Applying Systems Engineering to Personal Development: Crafting a Better Swimmer

Photo by Brian Matangelo on Unsplash

Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach that integrates diverse engineering disciplines to enable the successful realization, operation, and disposal of complex systems throughout their lifecycle. This approach is rooted in a holistic view, considering the system as a whole, including its individual components, interfaces, and the environment with which it interacts. The system lifecycle spans from conceptualization, development, and production to operation, maintenance, and decommissioning.

Recently, I learned about Systems Engineering and decided to experiment with applying it to a practical and personal challenge: becoming a better swimmer. While there are numerous examples of using Systems Engineering practices in the development and creation of industrial systems — such as cars, coffee machines, and even the GPS system — my hypothesis is that the Systems Engineering approach can be applied to any creation process, even one as personal as improving swimming skills.

I don’t intend to produce a 300-page document, as seen in the example primer linked above. Instead, I want to focus on the most critical and, arguably, most challenging step for many engineers: Business and Mission Analysis. This is the foundational step in any Systems Engineering project.

According to the INCOSE Body of Knowledge wiki:

“Business or Mission Analysis establishes a definition of the overall strategic problem or opportunity and identifies potential solution classes to address the problem (or take advantage of an opportunity).”

So, let’s begin.

Opportunity

I want to become a better swimmer than I am now, so I can swim faster, more efficiently, enjoy it more, and improve my overall health.

Analyzing this opportunity is challenging because the goals — better swimming, enjoyment, and health — seem disconnected from each other.

In Systems Engineering terminology, we could reformulate this: our goal is to create a swimmer (the System of Interest) that provides opportunities for stakeholders (to be identified).

Main Stakeholders Identification

To begin, let’s identify the stakeholders relevant to me and their associated goals (opportunities).

In Systems Engineering (SE), stakeholders are individuals, groups, or organizations that have a vested interest in the system being developed, operated, or retired. They either influence or are influenced by the system’s lifecycle and outcomes. Stakeholders are crucial, as they define the needs, constraints, and success criteria that guide the system’s design and development.

To make this relatable, let’s imagine that “me” is not a single person but a team of professionals working together to create or develop a swimmer. Throughout my life, I’ve taken on various roles, and some of these resemble the professionals in this hypothetical team.

Meet the Team Inside Me:

1. Health Consultant. The Health Consultant is primarily concerned with my physical well-being, including preventing illness, maintaining fitness, and ensuring I have the physical and mental capacity to handle daily activities. This professional wants to create a swimmer because they believe regular exercise is essential for health, and swimming is an excellent full-body workout. Health is closely tied to fitness, so the swimmer must be active and exercise enough to maintain a healthy level of fitness.
2. Life Coach or Psychologist. The Life Coach (or Psychologist) focuses on my mental health, ensuring I have motivation, mental energy, clear goals, the ability to enjoy life, and healthy relationships.

• Framework: They apply Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (SDT) to evaluate motivation, enjoyment, and relationships. I chose SDT because I believe it’s the most efficient framework that explains motivation and factors that influence it. SDT is based on three core factors:

1. Competency: The ability to continuously improve skills.
2. Autonomy: The freedom to make choices and take responsibility for them.
3. Relatedness: Feeling a sense of belonging and knowing that one’s actions are meaningful to others.

The Psychologist supports creating a swimmer because swimming aligns with these factors:

• Swimming allows for skill improvement without limits;
• It provides full autonomy in setting goals and deciding what to do next (especially in my case, as I’m not a professional athlete);
• It fosters relatedness, as swimming pools are social spaces where I can feel a sense of belonging and gain support from other swimmers.

Additional Perspective: The Psychologist also sees swimming as a way to teach me the joy of process-oriented activities. By setting and achieving goals in swimming, I can learn to enjoy activities that are both meaningful and fulfilling. This perspective aligns with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research on “flow” (source), which emphasizes that enjoyment often stems from developing expertise in an activity.

