Part 1/3
Hi,
Many of you are familiar with the alliance between the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) and the Project Management Institute (PMI) thanks to my colleague Ralph Young’s excellent series of articles. He and I both believe the harmonious interaction of these two domains is critical, not only to individual projects and programs, but even to the fabric of society.
I’m currently the Point of Contact representing INCOSE on the alliance, and we are fortunate to have Stephen Townsend as the representative from PMI. Together we work to connect the two organizations and support the message of integration between them.
Here’s a little background on the alliance:
In 2010, John Thomas, INCOSE President Elect, met with leaders at the Project Management Institute. John’s observation of life at Booz-Allen was that the U.S. government market was increasingly asking for systems engineering services or program management services, but very rarely were they asking for both. He shared with PMI management that the two organizations must somehow be doing a disservice, since clients felt the need for one or the other rather than understanding that the real goal has always been an integrated PM-SE team.
A Strategic Alliance Agreement between INCOSE and PMI was signed on 15th Feb 2011 by the respective Presidents, Samantha Brown and Mark Langley. A joint INCOSE-PMI white paper was published in September 2011 entitled “Toward a New Mindset : Bridging the Gap between Program Management and Systems Engineering” by Mark Langley, PMI President and Chief Executive, Samantha Robitaille-Brown, INCOSE President and John Thomas, INCOSE President Elect in both INSIGHT and PM Network.
Research on PM-SE integration was performed for the alliance by MIT, and two very successful publications emerged. The Guide to Lean Enablers for Managing Engineering Programs brought work from the INCOSE Lean Working Group to market and went on to win the prestigious 2013 Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence. The 2017 book Integrating PM and SE is in the second printing. Thanks to the marketing horsepower of the PMI, well over 100,000 PMs and SEs worldwide have been exposed to the integration message.
In 2017, INCOSE officially chartered the PM-SE Working Group, giving a recognized home to the general pursuit of PM and SE integration effort. This action freed the alliance from carrying both an INCOSE – PMI organizational relationship responsibility and one of representing all SE and all PM interested in better integration regardless of societal allegiance. Today, each has a discrete channel and can work more effectively towards meeting INCOSE’s Vision 2025 goals.
Here’s what we are doing right now:
INCOSE and PMI are in the process of renewing the alliance agreement, so Stephen, myself and others will meet during the INCOSE International Workshop (IW) in Torrance California to review and converge on final language.
We will retain reciprocal attendance at each other’s events and the general framework of interaction; the only significant change will be a sharp focus towards communicating the message rather than our previous mission of capturing and publishing research. There is always more to study, but we now have compelling evidence of the profound inefficiency created by poor PM and SE integration, along with a sound recipe for preventing / correcting the problem.
During 2019, the emphasis will be on reaching key decision makers – those who set policy and others with the ability drive changes in behavior across large groups rather than simply individuals. In the United States, the 2016 Program Management Improvement Accountability Act, or PMIAA, offers just such an opportunity.
The PMIAA creates an incentive for the US Federal agency training community to seek not just healthy PM and SE, but to drive towards the greater objective of the two domains working in conjunction rather than in conflict. This is a key strategic interest area for PMI, and one that INCOSE can easily follow to potentially great impact.
I look forward to sharing progress from our meeting in the next edition of SyEN, until then please feel free to send me any questions or comments you may have.
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Part 2/2
Hi,
Each year INCOSE members gather for the International Workshop, known simply as “IW”. If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend I think you’ll find the experience both enriching and exhausting. The enrichment comes from the exposure to so many ideas in one place, together with the joy of renewing old friendships and adding new ones. The exhaustion is a by-product of honoring the IW objective to get as much work done as possible in a very short period of time.
PM-SE Integration Activity at this Year’s INCOSE IW
There were two scheduled meetings related to this topic, one a closed session in which the updated MOU between INCOSE and PMI was reviewed by representatives from both organizations, and a second open meeting in which plans were shared with the community at large. The nature of IW generates a number of valuable hallway and event interactions, I’ll mention a few of those as well!
The proposed PMI-INCOSE MOU was reviewed and, following a few minor changes and clarifications, the updated document was deemed ready to submit for PMI detailed review.
The MOU now reflects three “layers” of joint activities. These were shared openly with the PM-SE Integration Working Group:
- Concentrate on reaching key influencers – those who can actually drive change in the way PM and SE effort is integrated within their organizations or throughout their sphere of influence.
- Establish the means by which the two organizations will reach this intended audience, defining required actions / events / responsibilities.
- Leverage the INCOSE PM-SE Integration Working Group to identify projects of mutual interest, as well as identify and connect like-minded parties within the PMI community.
Let’s take a few moments and look at each of these individually.
- Identify the influencers
We clearly have a powerful message, but our small pool of resources has only limited capacity to broadcast that message to those who need it. We must, therefore, enlist the assistance of others on our behalf. In this case, it means bringing the message of PM-SE Integration to those individuals in a position to spread the message more broadly.
