Defining and Implementing Systems Engineering

Systems engineering competencies, Principles of systems engineering management, Standards and terminology, Scope of systems engineering, Value of systems engineering, Implementing systems engineering

Based on over forty years' experience in developing technology for space missions, and over ten years of teaching systems engineering concepts to industry, we have developed a set of domain independent guiding principles for the management of systems engineering. One of our key beliefs is that systems engineering and project management need an integrated approach.

We were involved in the development of the INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering) competency framework for systems engineering and have published journal and conference papers on the definition and scope of systems engineering. We are also currently conducting a research project for INCOSE to investigate the use of terminology in the area of Systems Architecture, since this is a term interpreted in many different ways by different communities and different international standards.

Good systems engineering is often reflected in the absence of systems failure, but the absence of failure is not something that is easy to attach a value to, and even when it is possible, it is often difficult to prove the role that systems engineering played in avoiding failure. We are interested in researching how systems engineering adds value to organisations that invest in it.