Form 2 – Instructions

for Completing Form 1

(Application for INCOSE CSEP)
General Instructions
1. An electronic submission via the INCOSE website is preferred. You must be an individual INCOSE member to apply, and you
must log in to the INCOSE website to upload your application. If you would like help submitting your application materials,
please email [email protected] for advice.
2. The individual application form was created using Adobe Live Cycle Designer and works well with the free versions of Adobe
Reader. It will not work well with Adobe Acrobat or the Apple Preview viewer of PDFs. Using Adobe Reader, you will be able to
edit, save, and print the application form.
3. The applicant is responsible for providing the information requested on the application, and for providing Form 4A
“Instructions to References” and Form 4B “Reference’s Comments and Recommendations” to his or her qualified references for
their use in submitting their reference information. A qualified reference is a supervisor or associate fellow worker who is equal
or at a higher level in abilities and qualifications “systems engineering wise,” and, because of that can attest to the applicant’s
systems engineering knowledge and past experience in successfully performing systems engineering tasks. References
endorsing additional general engineering experience due to the applicant’s educational situation need to be qualified to
attest to the applicant’s general engineering knowledge and past experience in successfully performing general engineering
tasks. At least one reference should be a current or former supervisor. All references must report only on experience about
which they have first-hand knowledge, performed during a time when they knew the applicant. Reference providers should
not be related to the applicant by blood. The applicant’s experience reported and confirmed by the references must cover the
entire period of systems engineering experience (and additional general engineering experience, if applicable) needed by the
applicant to qualify for certification. Each individual reference does not have to confirm the entire period of the applicant’s
experience, but the collective set of references must support the entire period of the applicant’s required experience, including
both depth and breadth of experience requirements. The applicant is also responsible for following up with his/her references
to ensure that they have submitted their recommendations in a timely manner to the INCOSE Certification Office. Slow
references are the primary cause of delay in application processing.

Applicants must submit at least 3 references, unless they are part of an agreement that allows fewer. Information about
Certification Agreements is posted at: https://www.incose.org/systems-engineering-certification/certification-
agreements

4. The non-refundable fees in United States dollars that must accompany certification applications are listed on the INCOSE
Certification web site at: http://www.incose.org/certification/CertProcess/CertCost
The application will be processed after the fee is received. Payment is preferred through the INCOSE website. Help with
payment may be obtained by emailing [email protected]
You have one year from the date of your application and payment to complete the entire certification process.
The applicant is responsible for any delays in application or reference submittals, delays due to incomplete or insufficient
information, and successfully passing the examination. Failure to do so will result in your application for certification being
denied and your fees will not be refunded.
5. All supporting documentation and information must be received before an application is considered complete. If the
application is incomplete or one of your items is missing, you will be notified of the corrective actions that you must take. If
you are requested to submit additional information, you will have three months from the time of notification to provide this
additional information. Failure to do so will result in your application for certification being denied and your fees will not be
refunded.

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions

Section 1: General Information
Name: Given (First) Name(s), Family Name (Surname), and Middle Initial
Address: Preferred permanent complete mailing address, so that we can distinguish between candidates and to reach you if your
email address changes.
Current e-mail address and phone numbers
Present organization

Section 2: INCOSE Membership and Certification Interest

Please indicate if you are applying directly to CSEP or if you are transitioning from ASEP. The application will be filled out the same.
Those who are an ASEP, already, do not have to retake the knowledge exam. If you are an ASEP, please provide your certification
number.
All applicants must be INCOSE individual members and should provide their member number. Corporate Advisory Board
membership does not count as a substitute for individual membership.

Section 3: Fee Payment

Some companies and universities have agreements with INCOSE related to the application process. Some companies and
universities are part of INCOSE’s Corporate Advisory Board (CAB). If either of these is true of your employer, select “Yes.” If you are
not sure, select “No” or leave this section blank.
If you are submitting as part of a group, you may list a group name or date in the optional field.
Indicate the applicable fee amount in dollars (e.g., $300) and the approximate date when your payment was or will be submitted.
You may type the date or use the calendar selector. Indicate also how the payment has been sent. This information helps our office
match your payment to your application. Your application will not be processed until the non-refundable fee is received.

