This free course, Systems engineering: Challenging complexity, examines system engineering and why it is important. You will learn to identify and evaluate the importance of relationships within the process and assess the relative importance of stakeholders.

Learning outcomes:

• Evaluate a specific example or case of a product development process in terms of the ‘waterfall’ lifecycle model of software development.
• Classify new product developments as: fault correction, enhancements, new but similar products, radically different, revolutionary or iconoclastic products.
• Analyse the causes of a systems failure.
• Identify and evaluate the importance of the relationships of the factors leading up to system complication and complexity.
• Answer the question ‘why is systems engineering important?