Enablers and Inhibitors of Expediting Systems Engineering

Rapid fielding or expedited systems development plays a major role in developing systems to provide a quick response to the organization. Instead of polishing and perfecting all requirements with possible delivery delays, these urgent needs programs must adapt themselves to have a life cycle that is driven by a “Faster, Faster and Faster” concept. Surprisingly, schedule has become more important than cost. Organizations have to fight with the “time to market”, “respond to competitor’s threats”, and “urgent needs”. On one hand, project managers will not only have to find a way to make things work through the expedited lane, but also have to understand what factors are the accelerators and what are hindrances to the system development schedules. On the other hand, they have to ensure that these expedited processes will not lead to technical debt, especially in the areas of future flexibility, degradation of existing capabilities, or rework. This paper will report about the enablers and inhibitors and their estimated impact levels of three types of the expedited systems and software development a) New Single System b) Existing Single System and c) System of Systems. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Georgia Institute of Technology.