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NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (2008) [pdf]

198 points by efm 10y ago

thearn4 10y ago
Just a note: systems engineering at NASA has it's own internal definition that is closer to a management role than a technical one. Source: am NASA engineer.
- cmrx64 10y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I was rather confused with the subject matter of this handbook without that knowledge. I guess I shouldn't have glossed over the introduction and jumped to what looked meaty.
- efm 10y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. And, thanks for your work on OpenMDAO. http://openmdao.org/ http://openmdao.org/
- derefr 10y ago
  The NASA definition the original one, I would think. How are people using "systems engineering" as a term elsewhere, that is incongruent with the NASA definition? I mean, a "system" at the scale of a NASA project comprises operationalized learning across both machines and people (and supplier-contracts, and legal corporate entities.) With tolerances and maintenance plans and backups for the people-parts as well as the machine-parts of the system. I don't know if I would describe the design of such a system as "management"; it's more akin to the sort of incentive-system creation that tax regulators or MMO game designers go through, but with a lot more rigor and data.
  - icegreentea 10y ago
    I think NASA's use of "systems engineering" is more or less in line with how everyone except the software industry uses "systems engineering". You'll sometimes (not always) see "systems engineering" in the software industry refer to operating systems, or operating system like stuff (for example, game engines, certain types of real time application, etc). You'll also see it called 'systems programming'. In that context, I can understand why the standard systems engineering role might be considered more 'managementish'. In most large roles, systems engineers are at least one step removed from the majority of design. In many ways, he works on an abstraction layer of the design, but also provides abstraction layers to the other engineers he works with or DIRECTS.
    - solotronics 10y ago
      I am a 'systems engineer' for an ISP and my role is a combination of two things 1. software development for distributed programs that manage the network 2. sys admin type things
      - tjl 10y ago
        That's what most software people think my "systems design engineering" degrees are about, but my program fits the NASA definition much better. It's quite frustrating.
    - tjl 10y ago
      I graduated from a "systems design engineering" program. In it, we had courses in human factors, mechanical engineering, electrical/computer engineering, graph theory, software development, and you could branch out from there as you wanted. Unfortunately, people seem to think that it means I'm a software developer, in IT, or something along those lines. It's quite unfortunate as both my Master's and Ph.D. were more towards mechanical engineering.
      - mch82 10y ago
        Unless you're working in the Aerospace & Defense, Healthcare Device, or Automotive industries this will continue to be a problem for some time. It's okay to use equivalent language when seeking out jobs. Try looking for "product design" or "product management" roles that emphasize technical competency. Reach out to INCOSE and IISE professional organizations for help. Those organizations exist to represent your skill set to industry. Challenge them to improve recruiter and human resources recognition of the term "Systems Engineer".
        tjl 10y ago
        I didn't know about INCOSE or IISE, so thanks. I've been a member of ASME since I was presenting at their conferences and submitting to their journals as a grad student given the material was focused on mechanical (and textile) engineering. I didn't look for any dedicated systems organizations. Product Management is what most of our graduates end up doing, but they're usually doing it in software jobs. That said, we have a number of patent and IP lawyers come out of our program and a lot of people go into medicine or biomedical. The latter since we have a dedicated biomedical option as we have a number of faculty in that area.
  - etendue 10y ago
    > The NASA definition the original one, I would think. How are people using "systems engineering" as a term elsewhere, that is incongruent with the NASA definition? The term has been co-opted by people in IT doing (I think) operations type work. It certainly makes a job search much more frustrating since the number of IT positions greatly outnumbers those for the traditional definition.
    - superuser2 10y ago
      As "engineer" replaced "programmer," "systems programmer" became "systems engineer" (working on platforms for the applications engineers).
      - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
        I think that trend has played out slightly differently than you describe. Where I work "systems engineer" is more akin to "system admin."
  - tonmoy 10y ago
    I can attest that the NASA definition is the one used in our semiconductor company
  - NamTaf 10y ago
    Can confirm, any 'real world' engineering will use the NASA definition. The best way I've found to understand systems engineering is in how my org implements them - a project has a systems engineer and a project manager working alongside each other. They have small overlaps but by and large, the PM is responsible for the non-technical management of the project whereas the SE is responsible for the technical management. This encompasses scope definition, requirements specification, system and subsystem interfaces, testing and verification regimes, etc. etc. They take the intangible requirements of the client and beat them into a robust series of defintiions that outline what the whole raft of pieces that must assemble together to perform that duty must do, and then also confirm it does indeed meet the client needs. Meanwhile, the PM makes sure the team delivers on time, within budget, with the right organisational oversights to confirm processes are followed, quality management is maintained, etc.
- xorgar831 10y ago
  do you know what software(s) do they use to implement these processes?
  - engi_nerd 10y ago
    For smaller projects (say, what an engineer might run and manage by themselves), there's always Microsoft Project. That's the lower level default for making/managing schedules. For much larger projects, or projects of projects (think large engineering systems of systems that take years to design/build/test/deploy), there's all kinds of software available. My company uses Oracle Primavera for this sort of thing. Also, don't forget Excel. Excel is everywhere and used for all sorts of things it probably shouldn't be used for.
    - mch82 10y ago
      Microsoft Project isn't appropriate for Systems Engineering.
      - engi_nerd 10y ago
        You're going to have to explain that one a bit more. For making Gantt charts and the like it's capable enough.
        mch82 10y ago
        In the handbook, Figure 2.0‐1 "SE in context of overall project management" shows the relationship between systems engineering and project management. While some SE responsibilities overlap with those of project management, the larger set of responsibilities focus on technical work. Microsoft Project isn't intended to be used to define requirements, perform technical trade studies, model and compare alternative system architectures, or configuration manage technical artifacts of the engineering process. Hope that helps to clarify my prior comment. Happy to discuss more.
        engi_nerd 10y ago
- oso2k 10y ago
  I'm a former NASA Engineer, Systems Engineer, and Project Manager (via JPL). If you're making the assertion that a Systems Engineer exhibits some of the leadership responsibilities as that of a traditional Project Manager, then I'd agree. If not, then I'd recommend you find an expert Systems Engineer (or CogE or Principal Scientist or even your Line Manager) in your field and ask him/her to mentor you. You could be missing much of the experience.
iijj 10y ago
Related: MIT OpenCourseWare's 2005 Aircraft Systems Engineering is a lecture series with many of the Space Shuttle's various lead engineers. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/video-lectures/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-8...
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I watched some of them and the people teaching are top notch. I only wish they showed the slides in the video.
mch82 10y ago
I'm curious what the context of the original post is. Is the OP just wanting to share the SE Handbook?
- efm 10y ago
  Yes. The SE Handbook is about much larger, more complicated, more reliability-driven projects, than are often discussed here.
Animats 10y ago
Now that's waterfall design. Show that to your scrum master. Really. This is a manual for waterfall design of large, complex, one-off or small-quantity systems. Bridges and buildings are designed this way. It's slow, but it works. Errors in the requirements are really expensive to fix.
- stephen_g 10y ago
  Of course - it's just the nature of the medium. With software you can be be far more agile because you aren't making extremely expensive physical parts that take days to months to re-fabricate or modify every time you want to make a change.
dajohnson89 10y ago
It baffles me how starkly this contrasts with so much of software development in practice.
niroze 10y ago
A great resource for systems engineering. I love this. Source: am systems engineer for complex systems that can't go down and are heavily used by millions... but not as cool as NASA.

