After Action Report for the International Symposium 2022
Dr. David Flanigan, CSEP - Chapter President--2022
INCOSE International Symposium 2022
The INCOSE International Symposium (IS) was held June 27-20, 2022 in Detroit, Michigan. This was the first time that we have had a live IS since 2019 in Orlando. This was a hybrid meeting, which is how events will be held for the foreseeable future.
Event Location and Travel Details
Flying into Detroit’s airport was easy – a nonstop flight from BWI is just over an hour, serviced by major airlines. We left on Friday July 1, at the beginning of the holiday weekend crush of passengers, and some of the airlines were having many cancellations and delays: fortunately, we only had a minor delay coming back home. Rental cars were easy to schedule and there were plenty of available cars – this was unlike the stories we had read about the lack of inventory in some locations. Usually the symposium locations are nearby the airports for those that don’t want to rent a car – in previous IS events, we took public transportation or taxis to the event. For the IS and International Workshop (IW) events, INCOSE will generally select one nearby hotel as the preferred location, and reserve a block of rooms at a pre-negotiated rate. These are a good deal and saves the hassle of finding your own accommodations, and are announced a few months before the start of the event, so be sure to register early! The symposium runs from Monday – Thursday, with some tutorials held the weekend before, or other business meetings, such as the Corporate Advisory Board (CAB). The negotiated rates should cover these dates as well.
Symposium Setup
The IS22 was hosted in the Huntington Place Convention Center, which was within an 8 to 10-minute walk from the hotel. Everything was centrally located in downtown Detroit, so there were plenty of restaurants nearby for meals. During this time, the public transportation (Q-line and people mover) were free to the public, which helped to move around the city easier. Usually INCOSE will post websites on local attractions, as well as internet searches and YouTube area tours can also provide additional places to visit. There is usually a social event after each day for everyone to mingle and is held at the exhibit hall. We learned in Detroit that the Monday prior to July 4, the city hosts a large fireworks display by the riverfront, which we were able to view.
The INCOSE hotel at the GM Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit
Reflecting a New Detroit
Dave’s IS22 presentation
The symposium is well organized into several tracks of interest that have 2-3 presentations per time block. Each day has different tracks, depending on the number of papers available. An example track from one day included: systems thinking, MBSE, agile SE, artificial intelligence / machine learning, and digital engineering. The typical presentation lasts 30 minutes, with 10 minutes for questions, and a 5-minute break for transitioning to a different room. This is the website for the entire symposium schedule: https://www.incose.org/symp2022/symposium/event-schedule. Here’s a picture before we start my presentation, you can see the zoom link for the hybrid participation; there are several tracks that are live streamed, and the rest are recorded for future viewing via the symposium website that you get access to after registering. Paul Schreinemakers from the Netherlands was our session moderator, whom I had known from previous INCOSE events. It’s always good to see old friends at these events and make new friends each year!
Each day would start with a plenary session that featured senior leaders to discuss relevant topics and how systems engineering was related. These usually have a diverse set of speakers as well as representing the local area. The speakers for IS22 included the director of the National Reconnaissance Office, president and CEO of the Center for Automotive Research, project director at Sellafield Ltd, which is Europe’s largest nuclear site, and the senior global manager for systems engineering, safety, and modeling and simulation for Ford Motor Company. Each was able to share their own connection to systems engineering and provide insight into the challenges of their own problem space and organization.
Each year at the IS, there is an exhibit hall for commercial and academic organizations to host a booth for information, demonstrations, and general networking. Included are the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering booth and SE Scholar booth. This is a view of part of the exhibit hall.
IS22 Exhibit Hall, CC member Dave Alldredge is on the right with his Michigan State hat
JHU booth with Douglas Jones
SE Scholar booth with Paul Martin
Chesapeake Chapter members pictured: Paul Martin, David Flanigan, Hanish Mehta
We typically take a group photo of all Chesapeake Chapter members in attendance, there was a smaller amount of folks this year, so watch for next year as I’m sure we will have a good amount of chapter representation!
INCOSE IS23
Next year will be held in Honolulu, HI, July 15-20, 2023. There is already a website in place to host the information as it starts to develop throughout the year: https://www.incose.org/symp2023. At the end of each symposium, the audience gets a preview of the future location, this is the video they showed from the Hawaiian Conference Center: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eafUN4dVM_I
If you’re interested…
So what’s the next step if you’re interested in attending IS23? Papers are peer-reviewed and are usually due in November with a notification in April. Lately, INCOSE has also been accepting paperless presentations, where an abstract of the presentation is submitted and no paper is required. Tutorials are also accepted for review, fill out an abstract for consideration. This is the IS22 website for the call for submissions that has some good details on what to expect: https://www.incose.org/symp2022/symposium/call-for-submissions.