4.1.4. Engineering Resources

DEFENSE ACQUISITION GUIDEBOOK
Chapter 4 -- Systems Engineering

4.1.4. Engineering Resources

4.1.4. Engineering Resources

Organizing and staffing the systems engineering (SE) organization and providing supporting resources and tools are critical tasks that merit attention from both the Program Manager and Systems Engineer because these tasks influence the effective implementation and control of the SE approach. The Program Manager is responsible for developing a tailored strategy that enables a cost-effective program to deliver a required capability within the needed delivery time. However, any program tailoring should be based on SE assessments of maturity and risk in order to determine the appropriate entry point into the acquisition life cycle and to identify opportunities to streamline the acquisition strategy. Therefore, the Program Manager should create a program office structure ensuring the Systems Engineer is an integrated part of the program planning and execution activities.

Building an integrated SE team with the expertise and knowledge to implement and execute an effective program is a key to success. The structure and size of the SE organization should reflect both the risk and complexity of the system under development and its life-cycle phase. The Systems Engineering Plan (SEP) describes the SE organizations of both the Government program office and, when available, the developer organization.

Roles and Responsibilities

To provide the required capabilities in the most efficient and effective manner, the Program Manager should ensure completion of the following activities that affect the technical approach:

• Ensuring proper level of governance is applied
• Ensuring processes are followed and reporting is in compliance with plans
• Interfacing with the end users and developers to determine changes in operational requirements or concepts of operations that may affect the development of the desired capability
• Ensuring coordinated development and updating of acquisition strategy documents (e.g., Technology Development Strategy (TDS) and Acquisition Strategy (AS)), program plans (e.g., SEP, Program Protection Plan (PPP), Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP), and Life-Cycle Sustainment Plan (LCSP)), and cost and budget documents
• Establishing program office organization (roles, responsibilities, authorities accountabilities) and staffing the program office and Government technical team with qualified (trained and experienced) Systems Engineers and other relevant technical professionals
• Integrating all aspects of the program office, including business processes relating to program management, SE, test, and program control
• Ensuring all necessary memoranda of understanding and agreement (MOU/MOAs) are in place and sufficiently detailed
• Resourcing the managers of all functional areas such as administration, engineering, logistics, test, etc.
• Managing program risks by developing, resourcing, and implementing realistic mitigation strategies
• Approving the configuration management plan and ensuring adequate resources are allocated for implementing configuration management throughout the life cycle
• Reviewing/approving Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) requests and determining the path forward required by any baseline changes
• Ensuring contracting activities are coordinated with the program systems engineering team

The Systems Engineer is responsible for planning and overseeing all technical activity within the program office and for managing effective SE processes. The Systems Engineer should ensure the Program Manager has sufficient and clear information for scheduling and resource-allocation decisions. In addition, the Systems Engineer implements and controls the technical effort by:

• Implementing and maintaining disciplined SE processes
• Understanding the nature of the system under development, the needs of the end user, and the operating environment as described in the concept of operations
• Conducting activities in support of contract award and execution
• Ensuring that no constructive changes and unauthorized commitments are made with the contractor or developer
• Understanding how the system fits into a larger system of systems (SoS) context
• Providing recommendations on the contract strategy
• Assisting in generating affordability targets and should-cost goals by analyzing and verifying technical assumptions used in the cost analyses and related cost and budget documents
• Assessing process improvement activities in support of should-cost goals
• Developing and maintaining the SEP in coordination with key stakeholders and other functional experts who participate in the program development activities
• Tracking and managing the execution of the contract’s SE-related tasks and activities in each acquisition phase as detailed in the SEP
• Working closely with developer’s SE teams to ensure integrated and effective processes
• Planning and executing the formal technical reviews and audits
• Tracking and reporting baseline changes and recommending a path forward, as a part of configuration management
• Supporting the Program Manager in configuration management activities
• Identifying and mitigating the program’s technical risks which include
  • Integration risks
  • Engineering risks
  • Critical technology risks assessed in the Technology Readiness Assessment (TRA)
• Measuring and tracking program maturity using technical performance measures, requirements stability, and integrated schedules
• Updating the PPP
• Staffing the engineering team with qualified and appropriate engineers
• Supporting updates to the TEMP and LCSP
• Supporting test and evaluation activities as documented in the TEMP (see Chief Developmental Tester responsibilities in DAG Chapter 9 Test and Evaluation)
• Reviewing requirements traceability matrix and cross reference matrix (verification)
• Managing root cause and corrective action (RCCA) efforts along with supporting the risk boards
• Ensuring selection of qualified vendors for parts, materiel, and processes (for hardware and software)
• Reviewing deliverables on the contract to ensure compliance and utility, and to ensure appropriate format and content

One of the key responsibilities of the Systems Engineer is to provide insight/oversight of the technical activities of the capability acquisition. To ensure the success of integrated processes the Systems Engineer should maintain continuous engagement with the developer’s Systems Engineer responsible to build, deploy, and sustain the system or capability being acquired. This continuous engagement is necessary to ensure a common understanding of program goals, objectives, and activities. The program office and developer SE team should further maintain frequent, effective communication, in accordance with the contract, as they manage and execute program activities and trade-off decisions.

