Systems Contextualisation

Class Description

Date:  17 February 2025

Duration:  1 Day

Location:  Munich, Germany

Click to view: Structured Context Analysis_Daily Schedule

PREREQUISITES FOR THIS COURSE:

• A basic understanding of what a system is and what it is that makes it different from a simple product.
• An idea of what makes the concept of complexity so important for Systems Engineering.
• Some experience in developing a system.

Optional

• The 3-day SE-Training Systems Engineering Foundations Course

This 1 day course covers the WHY, WHAT and HOW of Structured Context Analysis:

• Understanding the WHY: Effective Context Analysis helps you to develop a robust definition of your challenge. It allows to identify and engage with the stakeholders, and to discuss your understanding with them.
• Explaining the WHAT: Context Analysis yields all the necessary understanding for a clean start. It provides the basis for the dustomer requirements and for a fact based impact and risk analysis of your concept and external change.
• Introducing one HOW: The Methodology has been development in response to challenges from various industries:

1. Your challenge is taken as a strict black box. Defining its boundary is the objective of the process.
2. Everything outside that boundary is context and might be subject to change over the project lifecycle.
3. We make a lot of assumptions that must be made explicit as they can bring „deadly“ risks to your projects.
4. In most project, multiple sets of context elements are applicable – they must be identified and addressed.
5. The Elements are clearly defined in their role for the challenge. Each type of stakeholder has well established relationships to the system under development and can thus provide the corresponding information.
6. Relationships are also clearly defined making it easy to check the resulting context model for consistency.
7. All information gathered during the process is recorded in specialised registers and therefore ready to be used
   or referenced in the architecture model of the system that will successfully realise the solution to the challenge.

We will start from a shared understanding of what a system actually is, why complexity must only exist in its context
and how this mandates a structured approach.

The best way to learn this, it to actively develop a Structured Context Model – one could argue, its architectures – in a
team with plenty of time for discussing challenge, methodology, and its application to your own practical problems.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• A clear understanding of what makes developing the right behaviour of a system so challenging.
• Your role in helping the customer to better define the challenge – a major value you can bring to the project!
• A solid grasp of the importance of boundaries, how to agree them and assign responsibility correctly.
• Why a robust model of your understanding is a more resilient approach to framing your challenge.
• How to structure your context analysis of a complex challenge to provide a sound basis for development.
• The importance of separating fact from (implicit) assumptions.
• How to correctly scope a project, get this agreed with the customer, and thus ground your relationship them.
• A “black-belt” in the art of “black-boxing”.(and why “white-washing” them is a terrible idea!)
• The important knowledge that structuring facts aids discussions with stakeholders, in particular the customer.
• The even more important understanding of how context elements relate to the challenge and to each other.
• The logic of external jnterfaces – and how to avoid the need for most of them.
• The importance of defining variants and agreeing them with the customer.
• How to derive the customer requirements from the process – and thus keeping it alive through the project.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Systems Engineers  |  Junior Engineers  |  Systems Analysts |  Systems Architects

COURSE PRESENTER

Marco Di Maio