Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Management 2017 International Annual Conference

E-H. Ng, B. Nepal, and E. Schott eds.

LESSONS LEARNED IN THE TAILORING OF LIFE CYCLE MODELS

AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING PROCESSES TO SOCIOCULTURAL
DIVERSITY

Belinda Misiego
Ingeniería de Sistemas para la Defensa de España S.A., S.M.E., M.P. (Isdefe)
bmisiego@isdefe.es

Alberto Sols
University College of South-East Norway
alberto.sols@usn.no
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Abstract
Standards and handbooks address life cycle models and systems engineering process usually include tailoring
guidelines to adapt them to a product sector or a domain application. The organizations of the Western world have
tailored these standards to manage the complex and long-life-cycle systems in the main sectors of activity: defense,
aerospace, automotive, space, transportation or infrastructure among others. Based on the experience of the authors,
this paper analyses the influence of the sociocultural aspects in the use of these standards in countries whose culture
differs from that of the West. In the first section of the paper, three cases are presented to show the lessons learned
in implementing sociocultural tailoring of systems engineering standards, guides and models: the training program
in nuclear power plants in China, the spares management project for Saudi Arabia’s Military Industries Corporation
(MIC) and the requirements engineering in the elaboration and implementation of a Master Plan for the main Naval
Base of the Peruvian Navy. In collaboration with local engineers and managers, different changes were introduced
to the system engineering processes in order to adapt them to each sociocultural environment. In the second section
of the paper, a broad number of recommendations for engineering managers are made. These recommendations are
intended to be a help to those who want to accomplish a sociocultural tailoring of systems engineering in similar
environments.

Keywords
Sociocultural tailoring process, cultural singularities, pre-training, handbooks adaptation.

Introduction
There is no single moment or milestone that marks the birth or foundation of systems engineering. A number of
initiatives, mainly between the late forties and the late eighties in the defense and aerospace domains, represented a
substantial change in the way large complex systems were conceived and dealt with. In the 1940s, Bell Laboratories
was the first to use the term systems engineering. The study in 1945 of anti-aircraft guided missile systems was
regarded as a milestone precisely because it was comprehensive enough to address a whole system. Systems
engineering was born with analyses of ends and with the definition of objectives as integral parts of the overall
engineering effort. Several authors have described the origins and evolution of systems engineering (Blanchard &
Fabrycky, 1981; Brill, 1998; Sols, 2014).
Since its advent in the middle of the 20th century, the field of systems engineering is witnessing an
exponential growth in all domains, to include handbooks and textbooks, educational programs, specialized journals
and conferences, professional associations and worldwide practitioners. Harry H. Goode and Robert E. Machol,
from the University of Michigan, published in 1957 the seminal book Systems Engineering: An Introduction to the
Design of Large-Scale Systems (Goode & Machol, 1957). Their book addressed the systems engineering philosophy
and methodology. The United States Air Force (USAF) was the first organization to publish a comprehensive
systems engineering document. In 1966, the USAF published Handbook 375-5 Systems Engineering Management
Procedures, which described in detail the systems engineering approach (AFSC, 1966). The handbook was replaced
with the first systems engineering military standard, the MIL-STD-499 Systems Engineering Management (DoD,
1969). In 1992 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) published a draft Systems Engineering

Copyright, American Society for Engineering Management, 2017

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Handbook that was finalized and published three years later (NASA, 1995). The first formal attempt to teach
systems engineering was made in 1950 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by G. W. Gilman, then Director
of Systems Engineering at Bell Laboratories, Inc. (Brill, 1998); from that initial program seven decades back, more
than 300 programs exist today. This number is even more impressive considering that there were less than 250 only
two years ago, which reflects the exponential growth in systems engineering education around the world, according
to the last report published by INCOSE and the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) (INCOSE & SERC,
2017). Systems engineering standards, guides and models, most of them written with a Western systems thinking,
are gradually being introduced in the rest of the world, with a required tailoring that poses a number of challenges
because of the sociocultural diversity.
The goal of this paper is to increase the awareness on the importance and ubiquity of the sociocultural
differences, sharing personal experiences of the authors in several industrial sectors throughout many years of
applying systems engineering across the world. The paper summarizes the experience in implementing sociocultural
tailoring of systems engineering standards, guides and models to meet the specific needs of two nuclear power
plants in China, the Military Industries Corporation (MIC) in Saudi Arabia and the Navy of Peru. The experience
gained is used to make a large number of detailed recommendations to help engineering managers succeed in their
systems engineering endeavors.

