You might be interested in attending this upcoming workshop to be held just prior to the INCOSE symposium in Philadelphia, USA.
"Towards a Science of Systems: Exploring the Nature of Systems Processes & Pathologies"
(Sponsored by the Systems Science Working Group)
Sat, Jun 22, 2013 (prior to INCOSE Symposium in Philadelphia)
Imagine you could obtain a rich toolbox of systems processes that had been proven effective in virtually all cases of successful natural systems. Imagine this toolbox also specified multiple interactions between these processes that explained how systems work in unprecedented detail. Imagine this new level of knowledge also enabled your recognition of a wide range of ways that systems might not work (i.e., failure modes or pathologies). Wouldn’t this knowledge be useful in your practice of systems engineering, teaching SE, modeling systems, designing systems, testing systems, and attaining a better understanding of complex systems of systems? Wouldn’t these steps to a true “science” of systems help in the challenging tasks of systems integration, innovation, and improvement facing SE?
This workshop will identify and describe about fifty systems “processes” and many dozens of precise statements describing how these processes influence each other – as determined by an examination of processes occurring in Nature. Knowledge of these will facilitate overcoming the common pathologies that afflict all systems—whether natural or man-made. A series of mini-presentations, posters, and exercises will explore how to: (a) Gather the numerous pathologies and processes into ontologically pertinent categories for better usability; (b) “Map” the comprehensive network of these many processes and interactions; (c) symbolize the theoretical components to better model or check models of systems; (d) teach SE thru the teaching about the “science” of systems. Come explore the new era of “Sysinformatics” and “Systems Mimicry!”
Workshop attendance is limited to 30 persons. So, please sign up early to get a seat. Workshop registration can be done when you register for the symposium. This workshop will be lead by Len Troncale and his Systems Processes & Pathologies project team, which is part of the Systems Science Working Group of INCOSE.
Here is a link to the first paper written on the Systems Processes Theory (1978). Although 35 years old, it still describes all the key parts of our current research framework because that plan required even then generations of work to be done — so it is still useful to read. At that time I called the connected items Principal Systems Concepts (after the advice of R. Ericson) but already was restricting key words and concepts to those that contributed to how systems worked. Linkage Propositions and their categories were already described……Original SoSPT Paper NATO 1978
Here is a link to the two most recent papers (2012) on Systems Processes Theory, one on the Systems Processes and one on the Linkage Propositions…… ID SysProc for GST-SPTI