The Systems Engineering Technical Management Challenge

NASA’s Systems Engineering (SE) Handbook provides the systems engineer with a set of 17 processes, which are grouped into “System Design Processes”, “Product Realization Processes”, and “Technical Management Processes”. One quickly recognizes the System Design Processes and Product Realization Processes as the system engineering “V” with the design processes being decomposition of requirements to a design solution and the realization processes being the product production, assembly, integration, and test. The SE Technical Management Processes tie program management and systems engineering together and cut across the systems engineering “V”. The SE Handbook recognizes the natural overlap between the program management and systems engineering and states “Systems engineering is tightly related to the technical aspects of program and project management.” For a complex system of systems development and operations program, executing the SE processes individually takes significant effort to realize a finished product. Realizing a finished product within budget and on schedule requires executing the SE processes as one complementary and integrated effort. This paper discusses the challenge of executing the Technical Management Processes as one “Integrated Technical Planning and Flight Certification” effort.