ABSTRACTThis paper suggests that many system development problems are due to the inadequacies of the mandated notations being used to support systems analysis and design An executable “behavior diagram” notation is proposed for describing system functionality which eliminates the deficiencies of the existing system analysis notations, yet can be displayed in those notations to strengthen the Systems Engineering process. The way in which this notation supports a separation of concerns for attacking large problems is also described. Finally, the role of automation is discussed to achieve increased system development productivity and reliabil