Adaptation of Commercial and Defense Systems Requirements Engineering Processes for Streamlined Acquisition Programs

1. Adaptation of Commercial and Defense Systems Requirements Engineering Processes for Streamlined Acquisition Programs INCOSE Spring 09 L. Keith Robinett L-3 Communications William D. Miller Stevens Institute of Technology April 4, 2009 INCOSE Proprietary Information Limited Distribution

2. Topics • Role and Value of Requirements • Requirements Engineering Methods • and Best Practices • Requirements Engineering Process • for Streamlined Acquisition Programs

3. Role and Value of Requirements

4. NDIA Top Five Systems Engineering Issues Lack of awareness of the importance, value, timing, accountability, and organizational structure of Systems Engineering (SE) on programs Adequate, qualified resources are generally not available within Government and industry for allocation on major programs Insufficient SE tools and environments to effectively execute SE on programs Requirements definition, development and management is not applied consistently and effectively Poor initial program formulation. NDIA, 2003

5. NDIA Program Recommendations Increase awareness of SE importance in early acquisition phases. Realize that systems engineering is not a “tailor able” option for programs. Establish program to incentivize SE positions within the Government Research, identify and encourage use of SE tools for architecture design and development Synchronize directives for consistent requirements development and development approaches in the acquisition and requirements communities Emphasize use of SE practice in initial program formulation phases. NDIA, 2003

6. US DOD and NDIA Top Five Systems Engineering Issues Key systems engineering practices known to be effective are not consistently applied across all phases of the program life cycle Insufficient systems engineering is applied early in the program life cycle, compromising the foundation for initial requirements and architecture development Requirements are not always well-managed, including the effective translation from capabilities statements into executable requirements to achieve successful acquisition programs The quantity and quality of systems engineering expertise is insufficient to meet the demands of the government and the defense industry Collaborative environments, including SE tools, are inadequate to effectively execute SE at the joint capability, system of systems (SoS), and system levels. NDIA, 2006

7. US DOD and NDIA Systems Engineering Recommendations Ensure effective SE practices are institutionalized into program planning/execution Ensure SE efforts are allocated schedule and effort in early program life cycle phases Ensure systems engineering practices and resources are applied to define capabilities required to satisfy the needs of the warfighters. NDIA, 2006

8. Requirements Engineering Methods and Best Practices

9. Operational Requirements Where will the system be used? How will the system accomplish its mission objective? What are the critical system parameters to accomplish the mission? How are the various system components to be used? How effective or efficient must the system be in performing its mission? How long will the system be in use by the user? What environments will the system be expected to operate in an effective manner? DAU, 2001

10. Systems Engineering Process Standards in Common Use for Commercial & Defense Systems ISO/IEC 15288 Systems engineering – system life cycle processes (ISO, 2002) EIA-632 Processes for Engineering a System (EIA, 1999) IEEE 1220-2005 IEEE Standard for Applications and Management of the Systems Engineering Process (IEEE, 2005).

11. Relationships Among Standards and Documents

12. EIA-632 Systems Design Process EIA, 1999

13. Requirements Engineering Process for Streamlined Acquisition Programs

14. Streamlined Acquisition Programs Refers to defense programs for sustainment and/or upgrade of a previously delivered (legacy) system Baseline system performance is typically known and well-understood for most legacy systems In many cases, requirements for legacy systems are not available Extensively modified legacy systems bear little resemblance to the original system Streamlined acquisition programs often add functionality to legacy systems via relatively short program schedule, referred to as a Quick Reaction Capability (QRC).

15. Streamlined Acquisition Program Activities Evolutionary acquisition achieved via incremental requirements determined from continual communication with customers and stakeholders Activities required to upgrade a system (DAU, 2001): Benchmark the modified requirements for the upgrade and the entire system Perform functional analysis and allocation on the requirements Assess the system capability and performance before the upgrade Identify and manage cost and risk factors Develop and evaluate alternatives for the modified system Prototype the chosen alternative Verify the improved performance and new functionality.

