Sustainability Needs and Requirements

This is a presentation given by Lou Wheatcraft to the ChicagoLand INCOSE Chapter on July 20, 2023. It is based on a workshop that Tami Katz and Lou were asked to give during the EMEA Conference in April 2023.
During the presentation, attendees were engaged in discussions concerning issues and challenges of implementing sustainability goals, needs, and requirements within organizations. These discussions proved to very insightful for any one who wants to defined and achieve sustainability goals within their organization.
Viewers are introduced to sustainability in terms of engineered systems from the perspective of INCOSE Vision 2035 and SE HB V5.
A basic premise is that sustainability for an engineered system must be addressed up front of any project (as should system security, safety, resiliency, standards and regulations, and all the -ilities). In doing so, sustainability must be clearly defined not only in the context of the organization, but also the system to be engineered and its external environment across its lifecycle.
Various definitions and perspectives of sustainability are presented. Sustainability is introduced in terms of a natural system, organizations, and then discussed in terms of a variety of engineered systems including a space station, base on the moon, and a colony on Mars.
Necessary upfront activities are introduced associated with defining lifecycle concepts, needs, and requirements for engineered systems from a sustainability perspective. As part of the upfront activities, capabilities needed to achieve the project sustainability goals and objectives must be defined in terms of people, process, and products (engineered systems). Those capabilities must be communicated within a well-formed integrated set of needs that define the scope of the project in terms of sustainability and from which the design input requirements concerning sustainability will be transformed and against which the system will be validated.
The end of the presentation includes a list of actions organizations should perform as part of their journey as part of achieving INCOSE's Vision 20235 for sustainability.
Lou Wheatcraft is a senior consultant and managing member of Wheatland Consulting, LLC. Lou is an internationally recognized expert in systems engineering with a focus on needs, requirements definition and management and verification and validation across the system lifecycle. Lou has over 50 years’ experience in systems engineering, including 22 years in the United States Air Force. Lou has taught over 200 requirement seminars over the last 23 years. Lou supports clients from government and industries involved in developing and managing systems and products including aerospace, defense, medical devices, consumer goods, transportation, and energy. Lou is very active in the International Council of Systems Engineering (INCOSE) and is a past chair and current co-chair of the Requirements Working Group (RWG). Lou is a principal author of several RWG manuals and guides including the Needs and Requirements Manual (NRM), Guide to Needs and Requirements GtNR), Guide to Verification and Validation (GtVV), and newly released version 4 of the Guide to Writing Requirements (GtWR).