Summary

As a formalized discipline, systems engineering management is not very old. It was begun by the DOD in an attempt to force military branches to accurately define their programs and provide review points that offered possibilities for real go/no-go decisions. The result of formalizing this procedure was that the services complied with the original intent of completely defining their requirements. It also created a whole new way of defining, describing, and managing projects.

Systems engineering techniques and systems engineering management are key to the development of optimum project deliverables. Although most project managers are accustomed to using some systems engineering techniques, such as trade-off analyses and developing alternative approaches, there is not a widespread use or even understanding of what systems engineering can do to help the project manager, the project team, and the organization as a whole.

The key features of a systems approach are:

• Requirements analysis

• Functional analysis

• Allocation

• Synthesis or architecture design

• Optimization of selection of the preferred design

• Generation of specifications to start system construction

Implementing these features into every project will guarantee a greater, successful project completion rate.