Part IV: Organizing to Perform Systems Engineering

Art, Alice, Heidi, Richard, Hillary, James, Garry, Ken

Major Issues

• Need chapter lead for: “People”• Need additional Part authors• Coming to consensus on presentation of the

content between chapter leads• Consistent use of terminology throughout• Consistent use of enterprise, service, product• Collaboration with Part III

Overview

• Part 4 describes how to organize to effectively perform SE activities. Types of organizations are categorized into the following:– individuals – teams – projects – businesses– enterprises

Six Common Considerations• Each organization has to consider the following:– What is the organizational purpose?– How are the SE activities allocated among the various

organizational entities? – Who performs the SE activities? – What competencies are expected from the parts of

the organization that perform SE activities and how does the organization gain those competencies?

– What does an organization need to do to improve and how does it do it

– How do those who perform systems engineering activities interact with others in the organization?

Three Driving Factors

• The six areas of organizational considerations are largely driven by three factors:– The characteristics of the system which the SE activities

support; for example, the size, complexity, primary design factors, major components, critical specialties and areas of life cycle, required products, etc…

– The organizational context in which the SE activities occur, including organizational purpose, value measures, and culture.

– The phases of the life cycle in which the activities being performed; for example development, deployment, operations, or maintenance of a product or service.

Structure• Each chapter follows the six common considerations:

– Chapter 4.1: Strategy – weave purpose into strategy - how to approach the other four considerations in a holistic fashion (governance includes measures and controls, policies, pace, tailoring, contextual domain, cross culture, human nature, knowledge management, etc.) (Art)

– Chapter 4.2: Structure – where in the organization are SE activities performed (resource sharing) (Richard)

– Chapter 4.3: People – who performs SE activities (?)– Chapter 4.4: Competencies - what competencies should people

possess to perform SE activities well (what do SEs need to know about specialty engineering) (Heidi)

– Chapter 4.5: Organizational Learning – what does an organization need to do to improve and how does it do it (Alice)

– Chapter 4.6: Interactions – how do those who perform SE activities interact with others in the organization (interactions with specialty engineers, emergent properties of the interactions, communications, dynamics at each level) (Hillary)

• Each chapter explores its topic in the context of the three factors – system characteristics, organizational context, and life cycle phase.

Topics for Chapter 4.4 Competency(Material Available, Amount of Work as H/M/L)

1. Introduction (Some, M)2. Competency, Capability, and Performance (New, H, per reviewers)3. Application at Each Level (Some, H)4. Existing SE Competency Models (Some, H, per reviewers)5. Relationship of SE Competencies to Other Competencies (Some, M)6. Levels of Expertise (Most, L)7. Assessing Competency Needs (Most, L)8. Strategies to Close Gaps (Most, L)9. Maintenance of Competency Plans (Most, L)10. Ethics and Professional Conduct (Most, L)11. Standardization (Most, L)12. Expediting Development (Most, L)

Topics for Chapter 4.5 Org Learning

(Material Available, Amount of Work as H/M/L)1. Introduction (New, H)2. Models/Theory of (New, H)3. Innovation (New, H)4. Improvement and Change (Some (7?), M)5. Planned Change (Some (7?), M)6. Embedded Change (New, H)7. Embedded Knowledge (methods, process, tools) (New, H)8. Knowledge Management (New, H)

Some References• Intelligent Enterprises: A Collection of Knowledge Claims, Document No.: INCOSE-

TD-2007-001-01 -http://www.incose.org/practice/techactivities/wg/intelent/docs/IEWGKnowledgeClaimsCollectionReport2007-0315.pdf

• Value chains (M. Porter, Competitive Advantage, Free Press, 1985); • Results chains (J. Thorp, The Information Paradox, McGraw Hill, 1998), • Benefits chains (B. Boehm, A. Jain, "A Value-Based Theory of Systems

Engineering," Proceedings, INCOSE 2006).• R. Valerdi, The Constructive Systems Engineering Cost Model (COSYSMO), VDM

Verlag, 2008.• SEI People Capability Maturity Model (B. Curtis, W. Hefley, and S. Miller, Addison

Wesley, 2002)• Lawson 2010 Chapter 8 presents a treatment of quality and environment

management standards (as systems) and addresses Organizations and Enterprises as Systems and provides some useful paradigms that can be considered

• Peter Senge's discussion of a Learning Organization that will tie back to Systems Thinking in Chapter 2.

• James Martin's thesis