Project delays and overspend make headlines
Another news article brings yet more reports of problems with major engineering projects: delays, cost over-runs and expectations not being delivered. Hinkley Point C is now estimated to cost £46bn with earliest delivery in 2029, £28bn over budget and 4 years late. These recurring themes are frustrating for suppliers and customers alike; with a track record of applying Systems Engineering expertise and capability, SYNOPTIX are positioned to continue helping clients to mitigate adverse effects by identifying and overcoming likely causes before they fester and impact delivery.
Major public-sector projects require high levels of governance and assurance, which are typically audited and reported-on by national auditors. Problems with major projects in the private sector also get reported; with academia studying many with a critical eye to identify lessons learnt. The availability of this information in the public realm and across engineering domains has allowed SYNOPTIX to use our Subject Matter Expert knowledge and thought leadership to correlate effects (both positive and negative) with their causes. The results of this analysis have afforded SYNOPTIX the opportunity to offer clients the benefits of this research and mitigate common risks that are known to negatively impact projects.
System life cycle processes
The benefits of increased Systems Engineering input early in a project lifecycle are well documented, with a correlation linking investment in SE and cost overruns.
Figure 1 - Relation of Systems Engineering Investments to NASA Program Cost Overruns
This paper focusses in more detail around the processes prescribed in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023(E) (“Systems and software engineering — System life cycle processes”). Through establishing a live database of reports in the public domain, projects have been reviewed from a range of countries (United Kingdom, USA and Australia) across the defence, aerospace, rail and space industries. Where effects were not stated explicitly, engineering judgement was used. These results were compiled into a heatmap with the processes arranged as column and row headers of a matrix in the order of ISO/IEC 15288, starting at the top-left of the heatmap.
Using the 15288 processes allows the relations in Technical, Management and Organisation aspects to be reviewed. This provides an enterprise view rather than focussing on a technical bias, highlighting that risks can occur in one process or group, but impact several others when realised.
ISO:15288 Cause & Effect Heatmap
Where to focus our attention?
With the system lifecycle progressing from left to right, it is observed that most effects manifest towards the end of the lifecycle in the Technical Processes. It is also visible that many of the effects are caused by Organisational and Technical Management processes occurring early on or agnostic of the project lifecycle.
Figure 3 - Distribution of Cause & Effects Across the Lifecycle
The distribution of causes is dominated by the Human Resources Management process in the first half of the lifecycle. It is cautioned that this may be viewed as a red herring amidst an industry wide engineering skills shortage that individual companies will struggle to influence directly. Research suggests the following themes for the Human Resource Management issues:
· Difficulty obtaining people with the necessary skills and experience in sufficient numbers, with several projects vying for the same skills.
· Skill loss resulting from discontinuities between projects in an industry, e.g., shipbuilding.
· Discontinuities in project teams, noted as a consistent issue in MoD projects where military and civilian staff are rotated through projects, taking with them their intrinsic knowledge.
· “Rats leaving a sinking ship”, i.e., once a project starts to flounder, people leave and the project’s reputation makes it less attractive.
As might be expected, failure to understand the needs of the project and the needs of stakeholders are also frequently cited as contributory causes. The correct application of early Validation , ensuring the requirements on which the project is built upon reflect the stakeholder needs, is essential to overcome this.
Knowledge Management is another item of note. There is a key difference between identifying lessons to be learned(lessons-Identified) and correctly applying these in the future. Lessons-identified are only useful if they are reviewed and truly learned from, which experience suggests to SYNOPTIX is not always the case. This is a lesson to be learned in its own right!
How can you overcome these issues?
So, what insight can we take from this? Getting things right and getting them right as early as possible is key. Keeping things right, through the continuous application of processes in ISO/IEC 15288 is essential.
It should be cautioned that these findings do not provide a boiler plate solution to any company, but do highlight common pitfalls to investigate further. Applying the methodology of this study to individual companies and reviews of their own projects, enables SYNOPTIX to provide bespoke and targeted assistance to develop successful process improvements and mitigate risk.
Applied to a single project, the relationships we have uncovered can provide early warning of future hot spots. These findings can also contribute to Organisation improvement. The application of systems thinking across Engineering, Project Management and Commercial functions provides a holistic view of the effects organisational planning and strategy have on projects, translating the processes of ISO 15288 into relatable and familiar narratives for stakeholders.