The next logical step is to ask both professionals — my Health Consultant and Psychologist — for their specific requirements for the swimmer. What do they envision the swimmer should achieve to help them fulfill their respective goals?

Stakeholders’ Requirements

Based on our analysis, we can formulate the initial requirements for the system:

1. Health Consultant’s Requirements: The swimmer (me) must engage in regular swimming workouts to maintain health and fitness. This entails about 2–3 hours of medium to high-intensity exercise per week (source).

2. Psychologist’s Requirement 1: The swimmer must experience autonomy — making their own decisions and taking responsibility for them.

3. Psychologist’s Requirement 2: The swimmer should derive enjoyment from the activity by continuously improving and becoming proficient in swimming.

These requirements define the actively training swimmer system. This swimmer:

• Completes workouts at least three times per week, lasting around 45 minutes each, to stay healthy and fit.
• Simultaneously works on technique and strength, measures progress using relevant metrics, and strives for improvement.
• Ultimately enjoys the process of swimming, achieving a state where gliding through the water feels almost effortless.

Conceptual Framework

Essentially, the swimmer acts as an enabling system for higher-level systems such as “Healthy Me” and “Happy Me.”

The Health Consultant and Psychologist represent stakeholders responsible for creating these higher-level systems. They use the actively training swimmer as a means to achieve health, fitness, and mental well-being. Consequently, they are the primary stakeholders, each with specific requirements for the swimmer.

Let’s outline the concepts and relationships identified so far:

1. Swimmer (System of Interest). The swimmer is the system we aim to create based on stakeholder requirements.
2. Swim Coach (Internal stakeholder). The swim coach role leverages stakeholders’ requirements and my current swimming skills to assess the situation and prepare a plan for developing the swimmer. At this stage, this role is purely functional and not assigned to any real individual. Later, I might play this role myself, hire a professional coach, or even use AI tools like ChatGPT as a virtual coach.
3. Health Consultant (Stakeholder). The Health Consultant is one of the primary stakeholders concerned with my physical health. Their requirement is for me to remain healthy and fit by training regularly. Considering my age and physical constraints, they have chosen swimming as the primary sport for this purpose.
4. Psychologist (Stakeholder). The Psychologist is the second primary stakeholder, concerned with my mental health and enjoyment. Their requirements include ensuring I experience autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as these factors contribute to motivation and enjoyment. They also see sports, particularly swimming, as an excellent opportunity to develop autonomy.
5. Swimmer in its Operating Environment. This is the swimmer actively engaging in swimming sessions, operating in the water. The swimmer’s environment produces value for stakeholders, such as health, fitness, enjoyment, and personal growth. This represents the operational concept, where the focus is on health and enjoyment rather than competition or awards.

Schema with concepts and relationships between them

Short Description of ConOps and OpsCon

Operational Concept (OpsCon) and Concept of Operations (ConOps) are closely related but distinct concepts in Systems Engineering, used to articulate how a system functions within its operational context.

• OpsCon (Operational Concept) provides a high-level description of the system’s purpose, major functions, and operational environment from the perspective of all stakeholders. It emphasizes the system’s role in achieving broader objectives.

• ConOps (Concept of Operations) outlines the specific scenarios, workflows, and interactions involved in the system’s operation. It focuses on how the system will be used by end-users to achieve desired outcomes, detailing tasks, responsibilities, and performance expectations.

In the diagram above, I depicted both concepts:

1. ConOps (Concept of Operations) represents the Sport Coach, who creates the Swimmer (or multiple swimmers).

2. OpsCon (Operational Concept) represents the Swimmer (System of Interest, SoI) in their operational environment (the pool), generating value (health, fitness, enjoyment) for the stakeholders.

Lifecycle Approach Description

Systems Engineering identifies five major stages in any system’s lifecycle: concept, development, production, utilization, and retirement. Applying these stages to the swimmer creation process presents a unique challenge because, ideally, the swimmer generates value only during the utilization phase.

