Together, the SERC's government sponsors and the SERC's executive management team have developed a strategy to ensure the research conducted by the SERC is focused and relevant to DoD mission success.  That strategy, published here, will guide the selection of Technical Task Orders.  It will be revisited annually for "tuning", but is expected to largely persist over the next several years as the beacon for SERC research direction.

1. Enterprise Responsiveness
2. Systems Science and Complexity
3. Systems Engineering Workforce
4. Program Management and SE Intregration
5. Life Cycle SE Processes

Explore advancements in Systems Engineering (SE) methods, processes, and tools that are responsive to enterprise strategic and program-level needs, enabling agility and responsiveness to change during program conceptualization and execution as well as strategic choice and assessment.

Elaboration:  Systems Engineering should focus on conceptualizing a solution to be agile (to respond to requirements change over time) and responsive (to deliver near term capabilities e.g. incremental, 70% solutions).  Systems Engineering should also be able to support cross-system, and enterprise decisions, assessing those needs and the resulting changes and impacts that occur.  

• Collaboration. Research how to use innovative collaborative technologies (i.e., Web 2.0, virtual environments, social networking, etc.) to dramatically improve how well, how quickly, and how cheaply systems engineering is performed, especially for teams that are geographically, culturally, and linguistically diverse.

• Modeling and Simulation. Research how to more rapidly and easily develop modeling and simulation tools that help validate concepts of operation, architectures, and other key systems engineering artifacts.

• Resilient Program.  Research how to architect and implement a program that is resilient in the face of a wide range of potentially harmful changes, such as budget cuts, requirements turbulence, failure of needed technology maturation, and program redirection.

• Resilient System. Research how to architect and implement a system that is resilient in the face of a wide range of threats, both cyber and physical.

• Producibility.  Research how to dramatically decrease the amount of effort required for implementing new software-intensive systems through large-scale reuse opportunities, relying on such techniques as service oriented architectures, mashups, and product families.

• Artifact Optimization.  Research how to reduce the amount and size of Systems Engineering artifacts, e.g., determining the minimal number of architectural views required, how detailed and rigorous they should be, and how to capture them as quickly and easily as possible.

• Strategic Assessment. Research improved process models and decision criteria for better Systems Engineering support of strategic and enterprise decisions.

PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES:

Survey of Agile Systems Engineering Methods, Practices and Tools

Advance systems science and systems thinking for application to engineering and management of complex systems and capabilities.

Elaboration: Systems Engineering must support systems engineering and management of complex systems, system of systems, software-focused, and network-centric (to include comprehensive SE across a large enterprise that could include multiple types of developments).

Advance systems science and systems thinking as applied to the DoD’s and intelligence communities broad landscape of systems problems (complex systems)

• Composition. Research how to determine key properties of a system (assurance, scalability, availability, producibility, interoperability, lethality, resilience,  …) when (a) the properties of its subsystems are known, (b) the system architecture that links those subsystems is known, and (c) the concept of operations (use cases, scenarios, …) for the overall system is known.

• Emergence. Research how to manage emergence in requirements, technology, and system usage in a way that is beneficial or benign rather than disruptive to development and acquisition programs; and how to detect, shape, and possibly mitigate emergent properties and behaviors.
  System Conceptualization. Research approaches to better visualize and define system concepts that enable collaboration among multiple stakeholders.

• Holistic SE. Investigate systems thinking methodology and its application to DoD and intelligence community enterprise and capabilities planning.

• Validation.  Research how to improve the early and continual validation of complex systems.

• Transformation. Take systems engineering and systems thinking methods, processes and tools that are applied to critical contemporary issues outside the DoD and intelligence community domains (such as creating a more cost effective health care system for the U.S. general population) and transform them so as to be directly applicable to problems in the DoD and intelligence community domains.

Explore future SE workforce competencies and research approaches to cultivate, educate, and prepare for future SE practices and technologies.

Elaboration:  As systems engineering research evolves the practice, we must update our understanding of what competencies systems engineer's must have, considering the nature of the environment, system types, and changes in Systems Engineering Methods, Processes and Tools (MPTs).  Given these future competency needs and shortages, we must find ways to increase availability of trained Systems Engineering personnel.

• Collaboration and Education. Research how to use innovative collaborative technologies (i.e., Web 2.0, virtual environments, social networking, etc.) to dramatically improve speed, effectiveness and efficiency of systems engineering education - especially for teams that are geographically, and culturally diverse or for whom educational opportunities are limited.

