Management Module Space Systems Engineering, version 1.0

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Management Module Space Systems Engineering,
version 1.0

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Module Purpose Management

• To discuss the differences between a project
  managers responsibility and that of a systems
  engineer by highlighting the key responsibilities
  of the manager.
• To introduce two key management documents the
  project plan and the systems engineering
  management plan.
• To understand two types of workforce management
  in-line and matrix.

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Project ManagementA Humorous Example

• It seems there was a customer in a pet shop who
  was interested in acquiring a parrot. And, so the
  shopkeeper pointed to three kinds of similar
  looking parrots that were situated on a perch
  together. They were basically identical, and he
  inquired about the price of the parrots.
• And, the shopkeeper said, Well, the parrot on
  the left cost 500. And, he thought that was a
  remarkable price for a parrot, and asked about
  why. And, the shopkeeper said, Well, that parrot
  on the left has great computer skills. So, he
  knows how to run a computer.
• And, he inquired about the second parrot, and was
  told that the second parrot was a thousand
  dollars, because, not only did he possess all the
  skills that the first parrot had, but he could
  also do math and physics.
• And, when he inquired about the third of
  course, hes increasingly concerned about these
  prices, he inquired about the third parrot, he
  discovered the third parrot was priced at two
  thousand dollars. And, when he asked the
  shopkeeper why, what special skills does this
  third parrot posses, the shopkeeper said, Well,
  to be honest with you, Ive never seen him do
  anything. But, the other parrots tend to defer to
  him, and they call him the project manager.

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The Project Managers Role

• Manage and Control the Project
• Maintain oversight of all Project activities
• Review and report technical, schedule and
  financial status
• Ensure timely detection and correction of
  problems
• Assess cost/work progress against plans
• Ensure that all work complies with institutional,
  sponsor, and any other applicable policies,
  requirements and practices
• Manage and Control the Project Risk
• Assess progress and develop projections
  (technical, schedule, cost)
• Ensure timely detection and mitigation of threats
• Control and guard scope

The decision authority who must balance the
projects 3 variables technical, cost, and
schedule.
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How Does the Project Manager Deliver?

• Start with a realistic product
• Select a talented team
• Motivate the team
• Clear communications internal and external to the
  project
• Ask penetrating questions
• Track the schedule and cost
• Prioritize work
• Carefully manage margins
• Understand and balance risk across the system

• Note for a government project,
• Create a viable acquisition strategy
• Maintain good contractor relations

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In Comparison, What is a Systems Engineer
Responsible for?

• The Many Roles
• Requirements owner
• System designer
• System analyst
• Validation / Verification engineer
• Logistics / operations engineer
• Glue among the subsystems
• Customer interface
• Technical manager
• Information manager
• Process engineer
• Coordinator
• Classified ads system engineer

Source Twelve Roles of Systems Engineers,
Sarah Sheard
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Management Documents

• Project Plan
• Systems Engineering Management Plan

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Project Plan
The document that establishes the projects
baseline for implementation, signed by the
project manager and his/her management
chain. Defines Who? What? When? How? How much?
Requirements
Work Breakdown Structure
Resources Staff, materials, facilities
Activities
Time-phased Budget
Schedule
Baseline
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Pause and Learn Opportunity
Review an example Project Plan with the class,
using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Draft
Project Plan. Reference document DRAFT JWST
Program-Project Plan (in process - 30 Oct).doc
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Systems Engineering Management Plan(SEMP)

• The SEMP is the subordinate document to the
  Project Plan
• The SEMP defines for all project participants how
  the project will be technically managed within
  the constraints established by the Project Plan.
• All other technical documents, such as a
  configuration management plan, depend on the SEMP
  and must comply with it.
• For a NASA-managed project, the civil servant
  systems engineering team will produce the primary
  SEMP.
• Each contractor involved in the project will
  produce a contract-unique SEMP that describes how
  it will manage in accordance with both its
  contract and the NASA projects technical
  management practices.
• For additional information on the contents of a
  SEMP, see the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook,
  2007, Appendix J SEMP Content Outline. (and
  backup slides for example SEMP outline.)
• Also see the JWST SEMP for an example
  (JWST_000872 SEMP Baseline.doc).

