INCOSE WMA Newsletter

April 2011
As a final note, several of us supported the GMU SE
Congratulations to the new GMU
Students Resume and Interviewing Workshop in
SE Chapter Officers early April – one of Mike’s final planned events as he
Our ‘adopted’ SE Student Chapter at George graduates. It was a really great time, and all of us on
Mason University has had a changing of the the panel were really impressed at the high caliber of
guard with their chapter elections held in students. We hope it becomes an annual event!
early April to select a new slate of officers as L. Nasta
several members finish their college days
graduating into the full-time SE work world in
May. We congratulate former President Mike
Dupuy on his graduation, and look forward to
working with the new officers as they assume Upcoming Events
their responsibilities now and into the new
May
school year.
May 7th Tutorial - INCOSE Tutorial Model Based
Systems Engineering (MBSE) on May 07, 2011 @
They are: 10:00 am @ Brio Tuscan Grille, McLean, VA
President: Daniel Hettema
Vice President: Amy Crockett
Treasurer: Shavon Clanagan May 16th Dinner Meeting - Speaker: John Thomas
Webmaster: Johnathan Graham on May 16, 2011 @ 6:00 pm @ Marco Polo in
Secretary: Gabe Lewis Vienna, VA
Events Coordinator: Navjot Sagoo
June
June 1st Pentagon Tour – @ 12:00 pm
They are well served by their Faculty Advisor
and INCOSE-WMA Member Dr. Katherine
June 8th Summer Networking Event - Stay tuned for
Laskey; we look forward to continue working
location and time on Jun 08, 2011 @ TBD
with her and a great bunch of SE students!

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

1 Congratulations to… & Upcoming Events

2 Awards Update & Membership Note
3 Off to a Great Start

INCOSE-WMA Awards Update
by Vice President/President-elect, Laurie Nasta
Although the implementation of our
awards program has gotten off to a slow
start, I am happy to report that the first
award – which we authorized for 2010 –
will be given out at our May Chapter
Meeting to the award recipient. The award
we established for 2010 was for the “Best
Chapter Presentation”. Based on the results
of our recent survey, we are happy to note
that the award goes to our Chapter
Secretary Dr. Paul Montgomery who
presented at the 13 Apr 2010 meeting on
“Why Great Architectures Fail and
Adequate Architectures Succeed”. As the
awardee, Paul will receive a certificate of
recognition, and $100 gift card. Our
esteemed guest for the May meeting –
INCOSE President-elect John Thomas – will
be on hand to present the award. We
congratulate Paul on his selection.
As a reminder – this year we hope to
deliver four awards for 2011 activities,
including:
1. Best Monthly Presentation for 2011
2. Best Tutorial
3. INCOSE-WMA SE of the Year
4. INCOSE WMA Best Mentor
But we need your help, not only to identify
the best presentations and tutorials, but to
also provide input on the other categories.
So, if you are attending our presentations
regularly, and participating in tutorials,
when we ask you early next year who is
most deserving we look forward to YOUR
input in recognizing your colleagues.
Finally, we really, really, really want this
program to be a success because we value
our members and want to recognize them
for contributing great work for a great
2
chapter, but we need volunteers to help with the
awards program administration. Please contact
me if you can contribute some of your time! See
the chapter website to email me directly or to
the board as a whole.
Membership Note
By Kristine Hejna, Membership Chair
INCOSE WMA thanks you for being a
member. And I thank you for reading this
column—since it shows your interest in
the chapter. We want to learn what you
want from your chapter and what we can
do to help you realize benefit from your
membership. We want you to help the
chapter and INCOSE promote Systems
Engineering and professionalism in the
field. If you would like to participate
further in INCOSE WMA, join the
conversations at our LinkedIn group and
contact me (Kristine Hejna, membership
chair) or any other board member with
suggestions.
INCOSE WMA (via our past
president Steve Dam) has setup a
Pentagon Tour. Limited space is
available so sign up online. The tour
would be on June 1st (Wednesday)
at 12pm, and we are looking into
arranging a group lunch. Note this is
a free tour.
 3

Off to a Great Start!

By L. Nasta

Over the past year or so, the INCOSE organization has done some evaluation of what makes a great
chapter and how great chapters serve to help INCOSE achieve their goals. As a result of this, they
put out some very good and effective guidance for Chapters on “Best Practices”, and also updated
and modified the Circle Awards criteria by which all Chapters are judged. Key to getting a head
start and maximizing points for the awards was a Chapter training and planning effort to identify
and document the Chapter’s strategic and operating plans. The deadline for submission of our
planning documents was April 15 – and we are pleased to report that all of the required Plans –
Strategic, Operating (for 2011), Communications, and Membership – were delivered on schedule.
A lot of work went into these documents, and we think they will help our members understand
what our Chapter goals are, what we hope to be able to bring to and provide for the membership,
and where we need help.

As we all believe in transparent operations, we have posted these documents to our INCOSE WMA
website for all members to review. We hope you take some time to look at our current and future
year plans, and see how we are incorporating the collective ‘lessons learned’ and ‘best practices’ of
our sister chapters in order to make the WMA Chapter the best of the bunch. We welcome your
input, feedback, and encourage you to get involved and help us through volunteering some of your
time, talent, and expertise to helping us achieve the goal of being the best – it reflects on all of us!

The OPLAN highlights specific Committees which need volunteer support (Awards,
Constitution/Bylaws, Elections, Communications and Membership). We are already the BIGGEST
Chapter, won’t you help us be the BEST? Contact any board member if you can be a contributor!

For more information on INCOSE WMA, please visit www.incose-wma.org