Literature Review
A number of studies have documented the impact of psychological and sociological issues on the performance of
teams and on their application of existing methods and techniques. Nevertheless, there is still a lot to be understood
on how sociological factors shape the application of systems engineering in different cultures and sociological
environments.
Systems engineering efforts are directed to bringing solutions to perceived problems or opportunities.
Culture and trust are known to have a significant impact on the effectiveness and efficiency with which procedures
and methods are applied in the corporate environment. Adopting the best methods will not suffice if the culture is
not appropriate for its fruitful implementation. Consequently, managers need to understand the relationship between
their organization’s culture and the level of trust that the employees have in their organization (Alston & Tippett,
2009). A suitable social structure consisting of a solid rule of law and economic freedom positively affects
entrepreneurship; societies with less corruption and better training and education have higher levels of
entrepreneurial activity (Castaño, Méndez, & Galindo, 2015). The systems approach is characterized by multi-
disciplinary teams that bring the required levels of expertise to the needed disciplines and that capitalize on the
wisdom of crowds (Surowiecki, 2004). In order to successfully work as a team that build on the collective
knowledge there is a need for psychological safety, which is an essential building block of learning organizations
(Garvin, Edmondson, & Gino, 2008). Studies have been conducted to assess the correlation between corporate
innovation culture and the dimensions of project success, including national-level culture practices as moderators.
The corporate variables related more strongly and positively to project success when assertiveness is high rather
than low, based on data collected in four countries with significantly different cultural practices. This suggests that
corporate factors should be compatible with the national culture (Unger, Rank, & Gemünden, 2014). But even
among countries considered to be similar enough in terms of technological development, there might be significant
cultural differences that affect the end results in projects and in engineering efforts. For example, the coastal
engineering approaches in the Netherlands and in the USA have been compared to show that these countries have
different conceptions of risk management regarding flooding, and that the reason for these differences lies in the
wider technological cultures of both countries (Bijker, 2007).
Although there has been an exponential growth in the availability of academic programs in systems
engineering there is still a significant problem with the conventional approach to engineering education, which
remains largely technology-based. As a result, engineering graduates are under-prepared to design user- and context-
sensitive systems. It is essential in today’s globalized world that engineers be able to integrate technology-based
concerns with socially-oriented demands (Kuhn, 1998). The strong influence that personality and social variables
exert on the technical practice of engineering design has been well documented. As has been proven, the behavioral
and technical aspects of design are not only highly inseparable but, in certain instances, the influence of sociological
and behavioral factors on the design effort outweighs the pure technical factors (Mitroff, 1972). In Japan, institutions
practice engineering methods that are far from systematic or depersonalized. Japanese society has operated with
anti-contractual norms for a long time. Strong vertical relationships between supervisors and subordinates are the
norm, with great sense of respect for the authority of the leaders. Documentation does not play a crucial role and
normally there are no minutes of meetings (Sato, 2007).

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Selected cases of sociocultural challenges

The following are selected cases in which the authors experienced significant sociocultural differences in countries
in which systems engineering efforts were conducted:

