A Preliminary Assessment of the Relationships Between Project Success, System Engineering, and Team Organization

Demand for improved functionality in modern aerospace systems has resulted in increased project complexity. Managers are finding it even more difficult to balance cost, schedule, and performance. Often, system engineering is proposed as a means to balance these demands; however, guidance on tailoring system engineering and team organization to effectively deploy team assets is often incomplete. This paper reports on the development and testing of a methodology to assess the relationship between project success, system engineering, and team organization. The initial work is showing promise in revealing correlations. Data is currently being gathered and analyzed on additional projects, relative to the initial project requirements as well as other similar projects. It is hoped that there will be sufficient data to statistically evaluate these relationships. The long-term goal of this project is to look at statistical relationships so that a project team can effectively tailor their system engineering processes.