Systems Engineering - Part 2

Capabilities Based Planning [1]

Many projects provide a multitude of technical and operational features and functions. We’ve all experienced this. Software tools, automobiles with more features than we can remember, complex systems like aircraft with features so complex the pilots have trouble remembering how to operate then (one cause of the Asiana Air crash in SFO is attributed to the multiple features in the decent control system that created confusion).

One improved approach to engineering a system is to determine what capabilities are needed to accomplish the mission or provide a solution to the business problem.

Many approaches to developing systems start with requirements. PMI does this. Research shows, successful acquisition processes, modern IT governance processes, nearly every product development process starts with capabilities based planning

• What capabilities can we provide our customers with that they are willing to give us money for?
• What capabilities do we need in our ERP system to remain or be more competitive in the marketplace?
• What capabilities are needed by the warfighter, school systems management, retail strategy makers
• Provide safe transport on public highways is a capability. No single failure in the breaking system shall endanger life is a requirement.

It’s the needed capabilities that make or break a system. Are these capabilities present for the user? Can the user put the system to work to solve a problem?

Requirements come next, but they are not the starting point. Without knowing what capabilities are needed, the requirements have no home. We see this all the time why does this thing we just bought do or not do something. The designers may or may not have identified the needed capabilities first before they started building.

Capabilities Versus Requirements

Capabilities describe three characteristics needed before proceeding to requirements elicitation:

• Possible scope – delimits the boundaries of the problem and the possible solutions
• Possible forms – specific characteristics of a process not related to its application
• Possible solutions – candidate solutions that have already been applied to solve similar problems that should be investigated to determine if they should be part of the solution

Provide safe transport to the public is a capability. No single failure in the breaking system shall endanger life is a requirement.

Capabilities-Based Planning

Capabilities-Based Planning is planning, under uncertainty, to provide capabilities suitable for a wide range of business challenges and circumstances, while working within an economic framework.

Capabilities-Based Planning emphasizes flexibility, adaptiveness, and robust capabilities, implying a modular building-block approach to Enterprise Services. When transformation takes place it is because new modules have come into use.

Capabilities–based planning provides a defined outcome that is not a final conclusion but lays the groundwork for the continued delivery of value. Objectives are reached and the operational value is delivered when a defined capability is available for use. Features and functions describe the static and dynamic behaviors of a system, but they are not directly connected to the business strategy.?

Capabilities–based planning transforms the delivery of features and functions into the delivery of processes that support a business strategy. Capabilities–based planning is planning, under the conditions of uncertainty, to provide capabilities suitable for a wide range of business challenges and circumstances, while working within an economic framework. This approach emphasizes flexibility, adaptiveness, and robust capabilities, implying a modular building–block approach to the delivery of enterprise applications.?

Capabilities–based planning provides a defined outcome that is not a final conclusion but lays the groundwork for the continued delivery of value. Objectives are reached and the operational value is delivered when a defined capability is available for use. Features and functions describe the static and dynamic behaviors of a system, but they are not directly connected to the business strategy.

Capabilities–based planning transforms the delivery of features and functions into the delivery of processes that support a business strategy. Capabilities–based planning is planning, under the conditions of uncertainty, to provide capabilities suitable for a wide range of business challenges and circumstances, while working within an economic framework. This approach emphasizes flexibility, adaptiveness, and robust capabilities, implying a modular building–block approach to the delivery of enterprise applications.?

Capabilities State the Intent of the Commander

Above is an example of a needed capability with a possibly more critical outcome. Capabilities Based Planning started with military military agencies to identify program needs, allocate resources, and track activities and outcomes. CBP allows defense agencies in evaluating their manpower, equipment, cooperative relationships with military partners, and other capabilities.

For IT or similar product or project organizations, Capability-Based planning focuses on the planning, engineering, and delivery of strategic business capabilities to the enterprise. It is business-driven and business-led and combines the requisite efforts of all lines of business to achieve the desired capability. Capability-based planning accommodates most, if not all, of the corporate business models and is especially useful in organizations where a latent capability to respond (e.g., an emergency preparedness unit) is required and the same resources are involved in multiple capabilities. Often the need for these capabilities is discovered and refined using business scenarios.