1) Training in China. One of the authors, with a very long academic background in several Western countries,
was involved in an extensive training program for nuclear power plants in China in 2011 and 2012. Two nuclear
power plants were built by Westinghouse and Tecnatom in San Men and in Hai Yang.
Awareness of important cultural differences had a great impact on how the training program was
planned, conducted and validated. All training programs have a goal and their goodness and the degree of
accomplishment of the defined objectives is to be validated. Validation is done in steps. The very final
validation of the effectiveness of a training activity is when trained people successfully conduct their operations
in the field. Nevertheless, waiting till then poses clear risks, reason for which partial validations need to be
performed at earlier stages. Some kind of test or exam may allow trained people to show the competence and
skills acquired, but exams run at the end of the training exercise offer less room for needed improvements.
Therefore, validation along the way is essential. This requires that feedback be collected while the training is
being imparted.
While in some Western countries this type of feedback is easily gathered in many different training
programs through direct questions and open discussions in class, Chinese culture does not permit this approach.
Fortunately, this aspect had been shared by other instructors who had administered courses at those plants. Their
heads up on the issue enabled the customization of the training method. Direct questions could easily be
considered rude and questions in class, in front of the rest of the classmates, were not acceptable, as the person
being asked could be considered to have lost face if unable to answer the question properly. This was a
fundamental difference that required another approach to training and, especially, to the validation of the
training. Instead of having pre-reading materials delivered ahead of class to be read in advance and to be openly
discussed in class, and instead of posing many questions to the students with the aim of prompting thoughts and
reflections, both actions a means for probing the knowledge they were acquiring, feedback had to be gathered
one-on-one during the breaks (the training courses were administered in full weeks). This had several important
implications. First, there was need for more and longer breaks, not because students tired more than those of
countries with other cultures, but because the breaks were used for a very different purpose: the one-on-one
contact with the course instructor that students generally sought, although with the less confident students it was
the instructor who had to take the initiative. More breaks and of longer duration implied that the training
activities demanded more days to cover the same amount of materials. Furthermore, it required a smaller class
size, to give each student adequate opportunity for the needed direct contact with the instructor during the
course breaks.
Even with that, communication had to be handled differently with the students, as compared to Western
countries. Issues were dealt with by students indirectly, as they were reluctant to ask direct questions for fear of
embarrassing the instructor in case he did not have a proper answer. This required a different approach by the
instructor to uncover the actual doubts of the students who would not formulate them directly in many
instances. In some cases the instructor himself had to verbalize the question he thought that the student had in
mind, iteratively if necessary, until the right question had surfaced and could be properly answered. Failure to
be aware of that would have led to inefficiencies in the training program, with many actual doubts and questions
remaining undetected.
The materials that were taught were the same as, or very similar to, other materials covered in similar
programs in Western countries. Nevertheless, the cultural differences required a significantly different approach
to the planning, performance and validation of the training activities. Awareness of such differences enabled
successful training activities.

2) Spares Management in Saudi Arabia. Another of the authors, with more than fifteen years’ experience in the
area of logistics and supply chains in several European projects and programs, has been working for Saudi
Arabia’s Military Industries Corporation (MIC), a state-owned enterprise located near Riyadh. MIC is in charge
of the armament factories in Saudi Arabia and its military commands manage the flow of material in order to
maintain the operational capability of units. The activities carried out for MIC, from 2013 to 2016, were focused
on defense cataloguing and logistics systems management. European system engineers gave technical assistance
to the military commands, which involved daily and close contact with national workers.