During the development and production phases, the swimmer is being “built” but isn’t yet delivering value. This contrasts with systems like a coffee machine, where development involves designing and prototyping, production involves creating the final machine, and utilization begins only when the coffee machine starts producing coffee.

Two Perspectives on the Swimmer Lifecycle

1. Waterfall Approach

Under the waterfall model, the swimmer isn’t considered “created” until they start bringing value in the utilization phase. During production, the focus is on making the swimmer functional and capable of generating value later. This approach assumes a sequential process where significant work is completed before the swimmer enters their operational environment.

While logical for physical systems like coffee machines, this perspective may feel rigid for personal development. It demands a long preparation period before realizing any tangible benefits.

2. Incremental (Agile) Approach

The incremental lifecycle approach aligns with agile methodologies, delivering the swimmer in iterative stages. Here, the swimmer “operates” after every workout, creating value continuously while being refined. Each workout represents a feedback loop:

• Design/Develop: Create the workout plan, specify gear requirements, and set objectives.
• Production: Equip the swimmer with the necessary gear, knowledge and skills and prepare them for the pool.
• Utilization: The swimmer completes the workout, generating value (e.g., health improvements, enjoyment).

This process repeats after every session, incorporating feedback from the previous workout. While it might resemble prototype testing during development, I see it as akin to building a highly customized system directly on the client’s premises — making it operational from day one and improving it iteratively.

I like the incremental approach, as it allows the swimmer to continuously evolve while simultaneously delivering value. This approach leverages ongoing feedback to adapt methods and refine the process, creating a dynamic cycle of improvement. It also aligns with the realities of personal development, where progress and outcomes are incremental and iterative by nature.

Defining Measures of Success

To evaluate the success of the System of Interest (the swimmer) operating in its environment, we must define measurable criteria — our Measures of Success. These metrics help track progress and ensure we’re moving in the desired direction. It’s not about stopping evolution once specific numbers are achieved but rather about continuously monitoring the swimmer’s development and ensuring alignment with our objectives.

As stated earlier, the three primary values the swimmer should deliver to stakeholders are: health, fitness, and enjoyment. To assess whether these values are being realized, we need a clear understanding of what they entail and how they can be measured.

Fitness Metrics

A comprehensive list of fitness metrics typically includes:

1. Cardiovascular Endurance: VO₂ Max, Resting Heart Rate (RHR), Recovery Heart Rate.
2. Muscular Strength and Endurance: Push-ups, Plank Hold.
3. Flexibility: Sit-and-Reach Test, Shoulder Flexibility.
4. Balance and Stability: Single-Leg Stand Test, Functional Movement Screen (FMS).

Since not all metrics are directly impacted by swimming, we can narrow the list to the most relevant:

• VO₂ Max: A healthy VO₂ max for me should exceed 38 mL/kg/min.
• Resting Heart Rate (RHR): Targeting a resting heart rate between 60–70 bpm, as a lower rate generally indicates better cardiovascular health.
• Recovery Heart Rate: Following a brief period of high-intensity exercise (e.g., a 400m sprint), the heart rate should drop by at least 20 bpm within one minute of rest.
• Push-Ups: Ability to complete more than 25 full push-ups in a single set.
• Plank Hold: Maintaining a plank position for at least 90 seconds without losing proper form.

Health Metrics

Health can be more challenging to quantify, but I see three potential ways to measure it:

1. Mean Time Between Sicknesses (MTBS): This metric resembles the concept of Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) in systems reliability. A longer average time between sicknesses would indicate better health. For example, I could measure the number of sick days I take annually.

2. Standard Health Indicators: Metrics commonly associated with good health include resting heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, cholesterol profiles, and sleep quality. These indicators provide indirect insights into overall health.

3. Deep Work Time per Week: This unconventional but practical metric reflects how many hours I can spend in deep, focused work weekly. While indirect, it correlates with my physical and mental well-being, as illness, fatigue, or lack of energy reduces my ability to perform concentrated tasks consistently through the week or month.

