Early Stage Research and Development (ESR&D) is one of the most crucial phases in the design process. It is of interest to Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), university affiliated Research and Development (R&D) centers, government entities, and public and private commercial enterprises. This paper explores the topics of whether and when to apply systems engineering (SE) in ESR&D projects, how much SE to apply and how to make that determination, and barriers to implementation with advice on how to overcome them. The authors conclude that applying SE in the early stages of R&D projects is a necessary element of the overall risk management strategy, but that the SE effort must be appropriately tailored to balance investment with value while supporting scalability for future growth.

This document describes a proactive plan for assessing and controlling sources of risk for the ASCI V&V program at Sandia National Laboratories. It offers a graded approach for identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, responding to, and monitoring risks.

A Yellow Brick Road can be thought of as the fabled path to a "promised land" where achievement of hopes and dreams is highly probable. Yellow bricks highlight the appropriate road, and destination mileage and speed limit signs support progress assessment to the chosen objective. Similarly, a common systems engineering (SE) framework, properly implemented at the approproate level of rigor, facilitates monitoring and achievement of a quality product that supports the intended mission. Bricks for a lean SE Yellow Brick Road are described. The bricks include a) using a common framework that integrates SE, project management and quality management; b) right sizing project implementation of this framework using a graded approach; c) applying the framework as early as possible; d) tailoring and waiving as needed; e) using project archetypes; and f) providing a repository that contains reuseable processes, plans, templates, examples, training and associated subject matter experts. Integrating Systems Engineering, Project Management, Quality ManagementBackground. Sandia National Laboratories is a government owned (Department of Energy), contractor operated facility. The Defense Systems and Assessments (DS&A) Strategic Management Unit (SMU), one of Sandia's major business units, provides technological solutions for global security. DS&A SMU work is focused on engineering and integrating advanced science and technology into critical systems for customers and other stakeholders. DS&A SMU meets stakeholder expectations through the integration of engineering practices, environmental management, safety and health, safeguards and security, business operations and a quality approach to product realization.

Two practitioners who have experience integrating program/project management and systems engineering conducted two workshops titled ‘Integrating Systems Engineering, Project Management, and Quality Management’ as an INCOSE Enchantment Chapter tutorial and at the 2018 International Symposium (IS18), respectively. The workshops included presentations by the researchers about their organization's integration implementations followed by small group discussion exercises on topics/issues to consider when making integration decisions. Discussion topics were drawn from Rebentisch (Ed., 2017) and included motivations to integrate, organizational environments that support or inhibit integration, influencers and influence, integration metrics, and success and failure contributors. Each exercise concluded with out‐briefs of the small groups' observations, analyses, and recommendations to the collective. A synthesis of these observations, analyses, and recommendations provide the bases for this paper.

Early Systems Research and Development (ESR&D) is one of the most crucial phases in the product development process. It both blends and blurs the lines between science and engineering, and requires a risk‐based, disciplined, and graded approach to effectively manage scope, cost, and complexity of the final product. Many leaders, program managers, and scientists are unwilling to involve systems engineering because of the perception that systems engineering is heavily process oriented, adds unnecessary costs, and should be applied only to mature technologies. The value of systems engineering as applied to ESR&D is unclear to these key individuals. The unfortunate result is that system engineering is not applied to ESR&D. This results in R&D efforts that may have solved the wrong problem, selected the wrong architecture, require technical rework, have difficulty transitioning later maturity levels, and result in higher R&D costs and extended development timelines. This article discusses the difficulty of introducing systems engineering to the research and early development process and their inclination perspectives of researchers, engineers, and managers. The article shall offer potential means to manage the cultural transformation of early adoption of right‐sized systems engineering in ESR&D and reverse the attitudinal positions.