• Acceleration. Research how to accelerate the growth of the systems engineering workforce (including those who specialize in systems architecture, systems integration, and software engineering) for DoD, Intelligence Community and their contractors.

• Dispersion.  Research how to improve communication and understanding of Systems Engineering concepts and technical information to non-Systems Engineering personnel, such as senior leaders, program managers, and financial managers.

• Staffing.  Research how to staff a program with the right mix of systems engineering skills as a function of program type, size, complexity, risk profile, and other system and system acquisition characteristics.

Research the alignment, promotion and integration of Systems Engineering methods, processes, and tools with program execution activities.

Elaboration:  Systems Engineering is only effective if it is used.  We must find ways to integrate systems engineering practices within all aspects of program management to include political issues, cost issues, all other PM tools.  Once we do this, we must then communicate the effectiveness of Systems Engineering to leadership and program managers so that there will be increased usage of Systems Engineering.

• Systems Engineering Effectiveness. Research Systems Engineering program execution performance, return on investment, and metrics to provide demonstrated value of Systems Engineering within and outside the Systems Engineering community.

• Value.  Determine how much Systems Engineering is appropriate in specific circumstances to help ensure that the right amount of resources is available with the right skills.

• Economics.  Research how to better estimate systems engineering cost and schedule for complex programs and complex systems as a function of type, scope, uncertainty, risk, and other characteristics.

• Assessment. Research improved process models and decision criteria for better Systems Engineering support of management decisions across all life cycle phases.

• Maturity and Readiness.  Research how to quantitatively assess the maturity of Systems Engineering artifacts, including the concept of operations, architecture, requirements, and components scheduled for integration and test.  Be able to inform technical, management, governance, and investment decisions using that assessment.

• Systems Engineering Communication/Interaction.  Research how to better stimulate and support effective distributed team performance among Systems Engineers and the other stakeholders, including users and specialty engineers.

• System of Systems, Network-Centric Services, and Enterprises.  Research how to manage the Systems Engineering of a system of systems, a network-centric service, or an enterprise system where there is typically no single “owner” for all the components (systems and/or services), components emerge and disappear dynamically, behavioral complexity exceeds current analysis techniques, and components often have conflicting decision rights, acquisition strategies, interfaces, and other characteristics.  Often, those in charge of the system of systems, network-centric service, or enterprise system lack authority over some or all of the component elements.

• Services.  Research how to effectively manage the acquisition and development of a service as a function of type, scope and complexity, uncertainty, risk, and other characteristics.

Advance system engineering life cycle processes (as defined in the Defense Acquisition Guidebook Chapter 4, Systems Engineering) to meet DoD and intelligence community needs (weapons, system of systems, cyber, net-centric services)

Elaboration:  Perform research within and across the fundamental systems engineering technical and technical management processes to mature and/or enhance them.  Explore evolution of these fundamentals to approach modern day considerations such as security, information age tools, and lean principles.
Thrusts with Exemplary Focus Areas

• Life cycle models. Research the best life cycle models for the Systems Engineering of a system of systems, a network-centric service, or an enterprise system where there is typically no single “owner” for all the component systems, components emerge and disappear dynamically, behavioral complexity exceeds current analysis techniques, and components often have conflicting decision rights, acquisition strategies, interfaces, and other characteristics.  Often, those in charge of the system of systems, network-centric service, or enterprise system lack authority over some or all of the component elements.

• Balance. Research Systems Engineering life cycle models for the acquisition and development of a capability which begins as a quick response built using agile methods and then evolves into a system that is deployed on a larger-scale with radically different maintainability, availability, and similar attributes.

• Architecting.  Research how to create architectures that demonstrably and quantifiably support key system properties such as assurance, scalability, availability, producibility, interoperability, lethality, and resilience, and how to derive architectural component characteristics and constraints from desired system properties.

• Landscape.  Create a landscape of Systems Engineering Methods, processes and tools with respect to key characteristics such as their maturity (e.g., proven on large systems developments or just piloted on a few small projects), the types of systems to which they are best applied (e.g., network-centric vs. embedded or enterprise vs. platform), and their value in actual application (e.g., demonstrably reduced defects in fielded system over historical norms). Use insights from this landscape to help guide where Systems Engineering Methods, processes and tools research is needed.