After considering these options:

• The first metric (MTBS) is too unreliable for shorter periods since I rarely take sick days.
• The second set of metrics is mostly short-term and overlaps significantly with fitness metrics, except perhaps for sleep quality.
• The third metric, while unconventional, reflects long-term health trends and indirectly captures the interplay between physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

I have observed that when I swim three times per week, I am able to sustain over 30 hours of deep work weekly, maintaining focus and efficiency. When I stop swimming for a week or two, I notice a drop in both concentration and productivity, despite potentially having more time available to work.

Thus, I select Deep Work Time > 40 hours per week as my primary health metric.

Enjoyment Metrics

When it comes to Enjoyment, one popular method for measurement is the PACES scale, which exists in various forms (source 1, source 2). Although this method appears scientifically rigorous, I prefer a different approach to measuring the enjoyment of activities that may not be inherently enjoyable — at least not at first.

This alternative approach is based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (source). SDT suggests that people feel motivated to pursue intrinsic goals when three psychological needs are met: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Motivation, in turn, sustains individuals through the early learning phase when activities can feel frustrating and fail to provide immediate enjoyment.

Since enjoyment may take 6–12 months (or even longer) of regular training to emerge, I propose focusing on these three SDT-based metrics initially. This is similar to tracking deep work hours instead of the direct results of the work — the results will come eventually, provided proper planning and attention to these metrics.

Metrics for Measuring Motivation and Enjoyment

Instead of directly measuring enjoyment, I chose tracking the following metrics:

1. Competence: How skilled am I in swimming? How does my competence improve over time?
2. Autonomy: How freely do I make decisions about my swimming routines? Am I independent in maintaining a 3-times-per-week workout schedule without external pressure? Am I able to choose and adapt my training plan according to my needs?
3. Relatedness: Do I feel supported in my swimming journey? Is there a group of people (e.g., fellow swimmers or a swimming community) with whom I can exchange experiences and encouragement?

I will measure these metrics subjectively using a 1–10 scale. Higher scores indicate greater motivation and, eventually, more enjoyment — not necessarily from swimming itself, but from the satisfaction of doing something meaningful and achieving goals.

Also in order to verify my Competence objectively I decided to add one more metric: average pace per 100m in 2km workouts. It would give me possibility objectively measure my improvement.

Full List of Success Metrics and Current Values

Here is the finalized list of Measures of Success, along with my current baseline values:

1. VO₂ Max: Target > 38 mL/kg/min. (Current: <37)
2. Resting Heart Rate (RHR): Target < 60 bpm. (Current: >62)
3. Recovery Heart Rate: Heart rate should drop by at least 25 bpm within one minute of rest after high-intensity exercise. (Current: <25)
4. Push-Ups: Target > 25 in a single set. (Current: >25 — OK!)
5. Plank Hold: Target > 90 seconds without breaking form. (Current: >90 — OK!)
6. Deep Work Time per Week: Target stable > 40 hours/week. (Current: <35)
7. Competence in Swimming (Subjective, 1–10 scale): Target 8–9, where I feel competent and confident. (Current: ~5)
8. Competence in Swimming (Objective — Pace for 2km): Target 1:40/100m (sustainable over 2km). (Current: >1:55/100m)
9. Autonomy in Swimming (Subjective, 1–10 scale): Target 9, reflecting independence in making choices. (Current: ~6)
10. Relatedness in Swimming (Subjective, 1–10 scale): Target 8–9, indicating strong connection and support from the swimming community. (Current: ~5)

Risks Identification

Identifying potential risks is essential when exploring solutions. Here are the key risks to consider:

1. Health Risks: Injuries or unwanted side effects that prevent the swimmer from delivering value to stakeholders. Example: My existing knee issues must be taken into account when designing workouts and selecting swimming techniques.
2. Psychological Risks: Fatigue, boredom, or a learned aversion to water that could lead to frustration and, ultimately, giving up.
3. Financial Risks: Excessive spending on swimming-related activities or equipment at the expense of more critical priorities. Financial strain could lead to discontinuing swimming altogether.