Section 4: Education
Candidates for INCOSE Certification at the CSEP and ESEP level are expected to have a qualifying degree. Those who do not have a
qualifying degree must submit additional work experience. This section is where degrees are listed.
You may assign a number to your degrees, in case that is helpful in your communication of documentation. You may list your
degrees in any order. Incomplete work toward a degree may also be listed but will not be credited.
For each degree, list the awarding institution as the College or University. List the start year and graduation year, as these help
indicate whether the study was done in parallel with work and how many years the program took to complete. For “Major Field,”
list the engineering field (E.g., “Mechanical Engineering”) or other major course of study. For “Original Degree name,” list what is
found on your diploma and then translate, if necessary, into what you believe is the equivalent name in the “Equivalent degree”
dropdown. E.g., you may have a “Diploma of Engineering” that is equivalent to a “BE,” which stands for “Bachelor of Engineering.” The
equivalent degrees are: Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Bachelor of Science (BS), Master of Arts (MA), Master of
Business Administration (MBA), Master of Engineering (ME), Master of Science (MS), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
You must submit a copy of your college transcript(s) or diploma(s) to receive credit for having a degree(s). A scanned copy or
photograph of your transcript(s) or diploma(s) is acceptable. Please do not submit your actual diploma; we will not return it to you.
If you have multiple degrees, you only need to submit proof of one qualifying degree.
For applicants possessing a qualifying degree, the minimum required amount of systems engineering experience to be considered
for CSEP certification is five (5) years. A list of qualifying degrees is available on the INCOSE website and includes most engineering
degrees plus some math and science degrees.
Applicants who lack a qualifying degree must submit an additional five (5) years of engineering experience with a non-qualifying
Bachelor’s degree, or an additional ten (10) years of engineering experience in lieu of no Bachelor’s degree. The additional years of
engineering experience required to compensate for lack of a qualifying degree may be in any engineering field, including systems
engineering.
In the response to the question about certification and degree status, please check your qualifying degree status with the
corresponding minimum number of years of systems engineering experience that is required. Note: INCOSE is the final authority
on degree applicability.

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions

Section 5: Experience
Please start with your current position for P1 and continue in reverse chronological order. The form will expand to submit
additional SE experience areas within each position using the “+” symbol. If you need more than 7 positions, please submit an
additional application form to cover the additional positions.
Provide the organization name and dates of experience (from/to month & year). The form will round to the first date of each month
and will calculate the elapsed time in position. This is important, as you must claim fewer or equal months of work experience than
the calendar months of experience. You will see a pop-up until you have this corrected, and these dates are key to that calculation.
Include the name of your immediate supervisor/peer and how he/she may be contacted, though such contact is not standard. List
your title/position and the reference(s) for that work experience. This list of references will help your application review team know
whether they have received a reference to validate the experience. Only validated experience can count toward meeting the depth
and breadth requirement. If you have no references for a position, type “None” in that field.
Begin each position by summarizing your role and system of interest. This is an optional section that may be useful for you to give
context to the functional descriptions that follow. In this section, you may explain if your role changed. You are not required to
name the specific system on which you worked.
Using the SE experience area drop-down, choose a systems engineering type of work you did. Next to that, type the number of
months during which you did this work. Because you may only count each calendar month once, you will need to consider how
you are allocating time to each SE experience area. If you worked for 12 months and did two different types of systems engineering,
you will allocate X months to one type and (12 – X) months to the other type. If your time was equally split between the two, you
will give 6 months to each type.
In the expandable text box below the drop-down, include the full depth of detail about the SE tasks/functions you performed and
the products you produced. Describe in detail your role in leading/performing systems engineering tasks, the products produced,
and the duration of your efforts in producing those products. The Certification Application Review Team makes its assessments
based on the information provided in the application and is looking for your direct contributions to a work effort. For example:
Identify and describe the products or services for which SE was applied.
Describe the sub-level activities performed in SE experience areas, such as what parts of requirements engineering were
done – requirements elicitation, definition, decomposition, allocation, control, management, etc. It is too vague to just
state “I worked on requirements for the system.”
Describe your qualifications in more detail than just saying that you were involved with an effort, led an effort, or contributed to an
effort. Simply stating a job title or position is not a description of experience. Non-technical roles/tasks in program management,
resource management and business development are not regarded as SE functions and do not count as appropriate experience.
Also, describe additional years of engineering experience required due to your educational situation. Applications with insufficient
detail may result in denial.
A Certified Systems Engineering Professional must have a demonstrated breadth and depth of systems engineering experience.
In order to ensure a sound systems engineering technical foundation, the systems engineering experience documented in the
application needs to include one-year or greater increments in at least three of the following areas of systems engineering . These
areas are further defined in Attachment A:
Requirements Engineering
System and Decision Analysis
Architecture/ Design Development
Systems Integration
Verification and Validation
System Operation and Maintenance
Technical Planning
Technical Monitoring and Control
Acquisition and Supply
Information and Configuration Management
Risk and Opportunity Management
Lifecycle Process Definition and Management

