Decision Making in Systems Engineering and Management, 3rd Edition

Chapter 3System Representations

There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos.

—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Adopting a holistic perspective that embraces systems thinking sets the right mental framework to answer the first question asked in any systems engineering or systems decision support project: “What is the system that we are dealing with here?” The answer to this question is descriptive, portraying the current state of the system of interest as it is understood. Supporting this answer is the role of research and stakeholder interviews, which inevitably produce lists of internal and external system elements along with the relationships between system elements that define the system of interest.

Mapping these lists to a mental image is the very next thing that the human mind will do in an attempt to effectively summarize the current level of understanding in a neat and tidy picture or diagram. The form that this image takes depends on one's education and experience, but it is critical to every systems engineering or systems decision support effort. To make sure the project starts off in the right direction, all team members and key stakeholders need to have congruous mental models of the system of interest as the physical representation of this system will become the reference ...