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Over recent years, Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of social and economic initiatives to face its
greatest challenge: achieving modernity without surrendering its heritage, faith or culture. As a result of this
modernization process, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has become an avant-garde country, with all the comforts
and services of Western countries. However, Saudi Arabia’s culture is very different from Western cultures.
The main difference is the understanding of religion. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home
to Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. For them, religion is the biggest cultural priority and it is
embedded in everyday life. Furthermore, Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. There is no freedom of
religion, and the Islamic law requires that all citizens be Muslims. In the experience at MIC working with
Muslim people, we realized that it was essential to respect its approach to religion. For us, we were surprised
when we tried to elaborate the risk management plan of the new ammunition stores. Our proposal was to
establish a risk strategy to analyze and treat risks through an action plan, but their response was “If Allah wills
it, the ammunition stores will work without problems. If it doesn’t work out, it simply wasn’t meant to be”. At
that time we were aware of what religion meant to them and that there was no strict division between religion
and other areas of life, so we decided to change our approach to risk management.
We put aside the complex risk management plan that we had in our western minds and we proposed a
simple model taking into account only the high risks identified for those ammunition stores. The schema was
very simple and self-explanatory, with little text and many drawings. As the country has a desert climate, with
extremely hot temperatures during the day, the higher risks to mitigate and to act in case of occurrence were
those related to fire and explosion (high probability and devastating consequences for personnel and material
goods). For example, they placed fire-fighting equipment accessible to staff who have to handle it and they
understood the importance of keeping it in constant perfect condition of use, and they also installed a perfectly
audible alarm to warn of any fire in the ammunition stores. In addition, safe storage was ensured following
United Nations recommendations (United Nations. Economic Commission for Europe. Inland Transport, 2014),
separating ammunition and explosives according to the risk to be expected in the event of an accident:
explosion (Group 1.1), projection effects (Group 1.2), fire and thermal radiation (Group 1.3) and absence of
significant risk (Group 1.4). This scheme worked perfectly, mainly because it was focused on human lives.
Another important difference between Saudi Arabia’s culture and Western culture is gender. Saudis are
not used to seeing women in business and may have difficulty relating to female engineers. Our experience with
this issue started from the beginning in the first negotiations with them, before signing the contract. The
manager of the area of logistics and supply chain systems was a woman. In the first teleconference with them
we realized that her opinion was not taken into account by them because they kept silent or because they posed
the same question for a man to answer. To avoid such an unpleasant situation on the part of both parties, in the
following teleconferences an older, high-ranking male started introducing her, establishing her professional and
technical credentials. Moreover, even though we had women with broad experience and knowledge in areas of
great importance for the project (38% of the company were women, with an average experience of 10 years), to
avoid a cultural conflict, we decided not to include them in the team that worked in Saudi Arabia for the MIC.
When needed, female engineers gave technical off-site support to male engineers, which allowed them to be
involved “indirectly” in the project without wasting their valuable knowledge.
The last of the cultural differences to be considered is the conception of time in Saudi Arabia.
Regarding the time to establish an agreement, and after our experience in Saudi Arabia with several business
opportunities in the past, we have noted that the average time to sign a contract is longer than it is in other
environments, because the value of time is much looser and because Arab businessmen measure their success at
the bargaining table. They expect their counterparts to grant major concessions on price and terms during the
course of the negotiation. Negotiating is like a competitive sport for them. Once a contract is signed, there are
no changes and deadlines and milestones are established.
The contract negotiation of the logistics support to MIC lasted 20 months, not only discussing technical
issues but also fighting over every Saudi Riyal. In fact, they haggle because in Saudi Arabia it is considered
rude to agree on a price without negotiation. And, in addition, trust is essential in the relationships, starting with
the building of this trust through the exchange of knowledge during contract negotiations. It is more than saving
money; it is a means of getting to know the other party, which is essential for the Saudis. Furthermore, Muslim
society believes in words, and verbal agreements are common, in contrast with the documentary formalism of
the West. For them, what is said and agreed upon is totally valid. Although they are changing gradually and
written agreements are being imposed, this fact is reflected in the imbalance of information flows (formerly
letters and faxes, now emails and MoMs). They prefer face-to-face negotiations and the least number of related
documents. The Saudis have a great sense of honor and respect for the word given, much more pronounced in
general than in Western countries.

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Over these years, working in Saudi Arabia we have learned how to deal with Muslim cultures: how to
make offer and negotiate with them in order to obtain the best agreement/contract, how to work with them on a
daily basis in a multicultural team of system engineers and how to tailor standards and models of systems
engineering to achieve the success of the project.

3) Requirements Engineering for the Peruvian Navy. This case describes the experience of the authors in the
elaboration and implementation of a Master Plan for the main Naval Base of the Peruvian Navy, located at
Callao, near Lima, in Peru. The objective of the Master Plan was to analyze the use and the state of the naval
base facilities to propose a viable alternative (in cost and time) for its modernization, meeting the future needs
of both the Peruvian Armed Forces and civil society. The project, carried out in 2015 and 2016, was intensive in
requirements engineering because it involved a large number of users and stakeholders as it was not only the
base for the navy’s fleet but also the main outlet for Peruvian trade. Furthermore, there were very important
non-functional requirements which had to be taken into account, such as environmental, security and safety
requirements.
As we had experience in other Latin American countries, mainly in Ecuador and Colombia, the
management of this business opportunity in Peru was a time-consuming process and it took us more than two
years from the time the opportunity was detected until the agreement was signed. We realized that people in this
country prefer to do business only with people they know, like and trust, which must be taken into account
when applying agreement processes (acquisition/supply). In our case, we had to start the process over when the
person in charge of this business portfolio, our key contact person, left the company. At that moment we
understood that business relationships in Peru exist between people and not between companies and that
establishing productive business cooperation requires a long-term perspective and commitment. Once personal
relationships are established, doors start to be open and it is possible to solve problems that would otherwise be
difficult to overcome.
At the beginning of the Master Plan project for Callao’s Naval Base, and during the phase of
stakeholder needs definition, we had meetings with the civil and military authorities involved. During these
meetings, we felt that communication with them was not going to be as simple as we thought. Everybody in the
room spoke Spanish, but Peruvian Spanish was notably different from the Spanish spoken in Spain, with their
specific local words and idiomatic expressions, and they tended to speak softly, without raising their voices to
make a point, very polite and without ever saying “no”. Moreover, communication was usually not overly
direct, without getting straight to the point, making it necessary to read between the lines to understand what
was being conveyed. They told us what they thought we wanted to hear rather than what they really thought,
only for the sake of being polite. In order to save time, we started the stakeholder meetings by mixing people
from different institutions, some of them from the civil sector (port authority) and others from the military
sector (mainly from the Peruvian Navy). We realized that the approach did not work properly because they did
not explain clearly their needs and their real situation just for not offending the others, since the interests of the
civil sector stakeholders damaged those of the military sector stakeholders and vice versa, and we changed our
strategy. Even though we made changes, it was extremely difficult to elicit the real stakeholder needs with those
boundary conditions, taking us more time than planned. But, what was even worse for the project was when
months later, in the moment we started to implement it, we discovered that some of these needs did not coincide
with the real ones, which led us to redefine the proposed solution after having new meetings with some of the
main stakeholders.
Another time that we became aware of our cultural differences was at the moment of the architecture
definition, when we learned that it was necessary to be very familiar with the culture before proposing
architecture alternatives. For example, we proposed to outsource some services of the naval base, such as the
maintenance service, the laundry service or the mess hall, but this proposal was always denied by the officers.
We did not understand why the proposal was denied, because the benefits were clearly proven: cost and
efficiency savings, staffing flexibility or focus on core activities, among others. After some months living there,
we were able to ascertain that Peruvian culture is group-oriented and asserting individual preferences is seen as
less important than having a sense of belonging to a group. Thus, mechanics, bakers, cooks or cleaners are as
important as members of the operational units of the Peruvian Navy, and therefore these jobs should be
maintained and not outsourced. In order to reconcile respect for social groups with the adoption of new, more
effective management models, it would be necessary to adapt best practices more to their specific environment
and culture.