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions

 Specialty Engineering
Organizational Project Enabling Activities
Other
A summary table has been provided for the applicant to identify that he or she has the required depth and breadth of systems
engineering experience. This summary table is broken down by the 14 SE experience areas listed in Attachment A to this form.
Check that the number of full-time equivalent calendar months (rounded to the nearest whole month and no credit for overtime
work/penalty for vacation time) worked in each of the system engineering experience areas confirms the depth and breadth
requirement by looking for a number greater than or equal to 12 in the right-hand column of the summary table. You must have at
least three rows greater than or equal to 12, and confirmed by references, to meet the depth and breadth requirement.
The time for each period of performance in the summary table must be less than the respective period of performance calendar
time claimed on your application. As an example, assume you worked in 4 different SE experience areas in a 7-year period and
the total of all your SE experience amounted to 5 years. The summary table breakout should reflect your equivalent full-time
experience, such as: Requirements Engineering for 18 months; Systems Integration for 15 months; Information and Configuration
Management for 15 months; and Technical Planning for 12 months; thus equaling 60 months of SE experience for the 7-year period.
As another check, the total amount of SE experience in the summary table must be less than the calendar time of your claimed
periods of performance on the application. A pop-up will display if any positions violate this rule.
Please identify employment periods at different organizations, or significant changes of responsibilities within the same
organization as separate positions. Do not differentiate between different projects or various placements within the same
organization unless there was a significant change in responsibility. Also, time in school as a student does not count as experience.
It is recommended that you fit all your work experience into seven positions. If that is not possible, you may submit a second
application form addressing additional positions.
All experience is useful for reviewers to understand your work experience, but only that confirmed by references can count toward
meeting the minimum experience requirements. Your references must cover the same time periods and describe the same types of
work in their statements as you have described in your application. They must not use identical wording to your application and to
each other.

Section 6: Affidavit
Read, check, sign, and date your decision on accepting the affidavit. Your typed name is accepted as a signature on an electronically
submitted application.
You must sign the affidavit to have your application processed.

Section 7: Optional Information

Your birth year and gender are useful for our internal analysis but will not affect your application processing. You may choose
whether you submit this information.
If recognized as an INCOSE Systems Engineering Professional, your name along with your organization/division, city, state, and
country will be posted on the INCOSE public web site and may be otherwise communicated by INCOSE.

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions

Attachment A - Experience Applicable for Certification
Applicants for certification as a Certified Systems Engineering Professional or Expert Systems Engineering Professional are required
to submit evidence of systems engineering experience in addition to having a qualifying degree.
Experience to satisfy the minimum requirements for initial certification includes performing systems engineering technical
activities, but does not include time spent in receiving a technical education.
Systems engineering technical activities include but are not limited to those identified in the table below. For further information
and for detail on typical tasks associated with each activity, please refer to the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook (V4.0):

Systems Engineering
Principle SE Activities associated with the SE experience area
Experience Area:
Preparing for or managing a Business or Mission analysis; Defining a Problem or opportunity
space; Characterizing a solution space; Evaluating alternative solution classes; Preparing
for Stakeholder Needs & Requirements Definition; Defining stakeholder needs; Developing
Requirements Engineering Operational Concept and other Life Cycle concepts; Transforming needs into stakeholder
requirements; Analyzing Stakeholder Requirements; Managing Stakeholder needs and
requirements definition; Preparing for System Requirements Definition; Defining System
Requirements; Analyzing System Requirements; Managing System Requirements.

Preparing, performing and managing a system analysis;

System and Decision Decision Management, including Preparing for System Engineering Decisions; Analyzing
Analysis decision information; Making and managing SE decisions.

Preparing for architecture definition; Developing architecture viewpoints; Developing

models and views of candidate architectures; Relating architecture to design; Assessing
Architecture/ Design candidate architectures; Managing the selected architecture; Preparing for design definition;
Development Assessing alternatives for obtaining system elements; Establishing design characteristics
and design enablers; Managing a system design;
Preparing, performing and managing system element implementation; Identifying, agreeing
Systems Integration and managing system-level interfaces; Preparing and performing Integration; Managing
integration results.
Preparing and performing Verification; Managing verification results; Preparing and
performing Validation; Managing Validation results;
Verification and Validation Preparing for, and performing System Transition; Managing results of System Transition;
Obtaining Qualification, Certification and Acceptance.
Preparing for Operation; Managing results of Operation; Performing and supporting System/
System Operation and Product Operation; Preparing for and performing Maintenance; Performing Logistics
Maintenance Support; Managing results of maintenance and logistics; Preparing for, performing and
finalizing system disposal.
Defining an SE project; Planning an SE project and its technical management; Activating
an SE project; Identifying and recording tailoring influences and mandated structures;
Technical Planning Obtaining input from parties affected by the tailoring strategy; Making Tailoring decisions
and selecting life cycle processes.

