Outside Influences on Systems Engineering: A Company Grade Officer's Observations in the Aftermath of a Difficult Project
Abstract
In the world of acquisitions management, the systems engineering discipline is often thought of as a separable, independent activity that follows a certain flow chart and, if executed correctly, produces a useable item that meets the technical requirements within cost and schedule constraints. This fallacy has no doubt led to many project failures, including the case study presented here. To make matters worse, decisions made in areas thought to be outside of systems engineering are often the root cause of a project's failure. These nontechnical decisions have a direct effect on the project's technical performance. The relationship between engineering and management decisions was once well known, and bridging this gap is one of the reasons that the systems engineering profession came into existence. Unfortunately, this relationship is all too often overlooked, and systems engineering is thought to occur in isolation from management, contracting, logistics, and operations. This attitude can cause many headaches for a project team -- and can lead to a project's demise. A recent project I was part of experienced a series of systems engineering failures, causing the project budget to run over by roughly 300 percent and the delivery to take twice as long as anticipated. Many systems engineering problems in the real world are more than just process gaps in systems engineering; they are often symptoms of business decisions that manifest themselves in systems engineering. A poor organizational structure creates a lack of systems engineering expertise, which leads to poor requirements specifications. This is manifested as a series of critical defects during formal DT&E. A poor contracting strategy sets the stage for a systems engineering strategy that focuses on following the process rather than delivering a successful product, on time and within budget.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA564462
Entities
People
- J. M. Nicholson
Organizations
- United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command