Integrate Systems Engineering and Project Management

Project management and systems engineering management are highly overlapping endeavours. In both cases their general scope is the fitness for purpose of the end product and the efficiency of its production.

Different organisations define differently the responsibilities of project managers, programme managers, systems engineering managers, and chief scientists. Nevertheless there needs to be cooperation and coherence in the management structure which recognises the differing approaches of (systems) engineering and (project) management. While project management is typically based around a deterministic breakdown of the required activities and the creation and delivery of a causal network of such activities against defined timescales, engineering often involves iterative development with concurrent progress across a broad front. This difference can lead to real difficulties when reporting progress. Projects are systems, and need to be managed with a similar blend of science, heuristics (rules of thumb based on lessons learnt and best practice) and creativity. Too often projects are seen deterministically, when in fact there are major sources of uncertainty (threats and opportunities) which could have significant implications for optimisation. The optimum system depends on the project design, and the optimum project design depends on the nature of the system to be delivered. This interdependency between optimum system and optimum project needs to be recognised and managed.