Dealing with Emergence in Systems Engineering Models--Fewer Surprising Failures and more "Happy Little Accidents"

Emergence;Emergent behavior;Complex systems;Cynefin;Ergodicity;Decision making in uncertainty;Critical Thinking;Red Teaming

We both count on and fear Emergence in product development. Today we can confidently design an airplane capable of doing things that none of its parts can do alone with our SE methods and models. But as increasingly complex models feed each other the risk of unanticipated and unpredictable Emergence goes up. Increasingly complex models won’t help. This presentation looks at how history has faced similar transitions and proposes the need to enhance Engineering Judgment in Systems Engineers.