Interface Engineering & Management

Every interface is an opportunity to lose information, time, control and/or money through error or contention between stakeholders at each end. There are many issues surrounding interface engineering and management, which are relatively unexplored in the engineering literature. This is surprising, since integration across interfaces is nearly always a source of delays, missing functionality or poor performance in the introduction of new systems.

This course, over two days or four half-days, is simple enough to give anyone with good common sense and a modicum of technical knowledge and engineering practice a clear understanding of how to approach the definition and management of interfaces. Eight best practices are fully explained, and illustrated to give delegates the opportunity to use for themselves. These practices are exploited by leading enterprises, often without formal documentation, to give competitive advantage.

The modules are presented in a logical order, comparable to those processes that are followed in a well-run project. There is a worked case study used as a central theme, and as a basis for ten “learning by doing” workshops. The first two half-days are spent covering the basics, and ensuring a good grounding in the best practices. The third half-day is then spent applying the practices to optimise system architecting around interfaces, and the final half-day covers modelling, documentation and practice writing interface requirements and specifications.

A useful set of templates and guidelines for writing interface specification documents is also included, as “handouts” and as an online resource.