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Exhibit 1 summarizes the three cases set out in this section to tailor life cycle models and systems
engineering Processes to sociocultural diversity.

Exhibit 1. Summary of the selected cases of sociocultural challenges.

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Recommendations for Engineering Managers

The experience gathered in a large number of projects run in countries with significant cultural singularities, a few
of which were presented in the previous section, enables the drawing of the following recommendations for
engineering managers:

1) Perform an explicit identification of cultural differences. At the very moment in which a relationship is
established with a potential customer in a country that will most likely pose cultural challenges (for example,
upon reception of a Request for Information or a Request for Proposal), it is necessary to ascertain the cultural
singularities of the customer-to-be. The identification of those differences will facilitate two-way
communication, as well as a more effective adaptation performance of the needed tasks. Communication has to
flow smoothly in both directions, which requires reciprocal understanding. As important as knowing what to
say and how to say it, or what to avoid or what to be especially careful about, is to be able to explain to the
other party why certain things are said or done. By default we tend not to explain why we do what we do, with
the underlying assumption that it will be understood. Nevertheless, whenever there are significant cultural
differences it becomes essential that the reason for performing even simple and ordinary tasks in a certain way,
such as posing direct questions to the participants in a training program, is properly explained to avoid
misunderstandings and conflicts. At the very least, things should be adequately understood, if not shared, and to
that end a very open two-way communication is a must. In addition to communicating better, the identification
of cultural differences should permit the identification of the tasks to be adopted, and the way of doing so. This
customization is both to show respect for the cultural singularities of the other party, and to increase the
likelihood of successful project completion.
2) Perform an appropriate selection of key personnel. The project manager and the main team members should
be selected based on the nature of the project, classified as per the Novelty-Technology-Complexity-Pace
(NTCP) taxonomy (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007), as well as on the cultural singularities of the customer, main
stakeholders and/or main suppliers. Projects that classify high in the Novelty and in the Complexity dimensions
are more likely to be affected by cultural issues. When a project ranks high in the Novelty dimension, more
communication will be needed between customer and contractor. Since communication problems are a common
denominator in the vast majority of issues related to cultural differences, an increased demand for
communication among the involved parties will only highlight and strengthen whatever differences there are
between them. Similarly, projects with a high level in the Complexity dimension will imply a larger number of
stakeholders, which increases the likelihood of a higher number and broader nature of cultural issues. Therefore,
it is essential for projects that rank high in the mentioned dimensions to select the project manager and the main
team members taking into account that they will need cultural awareness and good skills to effectively navigate
through the waters of cultural challenges, apart from having whatever other traits that are needed for the project
at stake. If the human side of engineering management is essential (Katz, 1986; Teal, 1996), when cultural
differences are present it becomes of paramount importance. The projects, whose NTCP classifications fall into
the gray area shown in Exhibit 2, are likely to have significant cultural differences.

