Week 2 Discussion – Question #2 

As the demand for systems and applications continue to grow, organizations are striving to get things correct the first time as barriers are high and alternatives are plentiful.  Review the elements systems engineering discussed in Chapter 2 and select the most critical element and one you see commonly overlooked.

Use only as example!

Example:

Hello class,

I hope this week finds you all doing well. This week we are discussing the elements of system engineering. I will admit I have not delved into the systems engineering process in my previous studies too extensively before this course. From my previous life experiences though I would have to be one of the more critical steps that is often overlooked would be the process of investigating alternative solutions (Jacobs, 2015). I know it sounds like this should be something done all of the time, but I know from what little project experience I do have people tend to focus in on one main plan and not want to budge. Meanwhile an alternative solution could make the system implementation go much smoother, or there are more cost effective options available to the team. In reality this task is paired with another in our reading which seems to walk hand in hand and that is modeling the system (Jacobs, 2015). By modeling the system the systems engineers can lay out a roadmap of the system, and see where potential alternatives may be helpful.

By investigating alternative systems, and modeling each one the systems engineers can lay out each of the models and see the value of each in different functionality areas, as well as lay out the cost of the individual models, and performance based information. This side by side comparison of alternatives will allow the management to decide which option is the best fit overall and thus save time in the long run by not having to continuously go back to the drawing board as they say. In the words of this week’s reading exploring the alternatives will help examine the performance, cost-benefit, and trade-off analysis for each of the alternative designs (Jacobs, 2015). I thought the reading from this week was extremely interesting, and I am working a bit ahead because of my operational requirements while deployed, but I look forward to reading what you all have to say about the reading. Best of luck to you all.

Mike

References

Jacobs, S. (2015). Engineering information security: The application of systems engineering concepts to achieve information assurance. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.