Using Systems Thinking to Advance Security in the Future of Systems Engineering (FuSE), a Progress Report

Abstract

The Security in the Future of Systems Engineering (FuSE) team has made significant progress since its launch to realize the INCOSE vision described in Systems Engineering Vision 2035 (INCOSE 2021). The output products to date promote improved systems engineering practices to achieve security as a foundational perspective. The systems thinkers on this team have performed holistic analysis of current practices to expose existing anti-patterns and mental models that informed the transformation to future practices that can yield desired results and achieve the 2035 vision. Needs-oriented, loss-driven, capability-based analysis to define security strategies that become functional requirements promotes stakeholder alignment of the security vision and leads to effective security tactics and techniques that collectively achieve the security strategies. The result is a system that achieves functional perseverance in a hostile predatory environment. The work products completed so far and those in progress reflect our efforts to transition practices to a future where our systems are designed to achieve and sustain security as an intentional capability of the system throughout its lifecycle.