Enabling Teams
Part 5 on Enabling Systems Engineering explores how systems engineering (SE) is enabled at three levels of an organization: the business or enterprise (hereafter usually just called "business" as a shorthand because a business is a specific type of enterprise that has sufficiently strong central authority and motivation to take steps to effectively enable SE. See Enabling Systems Engineering for more on this.), the team, and individuals. As its name implies, this knowledge area focuses on enabling teams to perform SE. Part 3 Systems Engineering and Management describes how to perform SE once it has been enabled using the techniques described in Part 5.
To download a PDF of all of Part 5 (including this knowledge area), please click here.
Topics
Each part of the SEBoK is divided into knowledge areas (KAs), which are groupings of information with a related theme. The KAs in turn are divided into topics. This KA contains the following topics:
- Determining Needed Systems Engineering Capabilities in Teams
- Organizing Teams to Perform Systems Engineering
- Assessing Systems Engineering Performance of Teams
- Developing Systems Engineering Capabilities within Teams
- Team Dynamics
Overview
Systems engineers contribute to development and sustainment of products, enterprise systems, and the delivery of services. Systems engineers also coordinate the technical aspects of multiple projects that comprise a program. These activities require teams of individuals who share a common vision and work in a cooperative manner to achieve shared objectives. Not all groups of individuals who work together perform as teams; thus, teams must be enabled to perform SE activities efficiently and effectively.
SE activities are sometimes accomplished by individuals but are more often accomplished by project teams that perform SE activities and provide specialty engineering capabilities (see Systems Engineering and Specialty Engineering). Not all who perform SE activities are labeled "systems engineers." Thus, electrical, mechanical, and software engineers, as well as enterprise architects in IT organizations and service providers may lead or be members of teams that perform SE tasks. Those individuals are referred to as systems engineers in this knowledge area, regardless of their job titles within their organizations.
This knowledge area is concerned with methods, tools, and techniques for enabling project teams to perform SE activities. Three additional topics related to enabling the performance of project teams that perform SE are:
- What do managers need to know about managing systems engineers and project teams that perform SE activities? Managers can gain insight into what they need to know about managing project teams that perform SE in the topics Relationships between Systems Engineering and Project Management and The Influence of Project Structure and Governance on Systems Engineering and Project Management Relationships.
- How do businesses determine value added by SE activities performed by project teams? This topic is addressed in Assessing Systems Engineering Performance of Teams and Developing Systems Engineering Capabilities within Teams.
- How does an organization determine the efficiency and effectiveness of SE activities performed by project teams? This topic is addressed in Assessing Systems Engineering Performance of Teams.
References
Works Cited
None.
Primary References
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Additional References
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