoln, Y.S. & Guba, E.G., Sage,Newbury Park,
CA, 1985.
On Oct 21, 3:04 pm, James Martin <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to get your comments on this article titled "Overview of System
> Science" from SEBOK draft version 0.5.
>
> We need your comments by Nov 21st so I can integrate these into a single
> submission to the SEBOK author team in early December. Please make changes
> in the attached Word version with Revisions mode turned on. *
>
> Please return a marked up Word document to me by Monday, November 21st.*
>
> This article is located here:http://www.bkcasewiki.org/index.php/Overview_of_System_Science
>
> --
> James
>
> Overview_of_System_Science.doc
> 104KViewDownload
Newbern, Dave W (TASC)
James: This SS article seems to lack a real purpose (focus) for the most part. One approach is to write a statement about how systems science thinking underlays most (all?) of the approaches that systems engineers use to perform SE. The derivation of the history of SS is not going to be a very useful topic for 99% of SE practitioners. I do not anticipate the use of any of the material I see so far in building test questions for the certification of CSEPs to cite one practical use of the SEBOK as an eventual replacement for the SE Handbook. Of course, one major use of the SEBOK is to drive the education of future SE practitioners at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. I think that readers of an overview of SS need to understand how it relates to use by SE practitioners, not how the article provides a rigorous description of SE thinking processes. So my question is this: Who is the intended reader of the article on SS? Can we please let the reader leave with a practical understanding of how this information will improve his SE practice? Put the history of SS and the development of SE methodology into an appendix so that it is not lost. Regards, Dave
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message and any attachments or files transmitted with it (collectively, the "Message") are intended only for the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, proprietary and/or prohibited from disclosure by law or contract. If you are not the intended recipient: (a) please do not read, copy or retransmit the Message; (b) permanently delete and/or destroy all electronic and hard copies of the Message; (c) notify us by return email; and (d) you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of the Message is strictly prohibited.
James Martin
This is *supposed* to be an engineering-oriented overview of systems science!! It is written for SE people, which is why it is contained in the Guide to the SE Body of Knowledge.
You make some good points. But what I really need are actual sentences to add to this article. Could you provide me half a dozen sentences that captures your points? Best if you could place them in the right location in the article itself and embed these in the actual Word document.
I asked the editorial team if I could expand the size of this article and they agreed to let us double it in size. The initial page limit target was what caused so many of your favorite SS concepts and ideas to be absent. We can take any additions up until the end of December. I was hoping to get all the inputs we needed by now so we could spend December folding everything together.
But given that I have not gotten many real "edits," I would like to try again to get these from all of you. Please submit your new sentences or paragraphs. (Please don't just tell me what we left out. Best if you actually write the correct sentence. If you have a reference that we missed, please provide that, too.)
James
--
The SysSciWG wiki is at https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/ .
Notifications on web activities can be sent from https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/isss-incose.
Contributions to the discussion are licensed by authors under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
--
James
James Martin
Very good points. Can you provide a few sentences/paragraphs that capture your thoughts?
The intention of the Guide to the SEBOK is not to be the basis for exam questions for certification testing. It is intended for those building a SE curriculum to give them an overview with pointers to key references so they can do their own research from a reasonable foundation without having to do all the basic scrounging of ideas by themselves.
By the way, there is no "appendix" in SEBOK. The articles should point to the literature where they can find more details.
Regards,
James
Newbern, Dave W (TASC)
James: I think that some in the certification arena look for the SEBOK to replace the SE Handbook eventually. That said, we don’t need to worry about what the Certification Program does in the future. I am thinking of an introduction that works on several layers – one a general orientation to the subject for all SEs and then a deeper tie-in to the more rigorous structure of SS for those who want to pursue the subject. If I get time in the next several days, I will try to give you some words. To paraphrase the current “99%” activities, I don’t think that most SEs would spend time looking at the subject of SS at the level this article begins with. Hence a multilevel approach. Good question to ask is: Who is our audience? Dave