Alternative Solutions and Solution Space Description

To ensure a comprehensive evaluation, we must identify and compare alternative high-level solutions. This involves defining the solution space, examining the potential systems we can create, and determining the principles to guide our final choice.

Identifying Solution Space

The solution space can be explored by breaking down key factors that define swimming practices. For example:

1. Place of Swimming: Pool or open water.
2. Swimming Type: Sprinter, endurance, or mid-distance.
3. Swimming Stroke: Freestyle, breaststroke, or butterfly.

This taxonomy forms a structured way to consider alternative solutions. In the diagram below, I’ve highlighted the most likely choices based on the previously defined requirements:

Taxonomy of Swimmer types with highlighted choices

Additional taxonomies can further expand the solution space:

• Type of Swimming: Recreational, competitive, or therapeutic.
• Development Approach: Self-taught vs. attending swimming classes.
• Alternative Sports: Considering a different activity entirely, such as jogging instead of swimming.

Selected Alternative Solutions

Here are some diverse alternative solutions for comparison:

1. Competitive Swimming. This involves creating a swimmer who actively participates in swimming competitions. The focus would shift toward rigorous training, meeting competition standards, and achieving peak performance.
2. Breaststroke Swimming. This alternative focuses on mastering breaststroke instead of freestyle. While the technique might be less physically demanding on some body parts (e.g., shoulders), it could pose challenges to my existing knee issues.
3. Taking a Long Swimming Course (Full Acquisition Concept). This option involves hiring a coach or enrolling in a comprehensive swimming program. The swimmer would learn all swimming styles, with the responsibility for training shifted from me (self-driven) to an external entity (coach or school). This approach represents a change in the Concept of Operations (ConOps) rather than the System of Interest (SoI).
4. Jogging. This represents a completely different solution by creating a runner rather than a swimmer. While jogging offers health and fitness benefits, it does not address the water-related aspects of swimming enjoyment and competency.

While I don’t plan to analyze the alternative solutions in detail, it’s important to carefully select the criteria for making an informed decision:

1. Level of Cardiovascular Endurance. As per the Health Coach’s requirements, cardiovascular endurance is the most critical metric for determining a healthy and fit individual.
2. Knee Injury Risk. This is a significant consideration since I already have knee issues that must not be exacerbated.
3. Number of Muscles Involved. According to the Health Coach, involving more muscle groups during exercise is better for overall fitness.
4. Cost per Month. While not explicitly defined as a stakeholder requirement, this criterion reflects concerns from a potential Financial Consultant stakeholder. High costs should be avoided, particularly given the financial risk identified earlier.
5. Enjoyment. How easily can I enjoy the process itself? As a competitive person, I’m likely to enjoy competitive swimming more than non-competitive alternatives.

Using these criteria, I compiled a trade-off matrix to compare the alternative solutions and make a conscious choice:

Trade-Off Matrix

The preliminary choice is:

Recreational self-taught endurance freestyle swimmer training in the pool.

This choice aligns well with stakeholder requirements and risk considerations. It also fits my existing experience: I’ve tested this approach before and found it enjoyable at times, it poses minimal health risks compared to other alternatives.

The final decision may evolve during the Architecture Definition phase, but this combination currently appears to best meet the requirements.

Defining the Solution Lifecycle

To implement this solution, we need to define the lifecycle phases: acquisition, development, implementation, validation, operations, maintenance, and retirement.

1. Acquisition. The key acquisition is pool access. Stakeholder requirements for the pool may include:

• Health Consultant: Requires the pool to be cleaned at least daily for hygiene.

• Project Manager: Limits pool visits to three hours per week, so the pool must be conveniently located.

• Swimming Coach: Prefers pools with a minimum length of 25m.

• Financial Consultant: Ensures costs are within budget.

Additionally, hiring a professional swimming coach (at least occasionally) may be considered. Requirements for coaching services include regularity, location, pricing, and compatibility with measurement tools for tracking progress.