Planning for SE project assessment and control; Assessing SE projects; Controlling projects
Technical Monitoring and from an SE perspective; Preparing for and performing System Measurement; Preparing for
Control system Quality Assurance; Performing system product or service evaluations;

Acquisition, including: Preparing for system/element acquisition; Advertising the acquisition

and selecting the supplier; Establishing, maintaining and monitoring an acquisition
Acquisition and Supply agreement; Accepting a product or service from a supplier; Supply, including: Preparing
for supply; Responding to a tender; Establishing, maintaining and executing a supply
agreement; Delivering and supporting a product or service.

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions

 Planning Configuration Management; Performing Configuration Identification; Performing
Information and Configuration Change Management; Performing Configuration Status Accounting;
Configuration Performing Configuration Evaluation; Performing Release Control; Information
Management Management, including Preparing for and performing information management.

Risk and Opportunity Planning technical risk and opportunity management; Managing the technical risk profile;
Management Analyzing, Treating and Monitoring technical risks and opportunities

Lifecycle Process Establishing Lifecycle Processes including defining and implementing Lifecycle Models;
Definition and Assessing Lifecycle Processes and Models; Improving Lifecycle Processes and Models.
Management
Performing professional-level systems engineering activities associated with one or more
Specialty Engineering area(s). Typical Specialty Engineering areas include but are not
limited to those identified in the INCOSE SE Handbook V4.0, namely: Affordability/Cost-
Effectiveness/Life Cycle Cost analysis; Electromagnetic Compatibility Analysis; Environmental
Specialty Engineering Engineering/Impact Analysis; Interoperability Analysis; Logistics Engineering; Manufacturing
and Produceability Analysis; Mass Properties Engineering; Reliability, Availability and
Maintainability analysis; Resilience Engineering; System Safety Engineering; System Security
Engineering; Training Needs Analysis; Usability Analysis/Human Systems Integration; Value
Engineering.
Infrastructure Management, including establishing and maintaining the Infrastructure;
HR Management, including identifying and developing SE Skills, acquiring and providing
SE skills for projects; Quality Management including planning and assessing Quality
Organizational Project Management, Performing Quality Management corrective and preventative actions;
Enabling Activities Knowledge Management, including Planning Knowledge Management, Sharing Knowledge
and skills throughout the organization, Managing Knowledge, skills and knowledge assets;
Project Portfolio Management at Organizational level, including defining and authorizing SE
projects, evaluating a portfolio of SE projects and terminating SE projects.
Other functions and activities performed that you can justify as Systems Engineering
Other activities.
Certification at CSEP level will indicate that the individual has a balance between the depth and breadth of SE experience in
performing some, but not all, of the SE activities identified above.
Applicants lacking a qualifying degree, but with a non-qualifying Bachelor’s degree, are required to submit an additional five
(5) years of engineering experience; whilst those without any Bachelor’s degree must submit an additional ten (10) years of
engineering experience in lieu of a qualifying degree.
Note that the additional years of engineering experience required to compensate for lack of a qualifying degree may be in any
engineering field, not just systems engineering.

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions

Attachment B - Colleagues/Peers Used for References
A “Colleague/Peer” used as a reference is a supervisor, associate, or fellow worker who is equal or at a higher level in abilities and
qualifications “systems engineering wise,” and, because of that can attest to your “systems engineering knowledge” and past
experience in successfully performing “systems engineering tasks.” Qualifying work may have been performed as part of a paid or
volunteer position but cannot include tasks for which academic credit was awarded.
Part of the process in certifying an applicant is to obtain data from qualified references that the applicant performed the tasks as
described in the application. A qualified reference is an associate or fellow worker who is equal or at a higher level in abilities and
qualifications “systems engineering wise,” and, because of that can attest to the applicant’s systems engineering knowledge and
past experience in successfully performing systems engineering tasks.
In addition to being qualified to serve as a reference based on systems engineering knowledge, a reference must also have
specific knowledge of the applicant’s SE work. The reference should have known the applicant during the time when the work
was performed and been aware of the work during that time. The reference should have no family or blood relationship to the
applicant.
All of the following categories of people should qualify as credible references:
Supervisors for whom you work and/or who provide your systems engineering performance rating
Program Managers/Task Leaders for whom you work and/or who provide input for your systems engineering performance
rating
INCOSE CSEPs and ESEPs who are acquainted with your work (experience), knowledge, leadership, and contributions to
systems engineering
INCOSE Fellows or other leaders who are acquainted with your work (experience), knowledge, leadership, and
contributions to systems engineering
An applicant should provide references from a mixture of these categories. Thus, an applicant should limit references to two from
any one category. References provide information to support an applicant and their reasons for the recommendation and will be
requested to submit information on their own work experience, knowledge, leadership, and contributions to systems engineering.

Revised 25 October 2019 Form 2 – CSEP Application Instructions