INCOSE-LA, Loyola Marymount University - College of Science and Engineering, and National University - School of Engineering and Technology presents...

Program Executability: Risk, Resilience and Success Through Systems Engineering

Keynote Speaker: Neil Siegel, Sector Vice President, Technology
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems

This is a single track event with speakers addressing such sub-topics such as:

• Requirements Management
• Resilience: Infrastructure and Systems Engineering and Mission Assurance
• Affordability
• Risk
• Lessons Learned

Speakers & Abstracts

Jorg Largent, Northrop Grumman Corporation
The Institutionalization of Experienced-Based Process Improvements: Lessons Learned

"Lesson learned" is a popular term, but the term is often misunderstood. A lesson learned is a process improvement that is based on experience, either good or bad, and that has been institutionalized. Institutionalization is important: a lesson learned is not a lesson learned until the lesson is learned.

The substance of this paper is a methodology to accomplish "knowledge reuse," to use terminology from the INCOSE handbook. With "institutionalization" or "knowledge reuse" as the intended product, this paper defines lessons learned from the perspective of that product, proffers some thoughts on common misunderstandings of lessons learned, and then discusses how to capture data on lessons learned, how to control and analyze the data and then how to provide feedback. The intent of this process is to provide a deliberate closed loop to benefit the near-term and long-term enterprise endeavors.

Jean Gebman, RAND
Strengthening the Bond between Systems Engineering and Systems Management

This presentation describes a candidate framework for strengthening the capacity of systems engineers to add important value to systems that may be directed by managers unfamiliar with the full range of contributions that systems engineering can make to assuring favorable outcomes for even the most challenging systems. The framework reflects lessons drawn from several decades of research, including acquisition and sustainment of aircraft weapon systems, and modern business practices. Adoption of such a framework may provide system managers, systems engineers, and functional engineers a common frame of reference that (1) helps clarify thinking about customer interests and (2) uses such interests to drive business practices in ways that best manage technical resources and best guide technical work throughout a system's life cycle.

Al Hoheb, The Aerospace Corporation
The Smarter Buyer 2 Course – Managing Program Executability

The Smarter Buyer 2 (SB2) course is a follow-on to the resoundingly successful, and original, Smarter Buyer course that provided government acquisition executives and program manager’s information on how industry uses financial measures to manage their space business. Both Smarter Buyer courses are rich from interviews, tutorials, current data, analysis, and examples. Both have specific take-aways and provide suggested accountabilities. This talk on Smarter Buyer 2 will explain the course goals and key concepts including: understanding the acquisition environment and the set of program executability expectations, how to incentivize industry, defining an executable program plan by defining baselines, assessing program executability and risk, establishing and managing risk reserve, the role of mission assurance, making execution decisions, and communicating program executability with transparency and unity of purpose across stake holders. The course addresses key systems engineering concepts; enterprise architecting and technology maturity, incremental system development, systems engineering as part of an overarching mission assurance framework, and day-to-day systems engineering activities necessary to ensure executability.

Scott Jackson , University of Southern California
System Resilience: Capabilities, Culture and Infrastructure

System resilience is the attribute of human-made systems that makes them unlikely to experience catastrophic failures. Challenger, Columbia, Chernobyl and Bho-pal are examples of such failures. System resilience goes beyond traditional disciplines, such as reliability and system safety to achieve its goal. System resilience employs systems engineering principles at product and infrastructure levels. The infrastructure system includes such nodes as the developer, the customer, the user, the maintainer, and the operator. System resilience requires that systems engineering principles be practiced across organizational boundaries and to a greater level of detail than is common in today’s world. System resilience depends on developing beneficial paradigms within all nodes of the infrastructure. Finally, system resilience requires that all nodes of the infrastructure system have a set of capabilities that are directly derivable from root causes of catastrophes. The combination of capabilities, culture and infrastructure forms the basic frame-work of system resilience.

Official Agenda

7:30 ~ Registration / Buffet Breakfast

8:15 ~ Opening Remarks / Master of Ceremonies Introduction
Conference Chair: Dr. Jack Elson

Keynote Speaker Introduction
Master of Ceremonies: Dr. William Hatton
Space-Based Surveillance Division, The Aerospace Corporation

8:30 ~ Keynote Speaker
Neil Siegel, Sector Vice President, Technology
Northrop Grumman Mission Systems

First Session
9:15 ~ Schedule Risk Assessments for
Complex Space Systems
Dr. David Gorney, Vice President, Space Programs Operations
The Aerospace Corporation

Second Session
10:30 ~ The Institutionalization of Experienced-Based Process Improvements: Lessons Learned
Jorg Largent, Lead B-2 Systems Engineer
Northrop Grumman Corporation

11:00 ~ Strengthening the Bond between Systems Engineering and Systems Management
Jean Gebman
RAND

11:30 ~ The Smarter Buyer 2 Course - Managing Program Executability
Al Hoheb, Principal Engineer
The Aerospace Institute, The Aerospace Corporation

12:00 ~ Lunch

Third Session
1:30 ~ System Resilience: Capabilities, Culture and Infrastructure
Scott Jackson
University of Southern California

2:00 ~ The Systems Engineering Role in the Program Execution Machine
Dr. Rob Wright, Director, Systems Verification Center,
Space and Airborne Systems, Raytheon Corporation

2:30 ~ Break

2:45 ~ Panel Discussion - Program Executability: What governs how decisions are made?
Moderator: Roz Lewis, Cost and Requirements Department Director, The Aerospace Corporation

Panel Members:

• Colonel Pelc, Program Director, Missile Defense Space Systems
• Steve Lunny, Director, Systems Engineering, Northrop Grumman Space Technology
• TC Noble, Principle, Risk and Opportunity Management, Lockheed Martin
• Dr. Rob Wright, Director, Systems Verification Center, Space and Airborne Systems, Raytheon Corporation
• Ms. Ursula Knopp-McKendree, Boeing
• Dr. David Gorney, VP Space Programs Operations, The Aerospace Corporation
• Colonel James Horesji, Chief Engineer and Director of Engineering and Architectures, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base

4:30 ~ Closing Summary: Dr. William Hatton; Closing Remarks: Dr. Jack Elson