SYNOPTIX has the expertise to provide capability in client projects and Organisations through a range of techniques and experience developed specifically to mitigate problems by attacking nascent causes. We offer effective technical planning, monitoring and control alongside project management as part of projects, directly or in the form of oversight. At an organisational level we also have experience in defining and implementing Lifecycle Models to improve engineering delivery.
Where Resource is an issue, SYNOPTIX can supply personnel across a wide range of skills and domains. This ranges from insertion of a Subject Matter Expert to resolve a critical isolated issue, to managing wider work packages as a trusted partner. SYNOPTIX has the confidence in our people to underwrite the work you entrust to us – we can take on responsibility of delivery as a company rather than relying on individuals.
By facilitating workshops to identify the needs of the project and stakeholders, SYNOPTIX can give projects the best possible basis on which to build. Through experience, focussing on the key areas of risk allows the provision of tailored approaches and support to ensure project success.
SYNOPTIX also has a pedigree working with academia to develop ‘smart’ knowledge-management tools to continue extracting the maximum possible value from information that would have been costly to develop and difficult to exploit using contemporary toolsets.
Another key mitigation we have observed in recent years is the application of a model-based approach. Leveraging the advantages of SYNOPTIX’s expertise in Model-Based Systems Engineering can help clients move from a document-centric approach (where information is not always consistent across documents or lags the design) to an integrated “single source of truth”, informing decisions and improving planning of downstream activities such as testing.
By Hugh Neve
Setting up for Success: An ISO 15288 Perspective
Project delays and overspend make headlines
Another news article brings yet more reports of problems with major engineering projects: delays, cost over-runs and expectations not being delivered. Hinkley Point C is now estimated to cost £46bn with earliest delivery in 2029, £28bn over budget and 4 years late. These recurring themes are frustrating for suppliers and customers alike; with a track record of applying Systems Engineering expertise and capability, SYNOPTIX are positioned to continue helping clients to mitigate adverse effects by identifying and overcoming likely causes before they fester and impact delivery.
Major public-sector projects require high levels of governance and assurance, which are typically audited and reported-on by national auditors. Problems with major projects in the private sector also get reported; with academia studying many with a critical eye to identify lessons learnt. The availability of this information in the public realm and across engineering domains has allowed SYNOPTIX to use our Subject Matter Expert knowledge and thought leadership to correlate effects (both positive and negative) with their causes. The results of this analysis have afforded SYNOPTIX the opportunity to offer clients the benefits of this research and mitigate common risks that are known to negatively impact projects.
System life cycle processes
The benefits of increased Systems Engineering input early in a project lifecycle are well documented, with a correlation linking investment in SE and cost overruns.
Figure 1 - Relation of Systems Engineering Investments to NASA Program Cost Overruns
This paper focusses in more detail around the processes prescribed in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023(E) (“Systems and software engineering — System life cycle processes”). Through establishing a live database of reports in the public domain, projects have been reviewed from a range of countries (United Kingdom, USA and Australia) across the defence, aerospace, rail and space industries. Where effects were not stated explicitly, engineering judgement was used. These results were compiled into a heatmap with the processes arranged as column and row headers of a matrix in the order of ISO/IEC 15288, starting at the top-left of the heatmap.
Using the 15288 processes allows the relations in Technical, Management and Organisation aspects to be reviewed. This provides an enterprise view rather than focussing on a technical bias, highlighting that risks can occur in one process or group, but impact several others when realised.
ISO:15288 Cause & Effect Heatmap
Where to focus our attention?
With the system lifecycle progressing from left to right, it is observed that most effects manifest towards the end of the lifecycle in the Technical Processes. It is also visible that many of the effects are caused by Organisational and Technical Management processes occurring early on or agnostic of the project lifecycle.
Figure 3 - Distribution of Cause & Effects Across the Lifecycle
The distribution of causes is dominated by the Human Resources Management process in the first half of the lifecycle. It is cautioned that this may be viewed as a red herring amidst an industry wide engineering skills shortage that individual companies will struggle to influence directly. Research suggests the following themes for the Human Resource Management issues:
· Difficulty obtaining people with the necessary skills and experience in sufficient numbers, with several projects vying for the same skills.
· Skill loss resulting from discontinuities between projects in an industry, e.g., shipbuilding.
· Discontinuities in project teams, noted as a consistent issue in MoD projects where military and civilian staff are rotated through projects, taking with them their intrinsic knowledge.
