Relationship between Adaptability and Resilience
Haifeng Zhu, Ken Cureton, John S. Brtis, Eileen Patrice Arnold, Scott R. Jackson · INCOSE International Symposium · 2025
Abstract This paper reviews the literature and addresses an important topic and a frequently asked question on the differences, relationships, and causality of system adaptability and system resilience. It discusses areas that are potentially unique to each concept, and the significant common areas. We depict the relationship through a comparison chart and a Venn Diagram that addresses both the unique areas and areas of synergy. We present different types and representative case studies/examples for both adaptive systems and resilient systems. This is a comprehensive study from the Resilient System working group and System Adaptability working group in INCOSE for answering the frequent question on the difference and relationship between adaptability and resilience and will be useful to help the systems engineering community to understand each concept and apply techniques accordingly. We also identify the value of applicable resilience and adaptability techniques for stakeholders and show directions for further investigations and subsequent studies.