3. Systems Engineering (ICM) Management Plan
Good systems engineering starts with planning. Handling the various management issues that will undoubtedly arise during the development of an ICMS is easier to do if there is a good program plan to start with. This stage focuses on the development of a Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP)/ICM Program Plan.
A good program plan is one that is complete, comprehensive, and communicated. Completeness and comprehensiveness of the plan is ensured by:
- Including all tasks that must be performed.
- Accurately estimating the resources required to accomplish each task.
- Assigning the appropriate resources to each task.
- Defining all dependencies among tasks.
- Identifying all products or other criteria whose completion signifies that a task is done.
- Determining how to measure progress against plan when managing a project.
The ICM program plan must then be communicated to everyone that it affects. Those agencies and individuals assigned to work on ICMS tasks need to be informed as to what work they are responsible for, when they should begin and complete a task and how they will know when a task is done, who else will be working on that task, what tasks are dependent on the one they are working on and which other tasks their task depends on, and what non-people resources they will need to do their job.
A recurring theme in this ICM Implementation Guidance (and the overall ICM initiative) is the concept of distributing specific operational responsibilities and sharing control functions in a manner that transcends institutional boundaries. The distribution of responsibilities begins with the ICM Program Plan. This is a major institutional issue, and it is very doubtful that all of the responsibilities can be defined in the initial ICM Program Plan. Nevertheless, the program plan should, as a minimum, identify which of the stakeholders are responsible for each the various process steps and activities leading up to the actual deployment and start-up of the ICMS; for example, who is responsible for the collection and analyses of what information, who is responsible for developing the Concept of Operations and Requirements Documents, who is responsible for the system designs, who is responsible for developing verification plans and the subsequent testing, who is responsible for monitoring overall progress on the plan, what are the other stakeholders' responsibilities with respect to reviewing and providing input to these documents, and will this work be done in-house, by consultants, or some combination of the two. Moreover, the ICM Program Plan should also address the schedule and key milestone dates.
Program management is a continuous activity. Once the initial ICM Program Plan is complete and approved by all the stakeholders, it is essential to track each task, measure its progress, revise the overall plan if needed, and identify and address any obstacles that impede plan progress. The program plan will also be updated and expanded over time as the process continues, as additional information is gathered and analyzed, and as the various integration issues are resolved. In some cases separate plans, focusing on a particular activity (e.g., integration, verification, configuration management, operations and maintenance), will be developed as an adjunct (and compatible) to the ICM Program Plan.