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Promoting a Culture of Tailoring for Systems Engineering Policy ExpectationsNASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has developed an integrated systems engineering approach to promote a culture of tailoring for program and project policy requirements. MSFC's culture encourages and supports tailoring, with an emphasis on risk-based decision making, for enhanced affordability and efficiency. MSFC's policy structure integrates the various Agency requirements into a single, streamlined implementation approach which serves as a "one-stop-shop" for our programs and projects to follow. The engineers gain an enhanced understanding of policy and technical expectations, as well as lesson's learned from MSFC's history of spaceflight and science missions, to enable them to make appropriate, risk-based tailoring recommendations. The tailoring approach utilizes a standard methodology to classify projects into predefined levels using selected mission and programmatic scaling factors related to risk tolerance. Policy requirements are then selectively applied and tailored, with appropriate rationale, and approved by the governing authorities, to support risk-informed decisions to achieve the desired cost and schedule efficiencies. The policy is further augmented by implementation tools and lifecycle planning aids which help promote and support the cultural shift toward more tailoring. The MSFC Customization Tool is an integrated spreadsheet that ties together everything that projects need to understand, navigate, and tailor the policy. It helps them classify their project, understand the intent of the requirements, determine their tailoring approach, and document the necessary governance approvals. It also helps them plan for and conduct technical reviews throughout the lifecycle. Policy tailoring is thus established as a normal part of project execution, with the tools provided to facilitate and enable the tailoring process. MSFC's approach to changing the culture emphasizes risk-based tailoring of policy to achieve increased flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness in project execution, while maintaining appropriate rigor to ensure mission success.
Document ID
20160004408
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Blankenship, Van A. (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Date Acquired
April 5, 2016
Publication Date
March 22, 2016
Subject Category
Systems Analysis And Operations Research
Computer Systems
Report/Patent Number
M16-4975
Meeting Information
Meeting: Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER)
Location: Huntsville, AL
Country: United States
Start Date: March 22, 2016
End Date: March 24, 2016
Sponsors: Alabama Univ.
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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