198 points by efm 10y ago

Just a note: systems engineering at NASA has it's own internal definition that is closer to a management role than a technical one. Source: am NASA engineer.

cmrx64 10y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I was rather confused with the subject matter of this handbook without that knowledge. I guess I shouldn't have glossed over the introduction and jumped to what looked meaty.
efm 10y ago
Thanks for clarifying. And, thanks for your work on OpenMDAO. http://openmdao.org/ http://openmdao.org/
derefr 10y ago
The NASA definition the original one, I would think. How are people using "systems engineering" as a term elsewhere, that is incongruent with the NASA definition? I mean, a "system" at the scale of a NASA project comprises operationalized learning across both machines and people (and supplier-contracts, and legal corporate entities.) With tolerances and maintenance plans and backups for the people-parts as well as the machine-parts of the system. I don't know if I would describe the design of such a system as "management"; it's more akin to the sort of incentive-system creation that tax regulators or MMO game designers go through, but with a lot more rigor and data.
- icegreentea 10y ago
  I think NASA's use of "systems engineering" is more or less in line with how everyone except the software industry uses "systems engineering". You'll sometimes (not always) see "systems engineering" in the software industry refer to operating systems, or operating system like stuff (for example, game engines, certain types of real time application, etc). You'll also see it called 'systems programming'. In that context, I can understand why the standard systems engineering role might be considered more 'managementish'. In most large roles, systems engineers are at least one step removed from the majority of design. In many ways, he works on an abstraction layer of the design, but also provides abstraction layers to the other engineers he works with or DIRECTS.
  - solotronics 10y ago
    I am a 'systems engineer' for an ISP and my role is a combination of two things 1. software development for distributed programs that manage the network 2. sys admin type things
    - tjl 10y ago
      That's what most software people think my "systems design engineering" degrees are about, but my program fits the NASA definition much better. It's quite frustrating.
  - tjl 10y ago
    I graduated from a "systems design engineering" program. In it, we had courses in human factors, mechanical engineering, electrical/computer engineering, graph theory, software development, and you could branch out from there as you wanted. Unfortunately, people seem to think that it means I'm a software developer, in IT, or something along those lines. It's quite unfortunate as both my Master's and Ph.D. were more towards mechanical engineering.
    - mch82 10y ago
      Unless you're working in the Aerospace & Defense, Healthcare Device, or Automotive industries this will continue to be a problem for some time. It's okay to use equivalent language when seeking out jobs. Try looking for "product design" or "product management" roles that emphasize technical competency. Reach out to INCOSE and IISE professional organizations for help. Those organizations exist to represent your skill set to industry. Challenge them to improve recruiter and human resources recognition of the term "Systems Engineer".
      - tjl 10y ago
        I didn't know about INCOSE or IISE, so thanks. I've been a member of ASME since I was presenting at their conferences and submitting to their journals as a grad student given the material was focused on mechanical (and textile) engineering. I didn't look for any dedicated systems organizations. Product Management is what most of our graduates end up doing, but they're usually doing it in software jobs. That said, we have a number of patent and IP lawyers come out of our program and a lot of people go into medicine or biomedical. The latter since we have a dedicated biomedical option as we have a number of faculty in that area.
- etendue 10y ago
  > The NASA definition the original one, I would think. How are people using "systems engineering" as a term elsewhere, that is incongruent with the NASA definition? The term has been co-opted by people in IT doing (I think) operations type work. It certainly makes a job search much more frustrating since the number of IT positions greatly outnumbers those for the traditional definition.
  - superuser2 10y ago
    As "engineer" replaced "programmer," "systems programmer" became "systems engineer" (working on platforms for the applications engineers).
    - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
      I think that trend has played out slightly differently than you describe. Where I work "systems engineer" is more akin to "system admin."
- tonmoy 10y ago
  I can attest that the NASA definition is the one used in our semiconductor company
- NamTaf 10y ago
  Can confirm, any 'real world' engineering will use the NASA definition. The best way I've found to understand systems engineering is in how my org implements them - a project has a systems engineer and a project manager working alongside each other. They have small overlaps but by and large, the PM is responsible for the non-technical management of the project whereas the SE is responsible for the technical management. This encompasses scope definition, requirements specification, system and subsystem interfaces, testing and verification regimes, etc. etc. They take the intangible requirements of the client and beat them into a robust series of defintiions that outline what the whole raft of pieces that must assemble together to perform that duty must do, and then also confirm it does indeed meet the client needs. Meanwhile, the PM makes sure the team delivers on time, within budget, with the right organisational oversights to confirm processes are followed, quality management is maintained, etc.
xorgar831 10y ago
do you know what software(s) do they use to implement these processes?
- engi_nerd 10y ago
  For smaller projects (say, what an engineer might run and manage by themselves), there's always Microsoft Project. That's the lower level default for making/managing schedules. For much larger projects, or projects of projects (think large engineering systems of systems that take years to design/build/test/deploy), there's all kinds of software available. My company uses Oracle Primavera for this sort of thing. Also, don't forget Excel. Excel is everywhere and used for all sorts of things it probably shouldn't be used for.
  - mch82 10y ago
    Microsoft Project isn't appropriate for Systems Engineering.
    - engi_nerd 10y ago
      You're going to have to explain that one a bit more. For making Gantt charts and the like it's capable enough.
      - mch82 10y ago
        In the handbook, Figure 2.0‐1 "SE in context of overall project management" shows the relationship between systems engineering and project management. While some SE responsibilities overlap with those of project management, the larger set of responsibilities focus on technical work. Microsoft Project isn't intended to be used to define requirements, perform technical trade studies, model and compare alternative system architectures, or configuration manage technical artifacts of the engineering process. Hope that helps to clarify my prior comment. Happy to discuss more.
        engi_nerd 10y ago
oso2k 10y ago
I'm a former NASA Engineer, Systems Engineer, and Project Manager (via JPL). If you're making the assertion that a Systems Engineer exhibits some of the leadership responsibilities as that of a traditional Project Manager, then I'd agree. If not, then I'd recommend you find an expert Systems Engineer (or CogE or Principal Scientist or even your Line Manager) in your field and ask him/her to mentor you. You could be missing much of the experience.

iijj 10y ago

Related: MIT OpenCourseWare's 2005 Aircraft Systems Engineering is a lecture series with many of the Space Shuttle's various lead engineers. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/video-lectures/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-8...

maxxxxx 10y ago
I watched some of them and the people teaching are top notch. I only wish they showed the slides in the video.

mch82 10y ago

I'm curious what the context of the original post is. Is the OP just wanting to share the SE Handbook?

efm 10y ago
Yes. The SE Handbook is about much larger, more complicated, more reliability-driven projects, than are often discussed here.

Animats 10y ago

Now that's waterfall design. Show that to your scrum master. Really. This is a manual for waterfall design of large, complex, one-off or small-quantity systems. Bridges and buildings are designed this way. It's slow, but it works. Errors in the requirements are really expensive to fix.

stephen_g 10y ago
Of course - it's just the nature of the medium. With software you can be be far more agile because you aren't making extremely expensive physical parts that take days to months to re-fabricate or modify every time you want to make a change.

dajohnson89 10y ago

It baffles me how starkly this contrasts with so much of software development in practice.

niroze 10y ago

A great resource for systems engineering. I love this. Source: am systems engineer for complex systems that can't go down and are heavily used by millions... but not as cool as NASA.