Relationships between Systems Engineering and Project Management

The methods, tools, and techniques of project management can be recursively applied to managing the technical aspects of a project. Technical work activities must be planned, organized, staffed, controlled, and directed; the what, who, when, where, how, and why questions must be answered; work activities must be planned and estimated, measured and controlled, led and directed, and risk must be managed.

The Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP)

The systems engineering management plan (SEMP) is an important element of systems engineering. According to NASA (2007): "The SEMP is the rule book that describes to all participants how the project will be technically managed" (NASA 2007, p. 120). Appendix J of the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (NASA 2007) provides a checklist of items that should be included in an SEMP, as needed [[1]]:

• Purpose and Scope of the SEMP
• Applicable Documents
• Technical Summary
• System Description
• System Structure
• Product Integration
• Boundary of Technical Effort
• Cross References
• Technical Effort Integration, including
  • Concurrent engineering,
  • The activity phasing of specialty engineering,
  • The participation of specialty disciplines,
  • The involvement of specialty disciplines,
  • The role and responsibility of specialty disciplines,
  • The participation of specialty disciplines in system decomposition and definition,
  • The role of specialty disciplines in verification and validation,
  • Reliability,
  • Maintainability,
  • Quality assurance,
  • Integrated logistics,
  • Human engineering,
  • Safety,
  • Producibility, and
  • Survivability/vulnerability.
• Responsibility and Authority
• Contractor Integration
• Support Integration
• Technical Process Integration
• Technology Insertion
• Engineering Methods and Tools
• Specialty Engineering
• Integration with the Project Plan and Technical Resource Allocation
• Waivers
• Appendices
  • including plan templates
• References

Some systems engineers become specialists in systems engineering project management.

Future Version 1.0 Additions

This article is not complete. Version 1.0 of the SEBoK will note in more detail the similarities and differences between project management and systems engineering. Topics being considered are: TBD.

References

Citations

NASA. 2007. Systems Engineering Handbook, Revision 1. Washington, DC, USA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA/SP-2007-6105.

Primary References

Fairley, R.E. 2009. Managing and Leading Software Projects. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

NASA. 2007. Systems Engineering Handbook, Revision 1. Washington, DC, USA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA/SP-2007-6105.

PMI 2008. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 4th ed. Newtown Square, PA, USA: Project Management Institute (PMI).

Additional References

Blanchard, B. 2008. System Engineering Management. Hoboken NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

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