Recently I have had email and physical discussions on the merit (or lack of from some perspectives) of Agile Project Management in developing embedded products.  I think the discussion is more about what is the correct tool for the job at hand.  I have been part of agile managed projects that have delivered wonderfully.  In […]

The customer is the receiver of the output; the customer can be an internal end customer or an intermediary to the next “chain” of events on the way to the final customer. Ultimately, we are aligning our actions (Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, and Outputs) in a way that provides the biggest benefits for our final customer. […]

To go on further with the output discussion, we need to make sure we have an understanding of indicators.  Indicators inform us what is going on. My stomach growling is a pretty good indicator that I am hungry, and sweating while mowing the lawn is a good indicator I will need a refreshing beverage upon […]

How do we know when our output is successful?  Well, when the customer takes acquisition can be the first tangible evidence for many organizations the output is “good”.  So we know what we mean by good, I provide a brief list: capabilities of the output can be deployed suitable quality (Key Product Characteristics are met) […]

Our organization’s structure can confound what constitutes and output.  Consider the company that is structured as a “functional” organization, the output from one group will typically go to another group in the system.  This organization structure is sometimes referred to as “silo” since each part of the company, group or department is segregated by expertise.  This has […]

Each process produces some sort of, at least intermediate output. The ultimate output will be the resultant of the series of inputs, processes and outputs, and will be directed toward the ultimate end customer. Therefore the ultimate output capability is the collection of all of the inputs and processes of the systems of the organization. […]

The process refers to the actions or activities we will take to achieve our objectives.  This link to specific objectives is essentially the rationale for the process. In our previous example, the Systems Engineering group may have requirements elicitation activities as well as concept generation and critique actions culminating in system requirements specifications.  These various […]

When we write about input, we are discussing the nature of the exchange to the depending group. The Systems Engineers, in our previous example, need some input from the Marketing staff to be able to design something to achieve the marketing personnel objective and subsequently meet the customer’s need.  What is that input? For example, […]

The next few blogs will be further elaborating on the systems concept of SIPOC.  Upon completion of the characters or phases in the systems thinking and chain of events (SIPOC itself), we will illustrate how we can use these to improve our organization’s capability. This post will treat “suppliers”. We are not referring to drug […]

            We strongly recommend automated testing whenever this approach is feasible. The test team can use a language designed for this kind of testing; for example, the National Instruments product Labview. The software should be able to read in the documented test cases, execute the test cases against the product, and finish by producing a […]