The Program Manager and Systems Engineer focus on the transformation of required operational and sustainment needs into a system design capability. As the design solution evolves through the application of the eight technical processes, the verification component or test organization provides confidence that the design solution that evolved from the requirements analysis, functional allocation, and design synthesis properly addresses the desired capabilities. The Test Engineer, working in tandem with the Systems Engineer, accomplishes the verification loop of the SE process. Together the Systems Engineer and Test Engineer generate and analyze data from the integrated tests. The developer uses the test results to improve system performance, the SE team uses the test results for risk assessments, and the acquisition community and operational evaluators use the test results for operational assessments of the evolving system. This test and evaluation strategy should be consistent with and complementary to the SEP. The Program Manager and the Systems Engineer work closely with the Test Engineer to facilitate coordinated verification and validation activities.

Stakeholders

The Program Manager has the critical role of approving a systems engineering (SE) approach that includes all stakeholders. The Systems Engineer coordinates with all participants to translate the operational needs and capabilities into technically feasible, affordable, testable, measurable, sustainable, achievable (within scheduled need dates), and operationally effective and suitable system requirements. The Systems Engineer is responsible for planning and overseeing all technical activity within the program office and for managing stakeholder expectations. Early and frequent involvement with stakeholders by both the Program Manager and the Systems Engineer facilitates the successful execution of SE activities throughout the acquisition life cycle.

Most program personnel are involved in one or more of the 16 SE processes. Personnel from non-SE organizations or from outside the program office (e.g., end users, requirements sponsors, maintainers, testers, planners) should be integrated within the program’s technical management activities so they have the ability to actively participate throughout the life cycle in support of SE-related activities.

The following is a partial list of the stakeholders that contribute to and benefit from SE activities and processes:

• Warfighters and other end users
• Milestone Decision Authority (MDA)
• Resource sponsors
• Budget authority
• Developers
• Enabled or enabling systems in the system of systems (SoS)
• Security Manager or System Security Engineer
• Chief Developmental Tester
• Operational test organization
• Certification and accreditation authorities
• Logisticians (materiel readiness and sustainment)
• Trainers
• Budget and cost analysts
• Contracting officers and associated staff
• Environment, safety, and occupational health (ESOH) staff
• Contractors who build, test, deploy, and/or support the capability under development
• Companion programs

Integrated Product Teams

An effective SE organization is typically structured as one or more IPTs (refer to the DoD IPPD Handbook for specific examples of functionally integrated IPTs). The IPTs include technical experts from relevant technical fields and carry out their activities as an integrated effort with a focus on delivering the required capability(ies). In developing the program office and SE organizational structure, the Program Manager and Systems Engineer should know and understand both the design and functions of the developer’s technical organization along with the developer's business model (in-house vs. outsourced). This understanding is critical to ensure effective coordination and oversight of developer activities and can affect how meetings are set up and conducted, how configuration management is executed, etc. In some cases, the Program Manager and Systems Engineer may organize multiple IPTs to align with the major products in the program’s Work Breakdown Structure. In smaller programs, the SE organization may be organized as a single IPT.

IPTs provide both the Government and developer stakeholders with the opportunity to maintain continuous engagement. This continuous engagement is necessary to ensure a common understanding of program goals, objectives, and activities. These Government/developer IPTs should further maintain effective communication as they manage and execute those activities and trade-off decisions. The program’s SE processes should include all stakeholders in order to ensure the success of program efforts throughout the acquisition life cycle.

For Major Defense Acquisition Programs, the Program Manager ensures that the program office is structured to interface with the SE Working-Level Integrated Product Team (SE WIPT) (a multidisciplinary team responsible for the planning and execution of SE) to address DoD leadership concerns and interests. The SE WIPT is chartered by the Program Manager and is usually chaired by the Systems Engineer. The SE WIPT includes representatives from OUSD(AT&L) and the component acquisition executive’s organization, both Government and developer IPT leads from the program, the Program Executive Office Systems Engineer, the SoS Systems Engineer, and the developer Systems Engineer. A generic SE WIPT charter is available on the ODASD(SE) Policy and Guidance website under “Guidance and Tools.”

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