Date: 29 May 2014	Issue: 18
In This Issue

Counting Down to the INCOSE IS - Just a Few Weeks Left!

Organizations all over the world are gearing up for the INCOSE International Symposium (IS), taking place in Las Vegas, NV the week of June 30, 2014. Vitech will be there and ready to answer your questions about our product lines, give detailed demos in our hospitality suite, and participate in the Tool Vendor Challenge.

In addition, Vice President of Professional Services Zane Scott will be presenting a tutorial (free to registrants) on Saturday titled "Essential Model-Based Systems Engineering - Applied and Practical." This all-day session will offer a full overview of MBSE and is already at capacity, but be sure to get on the wait list today!

Principal Systems Engineers Ron Kratzke and Warren Smith will also be at the IS - Kratzke will be representing Vitech using CORE at the tool vendor challenge, and Smith will be presenting a paper on "Re-Use Libraries Leveraging Model-Based Systems Engineering to greatly increase engineering productivity" on Monday afternoon. 

Of course, INCOSE president and Vitech President David Long will be ready to speak with as many INCOSE members as he can throughout the conference. He will be leading panels on the future of SE education, working with advisory boards, and will also get some time in the Vitech hospitality suite with customers.

Vitech will also have a presence at the exhibit hall at booth E6 where our team will be ready to guide you through the power of CORE and GENESYS. INCOSE IS Home Page

Catch Up on The Excellent Webinars you Missed and Plan to Join Us for New Webinars in August

The Vitech team will be on a webinar hiatus for the summer, but we encourage you to take this opportunity to catch up on the webinars from the past few months you may have missed. Visit the Vitech Webinar Archive and look for some of our most popular webinars over the last few months: the GENESYS 3.0 Release Webinar, Demonstrating Compliance using MBSE, SE in Turbulent Times, and Engineers Behaving Badly. 

In addition, if you are a current CORE or GENESYS owner, you are eligible for exclusive MySupport webinars. Catch up with the latest available webinars on the MySupport page. (Requires current maintenance contract for access). 

Invitations to new webinars will start again in early August so keep an eye out! We have many great topics planned, including details on using features such as the DOORS Connector in CORE and GENESYS, implementing the systems approach in your organization, and even introducing our new product that's coming in late summer! 

Book Notes: The Opposable Mind

The Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking, Roger Martin

Martin begins the book by quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald on the test of a first-rate intelligence (“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”). From there he traces an intriguing path through the way that creative thinkers manage complexity using integrative thinking. This book is an important read for any systems thinker but especially for the systems engineer designing complex systems. Thinking about how we think is a valuable exercise in any case and Martin provides an insightful framework for doing just that.

Efficiency v. Effectiveness: From Management to Leadership

"The righter you do the wrong thing, the wronger you get." Russell Ackoff

In an interview with Phyllis Haynes on the Studio 1 Network, Russell Ackoff, Professor Emeritus in Management Science from the Wharton School, discussed one of the central problems in problem solving: addressing the right problem. This issue is well-recognized but often ignored in practice. As Ackoff observed elsewhere, “We fail more often because we get the right answer to the wrong problem than because we get the wrong answer to the right problem.” Read more... 

After reading the article, join the conversation. 

Today's Tip: Changing Nodes in N2

Did you know that you can change the node position on an N2 diagram?  You can use the node positioning to cluster objects any way you see fit.  Helping you in both representation and analysis, changing the node position dramatically increases the value of the N2 in visualizing (behavioral) allocation and (physical) packaging.  Combine node positioning with a square behind nodes to call out a grouping of nodes to take this capability a step further.

We look forward to your feedback on these tips. Contact us and let us know how we did and to suggest more topics.