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People Management

• Direct Project-Line Management
• Matrix Management

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Traditional Project/Product-Line Organization
Characterized as a project or product managed as
a self-sufficient organization relative to the
entire system design life cycle. Each project
will contain its own management structure, its
own engineering function, its own production
capability, its own support function, and so on.
The project manager has the authority and the
responsibility for all aspects of the project,
whether it is a success or a failure.
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Matrix Organization Structure
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Matrix Organization Characteristics

• Functional organizations, such as engineering or
  safety, own the personnel with expertise in
  particular areas.
• The functional organizations assign technical
  personnel from their pool to specific projects as
  those projects identify their skill needs.
• Both the project manager and the functional
  division manager agree to the duration of the
  assignment, the tasks to be accomplished, and the
  basis for the individuals performance review.
• Proven to be the most effective use of technical
  personnel. Project management only pays for the
  personnel on an as-needed basis has access to
  broad talent pool can phase work assignments
  with project life cycle.
• Common approach for large projects used
  predominantly at NASA Centers responsible for
  development projects.

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Interview with Dr. John Matheron Management of
the COBE MissionNASA ASK Magazine, 2007

• COHEN What kinds of problemsother than
  engineering realitiesdid you face?
• MATHER Some were organizational. We had
  something called matrix management, which we
  love and hate. The good thing about it is theres
  a huge pool of talent you can draw on. The bad
  thing is those people are not yours. When you
  want their time, they may be busy doing something
  that someone else said was important. We had a
  cartoon that showed two boats with lots of
  oarsmen. Matrix management is people paddling in
  every direction and no manager at the end of the
  boat. The other one is project management the way
  project managers like to do it they know whos
  in the boat theres a guy at the end beating a
  drum everybody is paddling in the same
  direction. Our problem wasnt about scientists
  versus engineers. It was engineers, managers, and
  everybody fighting over a scarce resource.

John Mather Nobel Prize Winner, Physics,
2006 COBE Project Scientist
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One way to look at it

• From an Interview with NASA Administrator, Mike
  Griffin on The True Challenge of Project
  Management
• See http//pmperspectives.gsfc.nasa.gov/2007/2006/
  truechallenge.htm
• Based on Mike Griffins remarks at the 2006 PM
  Challenge (March 21, 2006).
• Dr. Griffin continued that systems engineering
  and project management are opposite sides of the
  same coin. To talk about one without the other is
  flawed.
• The losses of Challenger and Columbia, the Hubble
  Space Telescopes flawed optics, Mars Observer,
  Mars Climatology Observer 99, Mars Polar Lander,
  Genesis - all of these programs issues were due
  to failures in project management and systems
  engineering. They all must be looked at as
  learning experiences, to learn as much from them
  as possible so we can repeat as few of them as
  possible.

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Module Summary Management

• A Project Managers roles and responsibilities
  are different from those of the Project Systems
  Engineer. The manager is continuously balancing
  the three project variables of cost, schedule and
  technical content.
• The Project Plan documents the project baseline
  for implementation. It includes the work
  breakdown structure, the associated activities,
  the resources required to accomplish the work,
  and the planned schedule for completing the work.
• The Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) is
  the projects guiding technical document. All
  subordinate technical documents, like a
  requirements document or test plan, must follow
  the guidelines of the project SEMP.
• Companies and government agencies usually use two
  different approaches to managing their workforce.
  In-line management means the responsible
  workforce directly reports to the project
  manager. Matrix management means the majority of
  the workforce is assigned temporarily to a
  project for a fixed period of time for a
  specified task.

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Backup Slides for Management Module
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SEMP Contents Outline (1/4)

• Title Page
• Systems Engineering Management Plan
• System Name or Identifier
• Table of Contents
• Scope
• Purpose of the System
• Summary and Purpose of SEMP
• Relation to other plans and schedules such as the
  Integrated Master Plan (IMP), Integrated Master
  Schedule (IMS), and Earned Value Management
  System (EVMS)
• The following statement This SEMP is the plan
  for the complete, integrated technical effort.
  Nothing herein shall relieve the Contractor of
  meeting the requirements of the Contract.
• Applicable Documents
• Government Documents to include contractual
  requirements documents or specifications
• Non-government Documents to include any
  applicable from independent standards
  organizations
• Corporate Documents

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SEMP Contents Outline (2/4)

• Systems Engineering Process and Responsibilities
  for its Implementation
• Description of the Contractors systems
  engineering process activities to be accomplished
  during the contract to include the iterative
  nature of the process application in the form of
  narratives, supplemented as appropriate by
  graphical presentations, detailing the
  contractors processes and procedures for
  completing the systems engineering effort
• Requirements Analysis
• Functional Analysis and Allocation
• Synthesis
• Systems Analysis and Control to include Control
  and Manage to include trade studies,
  cost-effectiveness analyses
• Risk Management
• Configuration Management
• Interface Management
• Data Management
• Technical Performance Measurements (TPMs)
  initial list, criteria for changing the list,
  update schedule, responsibility for monitoring,
  and relationship to risk management
• Technical Reviews and Audits