16. Streamlined Acquisition Program Approach • Start with traditional SE Vee model (Mooz and Forsberg, 2006) • Apply agile methodology to make SE processes as lean as possible to meet QRC timelines • Requirements principles for streamlined acquisition programs (Wiegers, 2001): • Don’t dig your hole any deeper • Practice new requirements engineering techniques • Reconstruct requirements selectively • Couple requirements development and testing • Follow your change process • Inspect down the traceability chain • Start now. • Use agile methods within the Vee mode for new functionality, followed by traditional systems engineering methods for full system functionality

17. Agile Systems Engineering Agile systems engineering is defined as “rapid user and stakeholder requirements management, including concept selection, architecture development, system integration, verification, and validation in a development environment characterized by swift adaptation to changes, non-hierarchical baseline management, and a notable absence of low-value bureaucracy.”

18. Agile Key Characteristics Turner, 2007

19. Streamlined Acquisition Program Process Flow Proposed process flow for airborne ISR streamlined acquisition program

20. Streamlined Acquisition Process Flow Description Stakeholder or user needs for new system functionality are documented via Capability Requirements (CRs) that capture top-level needs and are used as basis for the derived product bid notes used to provide cost/scope estimates and product requirements used as input to the product development phase Functional test verifications provide a means to verify performance to requirements for individual Configuration Items (CIs) Product integration verifies the subsystem products meet the product requirements while capability integration verifies the new functionality at the system level meets the capability requirements New functionality is then integrated with the legacy functionality during mission systems integration System verification continues during ground test and validation is performed during flight test Agile processes are utilized for the new development efforts thru capability integration efforts, while a traditional systems engineering process is used for mission system integration, ground test and flight test The preference is for completion of capability integration for all new functionality before mission system integration begins, but that is not always feasible because some capabilities are completed before others. The risk is the system will not be mature enough for ground test, resulting in cost and schedule impact The rule of thumb is to perform as much integration testing in the lab as possible because it becomes more difficult (and costly) to “integrate on the aircraft”.

21. Streamlined Acquisition Requirements Metrics Requirements trends System definition change backlog trends Requirements validation trends Requirements verification trends

22. Streamlined Acquisition Program Requirements Process Flow Customer/stakeholder involvement at each successive requirements phase

23. Streamlined Acquisition Program Requirements Process Flow Acronyms

24. Streamlined Acquisition Requirements Flow Description Requirements engineering begins with the concept and user requirements captured at a very high level in the Statement of Work (SOW), followed by generation of the capability requirements and the product requirements The interaction between each successive phase is bi-directional indicating the recursive activities performed as the system requirements are defined at each lower level and potential refinement of requirements at the preceding higher level There is customer involvement at each successive requirements phase The proposed systems engineering process satisfies the key characteristics of agile

25. Streamlined Acquisition Program Modified Vee Model

26. Hybrid Systems Engineering Vee Model For requirements allocation side of the Vee, the new capability requirements are assimilated into the legacy system task list and the capability requirements are decomposed into product requirements, followed by the product design and implementation phase The integration side of the Vee begins with Functional Test Verification (FTVs) to verify the implementation satisfies the product requirements where the FTVs are formal “selloff” events from developers to systems engineers and customers Agile methodology is utilized for the development/implementation/validation of the new functionality; multiple FTVs can be held for each Configuration Item (CI) as new functionality is added; multiple agile “loops” can be followed for each CI until the full functionality is implemented Product integration is accomplished when the suite of CIs required for each specific capability are ready for product integration; following successful product verification, the full capability is integrated during capability integration; the process is repeated until the capability is completed integrated Once all the new capabilities are integrated, the agile process is completed and is followed by an overall traditional systems engineering process to verify and validate the new capability with the existing legacy system functionality The mission system integration and ground test verify the full system capability against the system task list System performance is validated against the system task list during flight tests

27. Conclusions Systems engineering processes for commercial and defense programs are similar as both are governed by standards in common use, i.e., ISO/IEC 15288, EIA-632 and IEEE 1220 Detailed processes for requirements engineering include elicitation of customer/stakeholder requirements and metrics to assess quality of the requirements engineering process Hybrid systems engineering process incorporating both agile and traditional systems engineering processes is used for streamlined acquisition programs.

28. Questions? L. Keith Robinett L-3 Communications William D. Miller Stevens Institute of Technology Keith.Robinett@L-3COM.com wmiller@stevens.edu