· “Rats leaving a sinking ship”, i.e., once a project starts to flounder, people leave and the project’s reputation makes it less attractive.
As might be expected, failure to understand the needs of the project and the needs of stakeholders are also frequently cited as contributory causes. The correct application of early Validation , ensuring the requirements on which the project is built upon reflect the stakeholder needs, is essential to overcome this.
Knowledge Management is another item of note. There is a key difference between identifying lessons to be learned(lessons-Identified) and correctly applying these in the future. Lessons-identified are only useful if they are reviewed and truly learned from, which experience suggests to SYNOPTIX is not always the case. This is a lesson to be learned in its own right!
How can you overcome these issues?
So, what insight can we take from this? Getting things right and getting them right as early as possible is key. Keeping things right, through the continuous application of processes in ISO/IEC 15288 is essential.
It should be cautioned that these findings do not provide a boiler plate solution to any company, but do highlight common pitfalls to investigate further. Applying the methodology of this study to individual companies and reviews of their own projects, enables SYNOPTIX to provide bespoke and targeted assistance to develop successful process improvements and mitigate risk.
Applied to a single project, the relationships we have uncovered can provide early warning of future hot spots. These findings can also contribute to Organisation improvement. The application of systems thinking across Engineering, Project Management and Commercial functions provides a holistic view of the effects organisational planning and strategy have on projects, translating the processes of ISO 15288 into relatable and familiar narratives for stakeholders.
SYNOPTIX has the expertise to provide capability in client projects and Organisations through a range of techniques and experience developed specifically to mitigate problems by attacking nascent causes. We offer effective technical planning, monitoring and control alongside project management as part of projects, directly or in the form of oversight. At an organisational level we also have experience in defining and implementing Lifecycle Models to improve engineering delivery.
Where Resource is an issue, SYNOPTIX can supply personnel across a wide range of skills and domains. This ranges from insertion of a Subject Matter Expert to resolve a critical isolated issue, to managing wider work packages as a trusted partner. SYNOPTIX has the confidence in our people to underwrite the work you entrust to us – we can take on responsibility of delivery as a company rather than relying on individuals.
By facilitating workshops to identify the needs of the project and stakeholders, SYNOPTIX can give projects the best possible basis on which to build. Through experience, focussing on the key areas of risk allows the provision of tailored approaches and support to ensure project success.
SYNOPTIX also has a pedigree working with academia to develop ‘smart’ knowledge-management tools to continue extracting the maximum possible value from information that would have been costly to develop and difficult to exploit using contemporary toolsets.
Another key mitigation we have observed in recent years is the application of a model-based approach. Leveraging the advantages of SYNOPTIX’s expertise in Model-Based Systems Engineering can help clients move from a document-centric approach (where information is not always consistent across documents or lags the design) to an integrated “single source of truth”, informing decisions and improving planning of downstream activities such as testing.
By Hugh Neve
Setting up for Success: An ISO 15288 Perspective
Project delays and overspend make headlines
Another news article brings yet more reports of problems with major engineering projects: delays, cost over-runs and expectations not being delivered. Hinkley Point C is now estimated to cost £46bn with earliest delivery in 2029, £28bn over budget and 4 years late. These recurring themes are frustrating for suppliers and customers alike; with a track record of applying Systems Engineering expertise and capability, SYNOPTIX are positioned to continue helping clients to mitigate adverse effects by identifying and overcoming likely causes before they fester and impact delivery.
Major public-sector projects require high levels of governance and assurance, which are typically audited and reported-on by national auditors. Problems with major projects in the private sector also get reported; with academia studying many with a critical eye to identify lessons learnt. The availability of this information in the public realm and across engineering domains has allowed SYNOPTIX to use our Subject Matter Expert knowledge and thought leadership to correlate effects (both positive and negative) with their causes. The results of this analysis have afforded SYNOPTIX the opportunity to offer clients the benefits of this research and mitigate common risks that are known to negatively impact projects.
System life cycle processes
The benefits of increased Systems Engineering input early in a project lifecycle are well documented, with a correlation linking investment in SE and cost overruns.
