Systems Engineering, MBSE & SAFe Workshop

Though Agile methods have been considered viable for System Engineering programs and projects for some time, the role of the System Engineer, and the effective use of Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) in an iterative, Agile context, has been a quandary. The growing adoption of the Department of Defense’s Digital Engineering Strategy is accelerating the pace at which these worlds come together as it stipulates leveraging digital artifacts, like MBSE, to:

• Inform decision making
• Centralize a source of truth
• Incorporate technology to improve engineering outcomes
• Improve collaboration
• Transform culture across the engineering lifecycle

Attaining the most value from these strategic goals requires that they are adopted within a lean/agile environment that values fast feedback/learning on a synchronized cadence.

This workshop explores a practice that has proven successful in real world applications. Using a hands-on simulation throughout the course, Systems Engineers and Architects incrementally construct a system specification using MBSE techniques that define system context, behavioral response to stimulus, structural design and interfaces. This model, which will evolve on a synchronized (often 3-month) cadence, is used to:

• Ensure architectural integrity and runway of the system
• Identify and prepare for integrations to other systems
• Elicit functionality to be decomposed and developed in an agile manner over the next increment

This workshop teaches the mechanics of running a system specification workshop and how to perform them as part of a cadence. 321 Gang incorporates the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) as the Agile context.