2. Detailed Designing (Development of Training Plans). The development phase involves:

• Designing detailed workout plans for pool sessions and dryland training to progressively build the Swimmer (System of Interest).

• Identifying and integrating all required enabling systems, such as measurement devices, software, swimming gear, and coaching resources.

3. Implementation (Doing Workouts). Implementation translates to executing the training plans. This may include:

• Practicing swimming techniques.
• Performing dryland exercises.
• Learning new techniques.
• Learning working with the swimming gear.

4. Validation. Validation is particularly challenging due to the incremental lifecycle approach. The system’s first iteration will not meet final target metrics, so interim validation metrics must be defined for each stage.

For example, the initial Validation Metric may be “Achieving an average pace of 2:00/100m for 2km”, and later on this metric will gradually decrease as the swimmer improves, reflecting progress toward the ultimate target of 1:40/100m.

5. Operations. In the operational phase, the swimmer (me) executes regular swimming sessions in the pool. This phase generates value for stakeholders in the form of health, fitness, and enjoyment.

6. Maintenance and Support. Ongoing maintenance is critical for addressing unexpected challenges:

• Corrective Maintenance: Handling issues like injuries, shoulder pain, or broken gear.
• Preventive Maintenance: Taking proactive steps, such as stretching and strengthening exercises, to avoid injuries.
• Predictive Maintenance: Anticipating problems like pool closures and adjusting plans accordingly.
• Upgrades: Continuously refining training plans, acquiring better equipment, or incorporating advanced techniques.

7. Retirement. Retirement criteria should define when the Swimmer will transition out of active use. For example: Retirement may occur due to age or physical limitations, a gradual retirement plan should ensure the transition is smooth, such as shifting from active swimming to alternative low-impact activities like water aerobics.

Summary

In this exercise, I applied Systems Engineering principles and methods to a practical and, at first glance, non-engineering problem: how to improve myself as a swimmer. Here’s a summary of what has been accomplished:

1. System of Interest (SoI). Identified the actively training swimmer as the SoI.
2. Higher-Level Systems. Defined two higher-level systems — “Healthy Me” and “Happy Me” — that depend on the SoI as an enabling system to deliver value.
3. Stakeholders. Identified the main stakeholders of the SoI: the Health Coach and the Psychologist. These are not actual people but roles that can be fulfilled, in this case, mostly by myself.
4. Stakeholder Requirements: Determined key requirements for the SoI where the swimmer should perform workouts regularly, the swimmer should enjoy autonomy in decision-making, the swimmer should find enjoyment in swimming.
5. Operational Concept (OpsCon). Defined the operational concept as the swimmer (SoI) operating in its environment (the pool) to create value — health, fitness, and enjoyment — for stakeholders.
6. Concept of Operations (ConOps). Identified the Sport/Swimming Coach role, responsible for creating the swimmer (SoI).
7. Lifecycle Approach. Selected an incremental lifecycle approach, where each workout combines elements of operations and development, following a highly agile methodology.
8. Metrics of Success. Defined 10 metrics of success, with both target and current values to track progress.
9. Alternative Solutions and Choice Criteria. Identified and evaluated alternative solutions based on defined criteria.Selected the preliminary solution: Recreational self-taught endurance freestyle swimmer training in the pool (noting that this choice can evolve during later lifecycle stages).
10. Lifecycle Stages. Described the primary lifecycle stages: acquisition, development, implementation, operations, and retirement.

This is just the first step in the long process of creating the System of Interest (the swimmer) using Systems Engineering principles, but it is also the most critical step. By completing this analysis, I have gained valuable insights into swimming, myself, and Systems Engineering. I am confident that progressing through the remaining stages will bring even greater clarity and value to the swimmer creation process.

Next Steps

While working on conceptualizing and developing the schema, I found the process somewhat ad hoc and insufficiently formalized. This realization prompted me to explore related topics such as conceptualization, schema development, and formalizing processes. I’d like to divert briefly into these areas to deepen my understanding before returning to complete the other stages of the swimmer’s lifecycle.