Writing for INCOSE: Perspectives and Processes of Writing Technical Papers for INCOSE Conferences
Dr. David Flanigan, CSEP - President-Elect-2021
We have just finished attending the INCOSE International Symposium or regional conferences, enjoyed watching the presentations, and reading the papers. Now we are inspired to do the same and become a presenter and author. So how do we get to this point? How do we develop a paper and submit to either an INCOSE conference or other professional society? In this article, I provide a simple process that has been successful for nine submissions to the International Symposium in the past ten years.
Step 1: Brainstorm ideas
This may be the most challenging part to develop a worthy topic, and inspiration can come from many places. This may originate from a presentation or paper that you saw at a recent conference, but now you can apply this concept to a different domain or modify it in a slightly different approach. Maybe you have a different set of stakeholders, and you can modify the topic to be used in a different way. Maybe you can blend different approaches together to address your problem at hand. Sometimes the problems we experience at work can lend some inspiration to developing a paper to test out new theories. Maybe it is something that we read in the paper, or professional journals, or saw on the news that can motivate us to develop a new paper to improve the state of systems engineering. At this point, let the creative juices flow to build up as many ideas as you can, regardless of the feasibility or maturity of the concept. At the IS 2016, I had met someone and struck up a conversation regarding potential topics. During the conference, we exchanged some ideas and found a common area where it satisfied both of our interests. He introduced me to some of his colleagues, and we have been writing papers for the last three years. In this step, all we are looking to do is collect as many different ideas as possible. Later, you will be able to filter out the ideas for your paper and save the others for different conferences.
Step 2: Know your conference schedule
Knowing when the due dates will be key to set a reasonable schedule for writing a paper. Conferences usually send out a Call for Papers (CFP) that announces submissions for the upcoming conferences that are usually several months away, so you can start planning. Pay attention to what is expected: some conferences will only require an abstract, while others will require the full paper. As an example, INCOSE IS due dates are typically around November, with notifications in February, and a finalized paper in March. You can keep these dates in mind when building your schedule in terms of how much time to devote to researching the topic, how much time to create the artifacts or code, and how much time to write the paper.
Step 3: Research your subject and select your topic
I typically start the paper with a specific objective or hypothesis in mind for the paper. This helps to focus the paper to a narrowed set of subjects. Typically, INCOSE IS papers are 8-12 pages in length, so there is some ability to explore several topics within this space, but try to limit to one or two separate topics. Performing the literature review can help to show existing work that relates to your paper but may either falls short of your objective (thereby extending their work), applying it differently to another domain or use (thereby leveraging their work in a different purpose), or showing the breadth and depth of what the state of the practice is (thereby showing where your contribution is). Some topics may originate from previous INCOSE events or topics: the practitioners challenge identifies real-world issues, other events have highlighted external organizations efforts (United Nations sustainable development goals, global health issues, and National Academy of Engineering grand challenges), keynote speakers focus on key subjects, or papers that were presented. As an INCOSE member, you have access to the previous INCOSE proceedings that are a wealth of knowledge that can help you get inspired with topics as well as provide background on various subjects. Working groups may also be working on selected topics that could be of interest to starting your paper; keep in contact with the WG members, as they may provide additional resources or challenges that they are also trying to solve.
Step 4: Align your toolset with your objectives
You may find that certain tools are needed to further your paper, which may include MBSE tools, simulation tools, data analysis tools, or case studies. Some of the paper material can be generated by these tools and can help make your case easier to understand with a graph or screenshot of the artifact. As screen captures can show critical details, make sure your font is readable (I often get comments that MATLAB default font is too small to read), and consider using different symbols (triangles, circles, squares) or line styles (dashed, dotted, solid) in case the audience is printing your figures in black and white. Development of these scripts or models may take additional time, depending on the level of detail that you need, so account for this time to develop and debug your code in your entire timeline.
Step 5: Write the paper!
By this step, you should be continuing to write your paper. Given the timeline that you set for yourself, this could be a series of short bursts of activity, or a sustained lower amount of activity each day. Try to write often and at a regular pace that can align with your personal and professional schedules. I’ve often found that at certain times of the day, I have better success at focusing at writing the paper material, see what time works best for you. Allow for time to review and correct your paper. Enlisting other readers to read and review your paper can test if your paper’s approach, style, and conclusions are being received by the other readers as you intended. They can also determine if your paper’s material can still logically achieve your desired objectives and hypotheses. Make sure you understand and follow the conference specific formats if they provide one – INCOSE has a specific word template to follow, as do most other conferences. Citation formats are particularly important and can vary depending on the conference you submit to.
Step 6: Submit the paper
INCOSE uses EasyChair to submit your paper, which is an easy website to navigate and is used in other conferences. Depending on the conference, you may be asked to remove your name and any identifying information if a double-blind review is used. Although the deadline for submissions are posted, I try to get them in ahead of time, just in case we find an error that can easily be corrected and replaced with a new upload. Sometimes the conferences will extend the paper deadline, but don’t rely on this.
Step 7: Respond to the review and finalize your paper
You will be notified of your paper acceptance or rejection. Sometimes you may be accepted as a reserve paper. Comments will be provided by the reviewers, which is often three to five reviewers per paper for the INCOSE IS. These comments can help to solidify your choice or words, and clarify your message. Often, reviewers will also suggest additional references or works that may be related to your paper. A month is usually provided to make adjustments to the paper, add your author information back in, fill out the INCOSE intellectual property release forms, and submit the final paper back into EasyChair. When you’re accepted, this schedule is typically provided with the comments. Depending on the amount of rework, plan accordingly to complete this before the deadlines. Between the acceptance and the conference, you’ll also develop a presentation and bring that to the conference (we can explore this in a future article). If you’re a reserve paper, you may get called up to be in the presentation schedule (this happened to us once), so it’s always good to have the presentation ready if needed. Recently in the last two INCOSE IS that were virtual, I was asked to include a recording of my presentation just in case there were technical difficulties during the presentation time.
Step 8: Look for future topics
Often at the end of the paper, I add in future work or list other topics that could be explored in future conferences. This is often good practice to identify additional areas and could motivate future work either by myself or (hopefully) someone else who read my paper and gets inspired to continue the research. This future work suggestions may bring in other collaborators for the next conference, or as a transition for supporting other working groups or communities of interest.
Conclusion
This was a quick view of the process and insight into how I approach developing INCOSE papers. Consider volunteering with INCOSE to be a peer reviewer and select your areas of expertise, which can give you additional insight into other papers and work in your area of interest. Hopefully you’ve found this useful and can inspire you to write your own paper!