TABLE OF CONTENTS As the rate of technological change has heated up, I am sure we have all seen that, increasingly, nobody knows all the answers. Previously we could rely on comparatively stable environments (technology, workforce, experienced people, politics and economics). People knew how to solve problems because they had solved similar ones before. In addition, the concept of learning by apprenticeship was valid; masters could pass on their wisdom over a time span of years.
Things are currently moving so fast that it is dangerous to assume there is any first-hand knowledge of the technology we are going to use, or of the markets we are going to sell to. Even the organizational and social structures that we are targeting are constantly changing. Authors such as Tom Peters have long since clearly documented these trends and threats (Peters 1992).
So we have to find out what works now by means of practice, not theory. We need to develop things in a different way. We have to learn and to change, faster than the competition.
The fundamental concepts needed now in systems engineering include:
Feedback is the single most powerful concept for successful projects. Methods that use feedback are successful. Those that do not, seem to fail. Feedback helps you get better control of your project, by providing facts about how things are working in practice. Of course, the presumption is that the feedback is early enough...