The people we seek are leaders who are either already convinced, or are convincible, and thus free to focus on action instead of argument. We seek managers who are willing to take the risk that an unfamiliar idea may turn out to be the next great business enabler. We seek teachers who understand that PM and SE are infinitely more valuable as integrated concepts than when presented alone. We seek communicators, people who have a platform and enjoy bringing fascinating ideas to new audiences.
Fortunately for our purposes, both PMI and INCOSE have strong industry relationships. The PMI Global Executive Council, along with the INCOSE Corporate Advisory Board, offer an excellent starting point for our search.
- Establish the means
We live in a world filled with distractions and messages competing for our time. All of that noise competes with us as well, since we are in effect trying to “market” our story along with everyone else. The audience expects to be entertained as well as informed, for complex ideas to be broken down into friendly little parts, and for it all to be over in less than 90 seconds.
“What?” you say, “How can anything as magnificent as the grand potential of PM and SE working in harmony be shared that quickly?”
The answer of course is that it cannot, but that isn’t the point of first contact anyway. Our goal is simply to open a channel of communication so that interested parties can draw more and more content on a “pull” basis rather than having stuff “pushed” at them.
Our “means of communication” is therefore not likely to be a single event or product, but rather a layered family of communication resources. The critical change is to focus on the first-contact layer rather than creating additional deep content such as the 2017 book.
- Leverage resources
As with most goals, the key challenge will be finding sufficient resources to overcome standing inertia and begin forward motion. The INCOSE PM-SE Working Group has roughly 100 members at this time and has a lot of energy and talent to draw upon.
Still, 100 members works out to about one half of one percent of all INCOSE. Given that nearly the entire membership of INCOSE interacts with PM in some way, surely there are more people willing to step up and make a difference.
Resources are an interesting challenge on the PMI side as well, since there isn’t a direct equivalent of the INCOSE Working Group structure. At the moment, the PM dimension is reflected in discussion mostly thanks to dual membership of PMI / INCOSE members who are part of the PM-SE Working Group.
Encouraging local chapter connections between INCOSE and PMI activity is thus an appealing option to pursue, bringing with it the potential for not only additional resources but also a scalable model for establishing joint interaction. We also align with the idea of a “pull” model when local groups reach out for suggestions on how to make a difference.
I also promised to mention insights gained during hallway and event interaction, but I’ll keep it simple and just focus on one: People tend to keep score in terms of big newsworthy steps, but no one ever climbs six flights of stairs in a single leap. We see six flights and do nothing, when in reality the steps that would take us there are easy to climb one or two at a time.
Anything you do, whether a conversation in an elevator, online post, a guest lecture for a class, or pitching a new approach at work, can all help move the community of PM and SE closer together. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions, and to sharing progress with you throughout the year.
All the best,
Randall Iliff
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Part 3/3
Hi,
February was a quiet month for INCOSE – PMI Alliance activity. Given the intense activity in January associated with the INCOSE IW event, the relative calm was a welcome change!
The updated alliance agreement is currently working its way through PMI review, once comments are received we’ll coordinate resolution with INCOSE and then route the final document for signatures. The alliance continues to operate under the old agreement until such time as the new one is fully executed and replaces it.
PM and SE are clearly interdependent, which makes conducting them independently seem like a rather poor idea. Given that reality, how did we end up with two diverging professions?
Definition and execution responsibility interact in complex ways throughout the development program life cycle. Development programs don’t come with build to print drawings, instead they make progress by oscillating between definition that enables execution and execution that enables further definition.
The need to do two complex things at once – define a solution and make progress towards it – quickly overwhelms any individual as task scale increases. It is hard to become an expert in two increasingly sophisticated bodies of knowledge at the same time. It is also hard to serve “two masters” when technical and non-technical stakeholders disagree on program direction. Even when all of the skills are present, the hours any individual can devote to work in a day are limited.
When faced with tasks beyond our individual ability to imagine and execute, our only recourse is to divide what a single mind does and spread that effort across multiple minds engaged in coordinated activity. In development the price for dividing any system is the new requirement to define and manage an interface that ties all the pieces together. As the number of pieces goes up the quality of the interface quickly becomes the dominant factor limiting overall system performance. It also becomes very tempting to optimize pieces at the expense of the whole.
This is no less true when speaking of the functional roles of PM and SE, which evolved out of the need to address each dimension more formally. Once tightly integrated, each profession has matured along largely independent paths over the past fifty years. The result is the emergence of two communities that have very different definitions of success, independent method and practices, confusing terms for the same thing, and even different views of their own roles.
These differences begin at the individual level, then are further reinforced by position titles, organizational boundaries and promotion paths, tools, educational programs, and many other forces. These environmental pressures drive the roles further apart, and that pressure in many organizations far exceeds the available energy working to connect them more effectively.
It is also important to note that some degree of execution management is always required, whereas definition only occurs on development projects. As a result, nearly all practicing SE have some familiarity with the PM world, but many in the PM world have never needed or even encountered SE before.
All the best,
Randall Iliff