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SEMP Contents Outline (3/4)

• Description of products and results
• Decision Database describe development,
  implementation, life-cycle accessibility, and
  life-cycle maintenance including how traceability
  of the information will be accomplished
• Specifications (or equivalent) and configuration
  baselines describe development, measures of
  completeness, verifiability, traceability, and
  how and when controlled
• Verification Planning planning for verifying
  all requirements to include identification,
  configuration control, and maintenance of
  accuracy/precision of all verification tools
• Organizational responsibilities, authority, and
  means of accountability for implementing the
  process under the Contract
• Work authorization methods for opening work
  packages under the EVMS, closure, and
  authorization of changes
• Subcontractor technical effort description of
  the level of subcontractor participation in the
  technical effort as well as the role of systems
  engineering in subcontractor and vendor selection
  and management

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SEMP Contents Outline (4/4)

• Transitioning Critical Technologies
• Criteria for assessing and transitioning
  technologies
• Evolutionary/spiral acquisition strategies
• Integration of the Systems Engineering Activities
• How management plans and schedules (such as the
  IMP and IMS) and the EVMS will be used to plan,
  organize, direct, monitor and control the systems
  engineering activities
• Systems Engineering Tools
• Approach and process for system integration and
  test
• Additional Systems Engineering Activities
• Notes
• Glossary of terms used in the SEMP
• Appendices each appendix shall be referenced in
  the main body of the SEMP where the data would
  otherwise have been provided.

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Interview with Dr. John Matheron Management of
the COBE MissionNASA ASK Magazine

• Additional excerpt from John Mathers interview
• Tony Fragomeni, the observatory manager, used to
  sit at the end of the table with a plastic
  baseball bat and make sure he heard from the
  right people. Running meetings well is a
  tremendously important skill how to hear from
  all the people so that you dont miss good ideas
  how to send people away knowing somethings going
  to happen. You have to say, I understand that
  this is the decision. Absolute clarity is
  required. If you dither around and put off the
  decision for another week, youd better have a
  plan for what youre going to do instead. Drawing
  decisions out of discussions and actions out of
  ideas is the secret for getting anything done.

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Interview with Dr. John Matheron Management of
the COBE MissionNASA ASK Magazine

• Additional excerpt from John Mathers interview
• The challenge for management, though, is deciding
  whether they can afford to put a person on a
  project full time. The project manager says, I
  need to know whos on my project all the time. If
  someone completes a particular job, Ive got
  something else for him to do. The matrix manager
  says, If that persons job is done, I want him
  to work on another project. Its hard to cope
  with matrix management flexibility if youre a
  project manager. The lesson learned on matrix
  management is its OK, but assign people full
  time and make sure they know whom theyre working
  for during big blocks of time. In the earliest
  days of COBE, we had people charging a tenth of
  their time. They were able to go to a meeting,
  but they didnt have time to produce anything
  useful. A tenth really equals zero. It drove us
  crazy, and I dont think it made those people
  happy.

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Keys to SuccessAdvise to University
Nanosatellite Programaccording to Air Force
Research Lab

• Administrative and student leadership
• Roles and communication
• Organized mission and requirements approach
• Thought processes, logical planning, and team
  buy-in
• Good systems engineering practices
• Set up a good foundation early
• Personnel management
• Know your strengths and weaknesses

Technical challenges can be time-consuming but
poor project management can absolutely devastate
your schedule! It is far more likely that your
program will fail due to management problems than
due to technical/engineering roadblocks!
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System, Systems Engineering, and Project
Management

• DEFINITIONS
• System The combination of elements that
  function together to produce the capability
  required to meet a need. The elements include all
  hardware, software, equipment, facilities,
  personnel, processes, and procedures needed for
  this purpose.
• Systems Engineering A disciplined approach for
  the definition, implementation, integration and
  operation of a system (product or service). The
  emphasis is on achieving stakeholder functional,
  physical and operational performance requirements
  in the intended use environments over its planned
  life within cost and schedule constraints.
  Systems engineering includes the engineering
  processes and technical management processes that
  consider the interface relationships across all
  elements of the system, other systems or as a
  part of a larger system.
• The discipline of systems engineering uses
  techniques and tools appropriate for use by any
  engineer with responsibility for designing a
  system as defined above. That includes
  subsystems.
• Project Management The process of planning,
  applying, and controlling the use of funds,
  personnel, and physical resources to achieve a
  specific result.

NASA NPG 7120.5D