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NCUT -- Systems of Systems: Helping Decision Makers Navigate Minefields |
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| A dedicated year of work by Robert “Cab” Callaway of NASA, visiting as Potomac Institute’s inaugural Lewis & Clark Fellow from 2004-5, culminated in a symposium held at Potomac and in publication of his co-authored white paper, A System of Systems Perspective for Decision-Support. The Potomac Institute hosted the ‘System of Systems” (SOS) symposium on July 21- 22, 2004, for scholars, policy makers, engineers, and professionals from various fields. The participants focused on how to go about studying, teaching, and applying the new “System of Systems” approach.
In order to help government and industry decision-makers facing increasingly complex social-economic-technological problems without adequate tools, the new “system-of-systems” perspective studies the “probability of possibilities” and offers “what-if” map for guiding decisions in large, complex, cross-domain applications. Since precision and prediction over the long term are not just difficult, but fundamentally impossible, this approach seeks to create better maps and navigation aids for decision-makers by emphasizing that, when navigating a minefield, knowing where not to go may be the key factor in successfully traversing the terrain. “The symposium brought into sharper focus the consensus that system-of-systems type problems exist and need better solutions,” said Callaway. “It was gratifying to see 25 people from ex-military to mathematicians to marketing agree that this type of activity is of immense value to society and should be pursued aggressively.” Cab Callaway hosted the two-day discussion with the help of his main collaborator, Purdue University system of systems professor Dr. Dan DeLaurentis, and then Potomac researcher Taylor Hazelton and intern David Weisberger. Central questions considered during the symposium included defining the results to be expected from applying this approach and taking steps to establish long-term commitment to system of systems. A second symposium is planned for the summer of 2005 at Purdue University. Click here to download additional SOS information SoS Events 2004
1st Systems of Systems Symposium: "A Summer Conversation" July 21st - 22nd, 2004 Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Arlington, VA 2005
2nd Systems of Systems Symposium:
"A Summer Conversation" May 23rd - 24th, 2005 Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN Links For more information on any of NCUT's programs, contact:
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