AbstractFrom its inception in the defense and aerospace industries, SE has applied holistic, interdisciplinary tools and work‐process to improve the design and management of “large, complex engineering projects.” The traditional scope of engineering embraces the design, development, production, and operation of structural, hardware, and software systems, and SE, as originally conceived, falls within that scope.While this “traditional” view has expanded over the years to embrace wider, more holistic applications, much of the literature and training currently available is still directed almost entirely at addressing the large, complex, NASA, defense, and other industry systems wherein the “ideal” practice of SE provides the cradle‐to‐grave foundation for system development and deployment. Under such scenarios, systems engineers are generally viewed as an integral part of the system and project life‐cycle from conception to decommissioning. In smaller, less complex, and far less “ideal” applications, SE principles are equally if not more applicable to a growing number of systems and projects that need to be “rescued” from overwhelming challenges that threaten imminent failure.The medical profession provides a unique analogy for this latter concept and offers a useful paradigm for tailoring our “practice” of SE to address the unexpected dynamics of applying SE in the real world. In short, we can be much more effective as systems engineers as we change some of the paradigms under which we teach and “practice” SE.

The Idaho National Laboratory is funded through the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy and other customers who have direct contracts with the Laboratory. The people, equipment, facilities, and other infrastructure at the laboratory require continual investment to maintain and improve the laboratory's capabilities. With ever tightening federal and customer budgets, the ability to direct investments into the people, equipment, facilities, and other infrastructure that are most closely aligned with the laboratory's mission and customers' goals grows increasingly important. The ability to justify those investment decisions based on objective criteria that can withstand political, managerial, and technical criticism also becomes increasingly important. The Systems Engineering tools of decision analysis, risk management and roadmapping, when properly applied to such problems, can provide defensible decisions.