Course Overview
Thinking Out of the Box Training Course is meant for Working systems engineers who wish to 'overcome' the conventional wisdom that gets in the way of building good systems and solving difficult problems.
In today's often complex world of systems engineering, there is a fair amount of conventional wisdom that needs to be challenged and modified. This is necessary so that we can improve the ways in which we carry out systems engineering and get past the obstacles that result from increased size, complexity, advanced technology as well as constrained budgets and timetables. This course will help participants leverage powerful new strategies for thinking and problem-solving.
In Thinking Out of the Box: A Systems Engineering Imperative Training course, participants will learn nine techniques for "thinking outside the box". For each technique, we will look at specific examples related to building and managing new systems. We will explore in detail how these ways of thinking can be used to solve difficult problems. We will also look at some other ways of thinking and examine group processes, both good and not-so-good. Exchange of personal ideas and experiences will be encouraged throughout the course. The course will conclude with a self- assessment that participants can use to gauge your own proclivity for out of the box thinking. All in all, the course will help participants learn new ways of thinking that they can put to immediate use to improve the engineering and management of today's complex systems.
Course Content
Introduction
- Conventional Wisdom
- What's Inside and What's Outside
- Possible Benefits
Overview of Systems Engineering Elements
- Customer-defined
- Developer-defined
- Complex Systems
Problems
- Systems
- People
- Software
- Management
Overview: Thinking Outside the Box
- The Inventive Mind
- Management Thinking
- Technical Thinking
Broaden and Generalize
- Architecting
- Functional Decomposition
- Systems of Systems
Crossover
- The Concept
- Software Applications
- Building/Managing New Systems
Conventional Wisdom
- Large Complex Government Systems
- Technology
- Business Paradigms
- Challengeable Wisdom
Back of the Envelope
- Business Example
- Compact Models
- Great Ideas
- Constructing the Steps
Expanding the Dimensions
- Flatland
- Multifunctionality
- The Grand Unified Theory
Obversity
- 36 Ways to Fail
- The Top Dozen
Remove Constraints
- Typical Constraints
- Faster, Cheaper, Better
Thinking with Pictures
- Visual Thinking
- Diagramming
The Systems Approach
- Seven Elements
- Alternatives
Group Processes
- Signs/Examples of Failure
- New Solutions
Other Ways of Thinking
A "Test"
Wrap-Up
- Hurdles to Overcome
- Course Recap
- Discussion
Customer Reviews
Thanks to Xpertised and the tutor who walked me through all the topics with Practical exposure which is helping me in my current project.
-Waseem
Course was quite helpful in terms of understanding of concepts and practicality. Its really a very friendly environment to learn. The timing were mutually chosen, as we both are working professional.
I am quite satisfied with the course.
-Tanmoy
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