On Saturday, May 13, 2017, the Systems Camp took place again in Berlin. It was once again a very successful event, and I met some interesting people and took away some ideas. In my session, which I held at the end of the day, I went through the skills of systems engineers with the participants. When do you ever get the chance to gather so many systems engineers together? So we got to the bottom of the question of what skills a systems engineer needs. I compiled the points on a flipchart, and we discussed them extensively.
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| Dipl.-Ing. Goran Madzar, Partner, Senior Systems Engineer E-mail: madzar@medtech-ingenieur.de Phone: +49 9131 691 240 |
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List of skills of a systems engineer
- communication
- Basic technical understanding (broadly)
- Specialist domain knowledge (e.g. function of a heart in medical technology)
- Requirements determination and management
- Conflict management
- Create architecture
- Model-based languages
- Be able to present complex issues in a target group-specific manner
- Abstraction and ability to structure
- Empathy (ability to put oneself in the shoes of others)
- Willingness to learn
- Tool knowledge (requirements tool, modeling tool)
- organization
- creativity
- Thinking in analogies
- Enthusiasm
- guide
- Pragmatics
- Decision-making ability
- Ability to take responsibility
- Frustration tolerance
- Resilience and perseverance
- Process understanding / process knowledge
- Basics of project management
- Self-reflection
This list was created jointly, and I compiled the terms on the whiteboard. About 15 participants participated. The discussion also revealed polarizing opinions. Can someone with a messy desk even think in a structured way or in metamodels? Or are they more suited to creative activities? This topic was controversially discussed. In the end, the question arose as to what one can actually do with the list. In my opinion, no one is perfect. That means everyone has strengths and weaknesses. But it certainly doesn't hurt to be aware of them. With a list like this or a similar one, you can compile the skill requirements relevant to the organization or the individual and then have them evaluated either for yourself or by others. The point is not to attack or denigrate anyone personally. Rather, you can use it to find out where someone can still improve. The idea of bottlenecks plays a key role here. It doesn't make sense to attend another training course in requirements engineering if the bottleneck lies more in communication. I really enjoyed the session, and the responses were quite positive. So I hope the content helps you.
Best regards
Goran Madzar
PS: If you are interested in the topic, you can read more articles on the blog or contact me.
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