Working Groups

Over the years INCOSE UK has also initiated a number of Working Groups to address issues of relevance to particular sets of practitioners. Working Groups may be wound down once the participants feel that they have adequately addressed whatever issues they were looking at, or the group may stay together to build upon what they have done. The Working Groups are encouraged to work towards the production of reports or other deliverables which are then made available to other INCOSE UK members as part of a growing body of recommendations and best practice.

For a list of INCOSE UK Working Groups, see the left-hand side menu.

INCOSE UK encourages all of its members to take part in Local Groups and Working/Interest Groups as they provide a real opportunity to help advance the profession and bring INCOSE to a wider audience.

Each of the Groups is open to all INCOSE UK members by invitation, so if you want to participate in a Group simply contact its chairperson, which you will find in the Group’s committee contact details, stating your interest in the group.

Setting up a Group

If you would like to set up a Group, follow these guidelines:

• Decide whether you are considering the group to be a Working Group or an Interest Group.
• Write to the outlining the ideas underpinning the proposed Group. It will then be raised with the INCOSE UK Council for approval.
• Issue an Expressions-of-Interest email for the Group to the INCOSE UK membership. This email should announce the general idea behind the Group and ask for expressions of interest.
• The email can be sent out by using the help of the Once you have an idea of the number of people interested, schedule and call a kick-off meeting (again using the Secretariat). You will usually be expected to arrange the venue (using the contacts who have expressed interest).
• At the kick-off meeting, for Working Groups, try to establish what tangible outputs the group should endeavour to produce (Working Groups should not be mere talking shops). For Interest Groups, agree a broad programme of activity. Once these objectives are reasonably well-established, write yourselves some Terms of Reference. These do not have to be cast in stone, and can always be revised further downstream.
• Create an INCOSE UK website presence with the help of the Secretariat. The page should explain what the Group is doing, what it has produced (in the case of Interest Groups, what its events programme looks like), who the main point of contact is and what people should do if they wish to join the Group. Note that the website has Wiki capabilities, which should make distribution of papers and material easy.
• On the request of the President-Elect, produce summaries of Group activities so that the INCOSE UK Council can be kept informed of the group's activities.
• If the Group ever feels it has achieved its mission, do not be afraid to wind the Group up - but please leave it in a good final state!