Many aerospace projects consider software as an embedded part of a system or subsystem. Avionics, ground operations, guidance, navigation and control, command and data handling. Similar concepts can be found in embedded controls, software based instruments, process control, and other real time systems. The standard IT project paradigm has yet to make this connection - that the software, its deliverables and the consumers of those deliverables are a System with coupling, interactions, linear and non-linear response modes and all the other behaviors found in systems.
The Systems Engineering approach provides several benefits:
- The System is the product, not the software
- The trade space between software components, hardware, and humans is made explicit
- The planning process around software is connected to system functionality
Why is this useful for project management?
- Systems engineering integrates process and product in a single discipline.
- Planning in the systems engineering paradigm, integrates process and product.
The PMI-centric discussions about separating process and product are no longer very interesting to the Systems Engineer or the Systems planning staff. The Program Management aspects of a project are tightly coupled with the technical, developmental, and operational aspects of the project - its a system. Project Management is no longer something over seeing or done independent the context of the project. The tight connection between management and development is a critical success factor for a systems engineering paradigm.
We have a phrase here - in the first 100 days of any program everyone is a systems engineer. The trade space for the program is open to everyone to contribute.
If we are to move Agile Project Management from principles to practice, one place to look for past success is systems engineering.