From an IT perspective, capability-based planning is particularly relevant. For example, setting up a data center is really about consolidating corporate data and providing related services. Lead enterprise architects for this capability will find themselves involved in managing construction, personnel training, and other change management tasks as well as IT architecture tasks. In the past, many IT projects were less than successful even though the actual IT implementation was brilliant, but the associated other tasks (business process re-engineering, client training, support training, infrastructure, and so on) were not controlled by the enterprise architects and planners and often were not satisfactorily completed. [2]

The Role of Systems Engineering in Identifying Needed Capabilities and Managing Their Delivery

Here’s a process flow for developing capabilities needed by the system. All this discussion is not to turn us into capabilities-based planners. But to emphasize that requirements are not the starting point for our systems Engineering paradigm. Capabilities are the Starting Point since if we don't know what Capabilities are needed to accomplish the Mission or fulfill the business strategy we won't know what Done looks like in units of measure to the decision-maker - other than the passage of time or consumption of the money.

The failure of many products and projects can be traced to the failure to define what capabilities are needed for success. The units of measures for these capabilities start with effectiveness and performance. INCOSE and 15288 speak to those directly.?

Some Reminders About Systems Engineering

Systems Engineering Is …

• A logical sequence of activities and decisions that transforms an operational need into a description of system performance parameters and a preferred system configuration. (MIL-STD-499A, Engineering Management)
• An interdisciplinary approach that encompasses the entire technical effort, and evolves into and verifies an integrated and life cycle balanced set of system people, products, and process solutions that satisfy a customer need. (EIA Standard IS-632, Systems Engineering)
• An interdisciplinary, collaborative approach that derives, evolves, and verifies a life cycle balanced system solution that satisfies customer expectations and meets public acceptability (IEEE P1220 Standard for Application and Management of Systems Engineering Process)

Systems Engineering is a process comprised of the following seven tasks.

1. State the problem. Stating the problem is the most important Systems Engineering task. It entails identifying customers, understanding customer needs, establishing the need for change, discovering requirements, and defining system functions.
2. Investigate alternatives. Alternatives are investigated and evaluated based on performance, cost, and risk.
3. Model the system. Running models clarifies requirements, reveals bottlenecks and fragmented activities, reduces cost, and exposes duplication of efforts.
4. Integrate. Integration means designing interfaces and bringing system elements together so they work as a whole. This requires extensive communication and coordination.
5. Launch the system. Launching the system means running the system and producing outputs -- making the system do what it was intended to do.
6. Assess performance. Performance is assessed using evaluation criteria, technical performance measures, and measures -- measurement is the key. If you cannot measure it, you cannot control it. If you cannot control it, you cannot improve it.
7. Re-evaluation. Re-evaluation should be a continual and iterative process with many parallel loops.

Systems Engineering is an Iterative and Incremental approach to developing solutions to emergung problems in a complex domain

Systems Engineering is about the system aspects of the outcomes of the project. Systems Engineering does not build the products of the project's outcomes, it enables the right products to be built right, in the right way, in the right order, at the right time, to deliver the right value to the customer.

A system is a collection of elements, that together, produce results not obtained by the elements alone. These elements can include people, hardware, software facilities, policies, and documents – all interacting to produce an outcome.

System Engineering is a product-oriented discipline whose responsibility is to create and execute the interdisciplinary processes that ensure the stakeholder needs are satisfied.

[1] Guide to Capabilities Based Planning, The Technical Cooperation Program, Joint Systems and Analysis Group, Technical Panel 3., https://www.acq.osd.mil/ttcp/reference/docs/JSA-TP-3-CBP-Paper-Final.doc

[2] TOGAF 9.1, 32. Capabilities Based Planning

[3] Compendium of Capabilities Based Planning Resources