Systems Engineering Management Plan – INCOSE – SAN DIEGO

What is a Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP)?

Excerpt from AcqNotes, A Simple Source of DoD Acquisition Knowledge for the Aerospace Industry:

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A Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) is a document that addresses a contractors overall systems engineering management approach. It provides unique insight into the application of a contractor’s standards, capability models, configuration management, and toolsets to their organization. This is different from a Systems Engineering Plan (SEP) which should address SE aspects on a particular program or project. The SEMP is usually written in response to a government SEP and shall describe a contractor’s proposed efforts for planning, controlling and conducting a fully integrated engineering effort.

Data Item Description – System Engineering Management Plan (SEMP)

The SEMP shall include the following:

• Cover/title page
• Document history
• Table of contents
• An introduction that includes the document’s purpose, suggested audience, and list of key terms
• An executive summary of the document’s content
• An overview of the proposed SE approach. See below
• A Contractors SEMP should address the following:

1. Organization of the development team, along with their physical location and facilities needs
2. Technical environments for a project and how they will be managed. It should also discuss the interaction with the pre-production and production environments.
3. Description of the evaluation and decision-making process to be used when resolving technical questions
4. System Engineering Methodology:
   • Configuration Management: Include a description of how project configuration items (e.g. source code) will be managed.
   • Requirements Verification and Validation: Include a description of how the Use Cases will be clarified and expanded, requirements validated, and updated requirements reviewed and approved by the project office.
   • The Architecture and Design Process (both logical and physical design), including how issues will be discussed and resolved.
   • The software development methodology to be used that reflects the requirements (for iterative builds and incremental releases).
   • The hardware development and configuration methodology to be used that reflects the requirements (for iterative builds and incremental releases).
   • The build management process used to create and manage builds.
   • The testing process to be used that encompasses the requirements.
5. Description of how external interfaces will be developed and managed.
6. Description of how data conversion development will be performed and managed.
7. Implementation Planning to include a description of how you will manage the deployment of system functionality, the training required for both end-users and technical staff, the coordination/communication needed to prepare the target environments.
8. Production Support strategy
9. A description of how production support will be done concurrently with development, given the incremental release requirements for the project.

Here’s a great presentation on the “Systems Engineering Plan and Systems Engineering Management Plan Alignment” from the NDIA 11th Annual Systems Engineering Conference.