Systems engineering with agile requirements
Agility is now increasingly being used in systems engineering. Requirements play an important role here, as they are the link between the customer and the product. Agile requirements management ensures that the customer recognizes early and continuously whether the product meets the requirements. With complex systems, we inevitably need several levels. This is where the Scaled Agile Framework
This article summarizes Frankco Curtolo's findings on agile requirements, which he published in 2018 as part of his activities at INCOSE.
There is no need for me to repeat here why Systems Engineers for agile methods interest: Due to increasing complexity, greater competition and new technologies, developers need to shorten the length of iterations. This helps to obtain feedback earlier and react better to changes.
Requirements management and agile project management
In his INCOSE article Requirements Management applied in an agile project management environment (PDF) Franco Curtolo examines how well SAFe can be applied to requirements management in systems engineering. SAFe actually aims to support the transformation of organizations. SAFe is based on three pillars: Agile development, systems thinking and lean management. In this respect, such an investigation is justified.
Requirements management has a high priority in systems engineering, as the requirements represent the bridge to the customer (and other stakeholders). The V-model assumes a decomposition of requirements (left arm). SAFe has a model-based view here and records requirements in epics, capabilities, features and stories. This view helps to realize a decomposition focused on the customer benefit.
SAFe also gives us a more differentiated view of development cycles. While classic systems engineering is characterized by long iterations and Quality Gates SAFe distinguishes between Agile Release Train (ART), Program Increment (PI) and Iteration. This also helps to react as quickly as possible at the various levels, again with a view to customer benefit.
Added value of agile requirements
The approach examined by Franco Curtolo, i.e. the use of SAFe for requirements management in systems engineering, has several advantages: Firstly, many activities can be carried out continuously and in parallel. These include continuous exploration, continuous integration and continuous deployment. Releases are published when necessary (on demand).
Even without a release, the procedure described here enables early and frequent feedback to be obtained from the customer (and other stakeholders). This reduces development risks and ensures the effective use of available resources. An important stakeholder is the regulatory authority, which should also be brought on board at an early stage to avoid unpleasant surprises during acceptance.
And finally, this approach creates more room for innovation, as there is more scope for alternative solutions, especially in the lower elements.
Conclusion
Agility in requirements management has many advantages. Franco Curtolo's approach is particularly interesting for organizations that already use SAFe. After all, they only need to expand the existing framework for product development. But even if there is already a different approach, individual tactics can be adopted.
The question often arises as to how well these approaches are also suitable for hardware. However, in systems engineering we rarely encounter pure hardware projects. As a rule, we are dealing with a hardware-software network. Here it helps to approach the overall system with an agile mindset (systems thinking). Even if agile methods are better suited to software development, the approach described is also relevant for the overall system.
Finally, I would like to close with two quotes from the article, the first from Edward V. Berard:
Walking on water and developing software based on a specification are both easy - when they are frozen
Edward V. Berard
SAFe and Lean are the answer:
That's true, but we don't need to freeze the lake all at once. The area for the next step is sufficient
SAFe & Lean
Photo by Elisa Clairet on Unsplash