Exhibit 2. NTCP classifications likely to show significant cultural differences.

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3) Pre-train selected project personnel. The project manager and the team members selected should receive, as
early as possible, appropriate training in the singularities of the customer’s culture. According our experience, it
is very useful to have in the company or organization a person or a team (depending on its size), usually from
the human resources department, fully dedicated to managing people who are going to work for a client with a
different culture. This person or team should have the help of an information system in which all the relevant
information is stored. Information includes technical, project, organizational, agreement and user information
from the different projects and clients of the countries in which the organization is working or has worked in the
past. The information stored in the system should always be updated, the base to create the manuals and
documents being used by the project personnel selected for the training before a new project is started. In the
training sessions, whose objective is to teach how to adapt the practices and procedures to the specifics of the
culture of the client, it is important to have the presence of other company personnel who have experienced
working day-to-day in different cultural environments, such as those seen in the above cases. This way we can
be sure that messages will be transmitted more closely and relationships will be established between the staff,
which will be very useful to ensure project success. In addition, it has to be taken into account that when a
project for a client with a different culture involves working in countries far from the origin, it may be necessary
to carry out staff rotations to allow work/life balance, since it is not always possible to transfer the family. The
shifts force the project to duplicate the efforts, since it must have a greater number of resources with the same
knowledge and skills so that the project is not affected. This staff must be sufficiently trained in the culture of
the country in which they are going to work. The pre-training activity is a time and cost consumer and must be
included in the final cost of the project, like travels or materials.
4) Comprehensive risk management. Special attention is to be paid to the identification, assessment and
mitigation of cultural-related risks. Popular product-oriented risk identification techniques such as Failure
Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), or Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) are not likely to bring the risks
of a cultural nature to the surface. These will be more easily identified with process-oriented techniques such as
Level of Protection Analysis (LOPA) and the Swiss Cheese Model (Altabbakh, Murray, Grantham, & Damle,
2013). Culture-related risks are usually considered “soft” risks in the execution of the risk management process
in a project. Nevertheless, some cross-cultural risk factors can have a critical impact on the success of a project
and must be taken into account by the engineering managers. For this reason, it is important to develop risk
assessment and risk mitigation strategies to address the main culture-related risks identified in each project:
autonomous people versus group-oriented people, egalitarian structure versus hierarchical structure, perspective
on time, communication and others factors. In addition, a wide range of players (managers, project leaders and
members of multinational teams) is involved in the challenge of achieving project objectives in a culturally
diverse global environment. Some of them work from their domestic premises in a “virtual” environment and
others travel or go on expatriate assignments to different locations. Risks are to be managed dynamically,
considering immediate versus time-delayed consequences, availability of early warning signals and a balance of
risk levels and risk mitigation costs (Liu et al., 2016).
5) Gather feedback on cultural aspects. It is a must that cultural issues are kept on the radar during the entire
project life. Even if all previous tasks have been performed, an eye is to be permanently kept on aspects of a
cultural nature, to act on them accordingly. The goodness of all actions taken has to be validated and new issues
that may arise need to be rapidly identified and acted upon. Continuous gathering and evaluation of feedback
contributes to ironing out potential problems of a cultural nature. Validation is an essential process of the
systems approach (INCOSE, 2015). It is therefore crucial that attention is closely paid to verify the actual
effectiveness of measures taken to customize the systems approach based on the nature of detected cultural
differences, so that new actions can be taken when and as needed. Moreover, it should not be assumed that all
cultural issues will have been identified at the project onset. All team members, starting with the project
manager, are to observe those differences in habits, values and mentality that recommend a tailored and
customized approach to the performance of systems engineering activities.
6) Adapt needed handbooks and manuals. Rather than literally translating needed handbooks and manuals
written with, and for, a different culture, it is very desirable to adapt them to the singularities of the different
countries in which projects are to be executed under the systems approach. It could be desirable for such
adaptation to be performed by native speakers of the language to be translated with an extensive knowledge of
the subject of the handbook or manual and with a deep knowledge of the culture of the country. After having
prepared a glossary of terms, an initial preparation could be carry out by a technical translation company
without specific knowledge of system engineering. With this first translation, a group of experts should review
the documents in several interactions. It is important to highlight that the copyright holders of the documents
considered must be aware that the translation-adaptation is going to take place, mainly because they may want

