Spent the last 4 days at the National Space Symposium, working our booth and walking the floor. Nearly every prime contractor, subcontractor, military, NASA, and government agency that supplies, consumes or supports space based programs is here.
Everything is a project. No work is performance in this business domain in the absence of project and program management. Programmatic Controls is our offering. One program that typifies the work in this area is the Missile Defense System.
MDA is a System of System (SoS), where each system is a complex system in its own right. Program Management and Program Controls are critical the success of MDA along with the technology systems.
Many Enterprise IT project are System of Systems, but not recognized in that way.
Not Thinking Like a Systems Engineer is the Source of Most Project Failures
MDA and many programs like MDA establish a Systems Engineering paradigm. All components are connected through interfaces. Hardware and Software exist in a complex network of interactive functionality.
All the concepts of managing programs like this have some applicability to managing other complex projects, especially in the enterprise IT space. These approaches are top down decompositions of interdependent functionality. Failure to understand how these components interact leads to failure.
Much can be learned from this paradigm. Much needs to be learned if enterprise IT is ever going to move away from its piecemeal approach to development and management.