Development of systems engineering expertise

Abstract

As systems become more complex, there is an increasing need for systems engineering expertise. At the same time, many senior practitioners are approaching retirement creating a need to more rapidly develop expertise in their replacements. There have been several studies in other fields addressing how experts develop their skills but not to a significant extent in systems engineering. This research addresses that gap with interviews of expert level systems engineers to determine how they learned the necessary skills to practice at that level. Several findings address important lessons learned that can be applied to improve development of systems engineers.