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to have some control over the process and its outcome as their image and prestige is at stake. All these tasks can
represent a substantial effort that pays off for very large projects or when multiple projects are to be conducted.
Another possibility is for the contractor to write guidelines for the customization of a public document meant to
be used in a project. The original document would remain untouched, but a separate document could be used as
inspiration for its application in a defined environment.
7) Elaborate a comprehensive Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP). In addition to the usual
technical tasks, it is essential to consider also the performance of the tasks identified above. These tasks will
demand time and appropriate resources in both quantity and skills. In particular, the Work Breakdown Structure
(WBS) should contain the pertinent tasks that are aimed at ascertaining the cultural differences that might arise
in the project, as well as at assessing those differences in order to take the appropriate actions that reduce the
likelihood of project troubles due to cultural issues. An explicit identification of these tasks in the WBS will not
only help in identifying the necessary resources to fulfill them, but also reduce significantly the likelihood of the
project derailing because of the lack of consideration.

Conclusion
Systems engineering is the best paradigm to tackle complex problems and to design the systems that solve identified
customer needs or perceived market opportunities. The last seven decades have witnessed the expansion of this
discipline, with landmark achievements in many different fields. Nevertheless, the majority of the methods and
techniques that constitute the state of the art have been developed with a mindset that is predominantly coming from
the Western world. Experience shows that when these methods and techniques are applied in other environments, a
number of cultural challenges arise. Differences are just that, differences, with no prejudice as to things being better
or worse, but they need to be factored in. To successfully apply systems engineering in environments with
significantly different cultures to those of the Western world, a proper adaptation of the methods and techniques is a
must. Without a proper understanding of, and respect for, those differences, there is a significant likelihood that the
systems engineering efforts will be unsuccessful. Awareness of the existing cultural differences in a project is also
part of the global or holistic view that a true systems engineer is to have. Such awareness will lead to the adoption of
the necessary actions, as highlighted in this paper, which will increase the probabilities of a successful outcome.
Although the essence of the systems approach remains the same, its customized implementation as a pre-requisite
for success in different cultural environments indicates that its methods and techniques are not a one-size-fits-all.
Regarding future work, a lot remains to be done to fully understand the many cultural differences that exist
around the world and to adapt and tailor the handbooks, procedures and similar documents that have been developed
with a western mentality. Without a proper customization to the different cultural singularities, many systems
engineering efforts will not be fully effective and efficient.

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Acknowledgements
This paper would have been impossible without the support of the Isdefe´s Systems Engineering Observatory.

About the Authors

Belinda Misiego received the Master in Marketing Research in 2012 and the Master in Telecommunications
Engineering in 2001 from the University of Valladolid. From November 2016 she is a Certified Systems
Engineering Professional (CSEP) by INCOSE. She received the Cross of Military Merit with white badge from the
Spanish MoD for her contribution to the innovation within this Ministry. Since 2014 she is working in the Business
Development Department at Isdefe, a Madrid-based systems engineering firm owned by the Spanish MoD, with
business opportunities in the Defense and Aerospace domains. In 2009 she joined Isdefe as innovation consultant to
work for "The Marañosa” Institute of Technology (ITM), a R&D center of the Spanish MoD. From 2001 to 2008
she was working as chief of the electronic countermeasures software group at Indra Sistemas for the design,
development and integration of electronic warfare systems for air, naval and ground platforms.

Alberto Sols received his Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He received a MSc
in Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech and a MSc in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from Madrid
Polytechnic University. Alberto has 25 years of industry experience, including six years as Technical-Commercial
Director at Electroop; he taught part-time 15 years till 2008 and since then is full time with academia. He is
Professor with University College of South-East Norway, where he teaches project management and systems
engineering. He has authored over thirty technical papers, authored a book in reliability engineering, was co-editor
of a series of monographs in systems engineering, co-authored the book ‘Gestión Integral the Proyectos’, and is
author of the books ‘Fiabilidad, Mantenibilidad, Efectividad: un enfoque sistémico’, ‘Systems Engineering: Theory
and Practice’, ‘Requirements Engineering and Management’ and ‘Integrated Logistics Supprt’. He is a member of
ASEM, INCOSE, IEEE and SOLE.

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