System of systems lead system integrators: Where Do they spend their time and what makes them more or less efficient?

As organizations strive to expand system capabilities through the development of system‐of‐systems (SoS) architectures, they want to know “how much effort” and “how long.” In order to answer these questions, it is important to first understand the types of activities performed in SoS architecture development and integration and how these vary across different SoS implementations. This paper provides preliminary results of research conducted to determine types of SoS Lead System Integrator (LSI) activities and how these differ from the more traditional system engineering activities described in EIA 632 (Processes for Engineering a System). It also looks at concepts in organizational theory, complex adaptive systems, and chaos theory and how these might be applied to SoS LSI activities to improve success rates and efficiency in the development of these “very large” complex systems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng