Raging Incrementalism—System Engineering for Continuous Change

For nearly every technology there is a doubling period over which the price/performance ratio of that technology improves by a factor of 2. Careful examination of longterm historical trends reveals that these doubling periods are themselves shortening every decade; implying that the rate of technical progress is hyperexponential. If we take the 1990s as the benchmark decade of technical progress, then the first 25 years of the 21st century will see the equivalent of 100 years of 1990s progress. Hyperexponential progress has profound implications for all facets of system procurement, design, development, deployment, management, improvement, operations, maintenance, and modernization. We offer an approach to system engineering— raging incrementalism—that embraces and leverages hyperexponential change to construct systems in far less time and with dramatically lower life cycle costs than traditional methods. We discuss the rationale for raging incrementalism, its programmatic and system engineering principles, and its influence on total system cost from concept to disposal.