“Suits you sir! ‐‐ choosing the right style of SE before tailoring to fit”

Abstract

Despite significant evidence that Systems Engineering (SE) adds value, take‐up is patchy. There is a growing volume of evidence that the ‘understand‐plan‐do’ paradigm behind conventional Systems Engineering only works in some circumstances. We have seen situations where SE has either over‐complicated the solution or was unable to deliver quickly enough. Applying SE in these situations leads to both a specific failure and damages the credibility of SE more broadly. This paper: Proposes a new, two phase, tailoring process. Select an approach suitable for the situation then (if appropriate) decide what SE to do. Includes a Functional Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FFMEA), which identifies functional failures modes, effects and mitigation activities applicable to the first stage of the tailoring process. Illustrates the FFMEA with 7 case studies. The proposed mitigations provide a high level blueprint for an enterprise that implements conventional SE, when, and only when, appropriate.

12 principles for SE leaders

“…The first step in Kotter's 8 step change process (Kotter, 1995) is creating a sense of urgency to drive a change in the organization. As discussed in (Kemp, Beasley, & Williams, 2015) the key first stage is to tailor the Systems Engineering to the organization's needs. Table 1 includes a range of potential organisational needs that the authors have used SE to help solve.…”

“…Not all organizational cultures support the need for systems engineering process based "… on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem" (INCOSE, 2018) (Snowden & Boone, 2007) describes the Cynefin framework (Figure ), which describes the different management styles needed to deal with radically different situations. (Cowper, Kemp, Elphick, & Evans, 2014) and (Kemp, Beasley, & Williams, 2015) describe how Systems Engineering operates in the Complicated (and occasionally Complex) spaces. Finally, (Obeng, 1995) identifies a series of project types (Figure 3), with different approaches based upon the level of certainty in approach and outcome.…”

Envisioning Systems Engineering as a Transdisciplinary Venture

“…Currently, many systems engineers talk about "the" systems engineering process. Kemp et al (2015) assert that the currently dominant systems engineering process model is suitable mainly for large one-of-a-kind solutions to complicated problems, and needs to be substantially modified to deal with complex, simple, and chaotic systems and situations. We agree with this analysis, and envisage that families of systems engineering process models will be developed to cope with multiple dimensions of variation, of which we discuss three.…”

Reading Further Between The Lines – Recent Developments in the UK MOD Acquisition Requirements & Acceptance Tube Map

“…Whilst the tube map depicts a linear, "left-to-right" process, the guidance now includes set of principles to inform any tailoring that might be needed to suit the needs of the programme and its constituent projects (including the potential for incremental or agile approaches). This has been kept deliberately high level, and uses the Cynefin framework (Snowden & Boone 2007) shown in Figure 10, augmented by the findings presented in (Cowper et al 2014) and (Kemp et al 2015), and Obeng's "types of project" model (Obeng 1995), shown in Figure 11, to inform any decisions about fine-tuning the scope and scale-of-effort for each activity.…”