Editor's Corner
Welcome to v. 1.3 of the SEBoK! I have recently taken the post of Editor in Chief for BKCASE, which includes responsibility for the SEBoK. Many thanks to the BKCASE Governors and the members of the Editorial Board for their support. Special thanks to the outgoing Editor in Chief Art Pyster and Co-Editor in Chief Dave Olwell, who led the BKCASE efforts from 2009 through the beginning of 2014, and to all the members of the previous BKCASE Core Team.
SEBoK v. 1.3
The primary focus of the Editorial Board for SEBoK v. 1.3 was review of references to ensure that they continue to represent the most current information and resources from the systems engineering community. In addition, the Editors and authors have generated new case studies and provided updates to existing case studies. The primary changes from SEBoK v. 1.2 are:
- A new use case intended to help individuals who are unfamiliar with systems engineering understand key concepts and navigate the SEBoK to get acquainted with the discipline;
- Three new case studies on Business Transformation, Next Generation Air Traffic Control, and NASA's Mission to Saturn;
- Updates to the Hubble Space Telescope Case Study; and
- Updates to references and content to reflect the publication of the newest version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK).
Future Direction for SEBoK
The Editorial Board has also been working on an ongoing review of the current SEBoK content and structure and developing plans. Some of the areas under consideration for revision over the next 18 months include:
- General exploration of ways in which we can better cover cross cutting application issues such as model based SE and agile life cycle approaches.
- Part 2 updates with International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS)
- Part 3 alignment and co-evolution with other systems engineering life cycle documentation, in particular ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 and the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, v. 4.0.
- Part 4 continue to look at the broadest possible range of system engineering applications. This will include expansion of the Service and Enterprise knowledge areas.
- Identify the other groups, both within the systems engineering community and beyond, with interest in the topics of Parts 5 and 6 and form stronger relationships with them, e.g. INCOSE Systems Safety working group.
In all of this, we plan to expand our relationships with key organizations and groups both within systems engineering and outside of it. We aim to ensure that our coverage of existing systems engineering knowledge is complete and to push the boundaries of that knowledge into new approaches and domains. I also want to strengthen further our links to all members of the systems engineering community through things like the SEBoK Sandbox. I hope that we can gather review comments and content suggestions from as wide a variety of individuals as possible to make the SEBoK a truly community-led product.
Thank you,
