Governance and Professional Practice
Domain 9 tests governance and professional practice: decision rights, accountability, ethics, regulation, and the systems engineer's responsibility to the public and the profession.
Core rules and concepts
- Governance sets decision rights, accountability, and oversight. It is distinct from management, which executes within those rights.
- Professional practice requires competence, honesty about uncertainty, conflict-of-interest disclosure, and respect for law and standards.
- Safety-critical work demands independent review, hazard analysis, and traceable evidence-not merely compliance certificates.
- Ethical judgment includes raising concerns when requirements, schedules, or incentives create unacceptable risk.
Worked example
A supplier is asked to ship a medical device with a known software anomaly that has a workaround. The engineer documents the hazard, quantifies likelihood and severity, and escalates through the governance path rather than accepting a verbal waiver. Reasoning: accountability cannot be delegated to a schedule. The decision record must show risk acceptance by the right authority, with rationale and residual risk.
Traps that cost marks
- Equating regulatory compliance with safety.
- Accepting undocumented waivers or verbal approvals.
- Hiding uncertainty to protect a milestone.
- Treating ethics as a personal matter rather than a governance responsibility.
- Assuming the engineer's technical role excludes escalation.
Key points
- Governance defines rights and accountability.
- Ethics is part of practice.
- Compliance does not prove safety.
- Document risk acceptance.
- Escalate unacceptable risk.