Figure 1 - Relation of Systems Engineering Investments to NASA Program Cost Overruns
This paper focusses in more detail around the processes prescribed in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023(E) (“Systems and software engineering — System life cycle processes”). Through establishing a live database of reports in the public domain, projects have been reviewed from a range of countries (United Kingdom, USA and Australia) across the defence, aerospace, rail and space industries. Where effects were not stated explicitly, engineering judgement was used. These results were compiled into a heatmap with the processes arranged as column and row headers of a matrix in the order of ISO/IEC 15288, starting at the top-left of the heatmap.
Using the 15288 processes allows the relations in Technical, Management and Organisation aspects to be reviewed. This provides an enterprise view rather than focussing on a technical bias, highlighting that risks can occur in one process or group, but impact several others when realised.
ISO:15288 Cause & Effect Heatmap
Where to focus our attention?
With the system lifecycle progressing from left to right, it is observed that most effects manifest towards the end of the lifecycle in the Technical Processes. It is also visible that many of the effects are caused by Organisational and Technical Management processes occurring early on or agnostic of the project lifecycle.
Figure 3 - Distribution of Cause & Effects Across the Lifecycle
The distribution of causes is dominated by the Human Resources Management process in the first half of the lifecycle. It is cautioned that this may be viewed as a red herring amidst an industry wide engineering skills shortage that individual companies will struggle to influence directly. Research suggests the following themes for the Human Resource Management issues:
· Difficulty obtaining people with the necessary skills and experience in sufficient numbers, with several projects vying for the same skills.
· Skill loss resulting from discontinuities between projects in an industry, e.g., shipbuilding.
· Discontinuities in project teams, noted as a consistent issue in MoD projects where military and civilian staff are rotated through projects, taking with them their intrinsic knowledge.
· “Rats leaving a sinking ship”, i.e., once a project starts to flounder, people leave and the project’s reputation makes it less attractive.
As might be expected, failure to understand the needs of the project and the needs of stakeholders are also frequently cited as contributory causes. The correct application of early Validation , ensuring the requirements on which the project is built upon reflect the stakeholder needs, is essential to overcome this.
Knowledge Management is another item of note. There is a key difference between identifying lessons to be learned(lessons-Identified) and correctly applying these in the future. Lessons-identified are only useful if they are reviewed and truly learned from, which experience suggests to SYNOPTIX is not always the case. This is a lesson to be learned in its own right!
How can you overcome these issues?
So, what insight can we take from this? Getting things right and getting them right as early as possible is key. Keeping things right, through the continuous application of processes in ISO/IEC 15288 is essential.
It should be cautioned that these findings do not provide a boiler plate solution to any company, but do highlight common pitfalls to investigate further. Applying the methodology of this study to individual companies and reviews of their own projects, enables SYNOPTIX to provide bespoke and targeted assistance to develop successful process improvements and mitigate risk.
Applied to a single project, the relationships we have uncovered can provide early warning of future hot spots. These findings can also contribute to Organisation improvement. The application of systems thinking across Engineering, Project Management and Commercial functions provides a holistic view of the effects organisational planning and strategy have on projects, translating the processes of ISO 15288 into relatable and familiar narratives for stakeholders.
SYNOPTIX has the expertise to provide capability in client projects and Organisations through a range of techniques and experience developed specifically to mitigate problems by attacking nascent causes. We offer effective technical planning, monitoring and control alongside project management as part of projects, directly or in the form of oversight. At an organisational level we also have experience in defining and implementing Lifecycle Models to improve engineering delivery.
Where Resource is an issue, SYNOPTIX can supply personnel across a wide range of skills and domains. This ranges from insertion of a Subject Matter Expert to resolve a critical isolated issue, to managing wider work packages as a trusted partner. SYNOPTIX has the confidence in our people to underwrite the work you entrust to us – we can take on responsibility of delivery as a company rather than relying on individuals.
By facilitating workshops to identify the needs of the project and stakeholders, SYNOPTIX can give projects the best possible basis on which to build. Through experience, focussing on the key areas of risk allows the provision of tailored approaches and support to ensure project success.
SYNOPTIX also has a pedigree working with academia to develop ‘smart’ knowledge-management tools to continue extracting the maximum possible value from information that would have been costly to develop and difficult to exploit using contemporary toolsets.
Another key mitigation we have observed in recent years is the application of a model-based approach. Leveraging the advantages of SYNOPTIX’s expertise in Model-Based Systems Engineering can help clients move from a document-centric approach (where information is not always consistent across documents or lags the design) to an integrated “single source of truth”, informing decisions and improving planning of downstream activities such as testing.
By Hugh Neve
