Our previous articles were intended to provide an understanding of the foundations of Systems Engineering (SE) and the System of Interest (SoI) that needs SE in order to be engineered. With that background, we now wish to embark on an SE journey that would take us through the entire lifecycle of a typical SoI. In our subsequent articles, we will take up this journey step-by-step. Along the way, we will sprinkle practical challenges and insights that we have gathered over our several years of working and interacting with organizations that do (or wish to do) SE!
However, there are a few things to be checked/done before beginning to do SE. In this article, we wish to use the start of a running race as a metaphor to indicate what needs to be done before you actually start your SE journey. Please note that if you have already done SE before, many of these may already be in place.
On Your Mark
The first decision you will have to make is whether you need SE or not, to address the problem at hand. Here, we are making some assumptions:
The problem is being faced by an engineering organization
‘You’ refers to the organization or the representative(s) of the organization
The decision maker(s) could be another individual or leadership team.
The problem could be presented by an external entity to the organization or a business opportunity that the organization wishes to grab. As discussed in one of our previous articles ([03] Are You Sure You Need Systems Engineering? Think!), you would have to first understand the problem, generate one or more potential solutions, and then check if the realization (i.e. bringing to reality) of that solution would require SE. If so, you are now 'On Your Mark' to develop your solution (now designated as your SoI). If not, you are in the wrong race or perhaps you do not need to join any race!
Note that if the decision to do SE has already been taken before the problem reaches your organization, then you are already 'On Your Mark'! We wish to remind you of SE360-Law#1: “If the solution to a problem is going to be an engineered system, you shall use Systems Engineering”.
The practical challenge now, is to identify the person(s) to understand the problem and to generate potential solutions. "Who will do this?" In some cases, the right persons may not be available within the organization. In some other cases, the right persons might be available but could be busy with other activities. Remember that this activity is usually done before the organization takes a decision to develop the SoI or secures the funding to do these activities. So another related challenge is, “who will pay for these activities?” The organization must either allocate internal funding for this purpose or define this activity as a project by itself.
While you are 'On Your Mark', it is also assumed that the organization that will be performing SE, is ready for operation - i.e., all processes and procedures required by an engineering organization are already in place. For example, an SE team may not yet be in place, but all administrative and HR-related processes must be in place including bootstrapping by recruiting/assigning systems engineers as needed. Similarly, it is also assumed that disciplinary expertise along with related processes and tools required for the development of the SoI are in place.
Get Set
Once the decision to pursue SE is taken, one must ensure that you 'Get Set' to do SE. The ‘ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 Systems and software engineering—System life cycle processes’ (and thereby the INCOSE SE Handbook) identifies 30 lifecycle processes that are needed to perform and support SE activities across the entire lifecycle of the SoI. Among them, 16 are at the organization/project level. These include processes such as Project Planning, Risk Management, Configuration Management, Quality Assurance, Infrastructure Management, Human Resource Management, and Knowledge Management. As mentioned in the ‘On Your Mark’ section, it is assumed that most of these processes are already in place in an organization. Now, each of those relevant processes must be executed from an SE point of view. Practically, some organizations tend to embark on an SE journey while some of the organization-level and project-level processes either do not exist or exist very informally. This can severely impact SE implementation and thereby the effectiveness of SE. Those processes must first be established before they can be executed.
One might wonder why some of these organization-level and project-level processes are included in an SE Handbook since they are topics that typically fall under Project Management (PM)! Yes – there is an overlap between PM and SE, and it is upon the organization to ensure clarity between these disciplines and the responsibilities of those performing PM and SE roles.
The challenge before embarking on the SE journey, is to
define and form the team that would be performing the SE activities;
define the roles that would be played by the individuals in that SE team;
define the responsibility and authority of the SE team;
define the relationship between this SE team and other teams/departments/divisions in the organization, particularly related to the development of the SoI;
identify the infrastructure/software tools needed by the SE team;
identify any training required for the SE team – either on SE or on the disciplines related to the SoI
Unless all these are in place, you are really not ready to 'Go'! As you can see, many of these challenges would diminish if SE has already been implemented on previous projects in an organization. If not, they will become critical when SE is formally done for the first time. In some cases, SE implementation may have to begin sooner before you are fully 'set' for practical reasons such as the need to ‘kick-off’ the project at the earliest. But then, there must be a plan to deal with the ‘Get Set’ items before they would begin hampering the SE activities.
Injecting more than the required SE effort where it is not required may be ok, but it will come with time and cost overheads, and possibly some ‘outsiders’ (to SE) complaining why some things are being done. While this is undesirable, avoiding SE where it is required could lead to costly overruns in time and cost along with shortfall in expected performance. While you are getting set, you will also need to decide how much of SE you will need! This is not easy to determine, especially for initial SE implementations.
Go!
Once you are 'On Your Mark' and are ready with the 'Get Set' items, you are essentially ready to 'Go'! And once you are on the 'Go', what you ought to be doing will be elaborated in the subsequent articles. Though they will be presented in some sequential order of publishing, it must be understood that SE implementation is not a linear process. A number of iterations, re-evaluations, and incremental improvements are all part of the journey!
- KS & DH
To know more about us, read our blog launch article
Click for Acronyms and Bibliography consolidated across all our articles
Comments