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
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Citations
NASA. 2007. Systems Engineering Handbook, Revision 1 (NASA/SP-2007-6105). Washington, D.C.: NASA.
Primary References
Fairley, Richard E. 2009. Managing and Leading Software Projects. Hoboken New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
NASA. 2007. Systems Engineering Handbook, Revision 1 (NASA/SP-2007-6105). Washington, D.C.: NASA.
PMI 2008. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. 4th ed. Newtown Square, PA, USA: Project Management Institute (PMI).
Additional References
Blanchard, Benjamin. 2008. System Engineering Management. Hoboken New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Article Discussion
Signatures
--Bkcase 19:08, 22 August 2011 (UTC) (on behalf of Dick Fairley)
--Asquires 16:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC) Incomplete
--Rturner 20:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC) Tech edit