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Eye on Integration
The Double Challenge in Engineering Complex Systems of Systems
Traditional software engineering practices were defined when development was largely controlled by organizations that could set relatively stable requirements, build to those requirements, and deliver a system to the customer. More recently, increasingly complex and dynamic customer demands have focused attention on coordinating activities of multiple organizations and systems within an enterprise to perform a number of tasks or deliver tailored responses. This change in focus from a specific delivered system to the need for flexible capabilities is reflected in product lines, families of systems, and other recent advances in software engineering practices.
However, to meet customer expectations with the emerging, complex systems of systems required to support integrated military strategies, homeland security responses, and nationwide health information networks, system developers must meet a double challenge—a governance challenge of collaborating with an increasing number and diversity of enterprises and an agility challenge of providing situation-appropriate responses in changing situations.
In response to the double challenge, the SEI is developing the System-of-Systems Navigator, an integrated set of principles, tools, models, techniques, and improvement cycle activities.