The characteristics are shown in decreasing priority from top to bottom. Some of them are innate, whereas others can be learned and honed.

Twelve undeniable facts of System Engineering：

1. It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. Systems Engineering is not a once-through-the-process-andforget-it routine. It is a continuous, evolving, ever-different, program-tailored course that starts at program inception and progresses to product disposal after useful life is expended.

2. There’s no such thing as a stupid question. Encourage your associates to question anything they don’t comprehend. If they can’t understand, they can’t implement your ideas.Or they may implement them incorrectly. You need to rephrase your ideas in a way that all associates understand. Then too, occasionally a question brings up something you overlooked, and the stupid question saves you from disaster!

3. Everybody’s a QA man. The product will be better if all are focused on product and process quality. Encourage everyone involved in the process to be on the lookout for potential problems. You can’t be everywhere at once, and sometimes someone else’s perspective uncovers items that may never occur to you.

4. There’s got to be an easier way. This is the essence of all engineering. Be ever mindful of the power of innovation and open to the great revelation that leads you to the better mousetrap.

5. There’s no easy way to do anything. Ah, a contradiction to the previous fact. What this says is there’s no substitute for hard work and beware of treacherous shortcuts.

6. Humans are best species on the planet to invent and use tools. Be human! This is an admonition to make maximum use of available tools and look for ways to adapt them to the present use.

7. We’re all in this together. The practice of Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary process. The development of superior products requires that all specialties have timely knowledge of all design decisions and a chance to air their views.

8. Listen to your instincts. We’ve become so dependent on computers that we have a tendency to accept their outputs without challenge. Don’t get so wound up in the process that you don’t occasionally step back and look where you’re going and where you’ve been.
Also, weigh things in light of your experience and listen to your intuition. If something doesn’t look right, it may not be!

9. There’s probably an upper limit to the number of times you should check your results,but you’ll never reach it in any practical problem. Check your inputs. Check your outputs. Check your checks. It’s incredible how persistent some errors are. You may exorcise them out of one version of the program and find someone using a previous version.
That slipped decimal point will come back to haunt you ‘til they give you the gold watch.

10. A good Systems Engineer is humble. Don’t think you have all the answers. If you do, you’ll just end up with the same system you designed last time. Be open to suggestions.

11. Yesterday’s solutions may not be the answer, but it’s the best place to start. Don’t get pulled into that “We did it this way last time ‘syndrome’. On the other hand, the wheel is a pretty basic device that has worked well for some time now and probably needs little reengineering. Spend your energy where it will provide the most return. You usually have to have something that works before you can make something that works better.

12. The good Systems Engineer knows when to kick it out the door. There will always be a new device on the horizon that will give you 3 db more; or a new technique in development that will speed processing. But if it’s not needed now to make your product meet requirements, don’t hold off deployment to chase that extra bit of performance. If the product as is meets today’s need, it should be in the customer’s hands. Add the new item when the need arises. Besides, you may learn more from a few weeks of field experience than you might get in years of experiment and test.