PPI offers to provide a presentation plus up to 3 hours of informal discussion briefing titled “The Business Case for Systems Engineering”. “Show me the evidence!” says the executive who is unconvinced about supporting systems engineering practices that all seem to involve additional up-front work. The executive is skeptical, and so she should be! To permit major changes to the amount and balance of work without evidence of Return on Investment would be irresponsible. The purpose of this briefing is to provide that evidence! Building a system typically requires the expertise of engineers in a range of disciplines, including some activities of system development that are interdisciplinary. Systems engineering aims to harness for the benefit of the company talent both in the traditional engineering disciplines and in the interdisciplinary aspects of engineering. In utilizing a systems approach, the benefits often manifest themselves as:

• risks that don’t materialize,
• rework that doesn’t need to be done,
• customer complaints that don’t occur, and
• product deficiencies that are avoided.

The net effect of things not going wrong is reduced costs, reduced timeframes, and higher product quality, which in turn lead to increased sales, increased profitability and greater market share. This briefing offers compelling evidence of the high return on investment available through adoption of a systems engineering approach. The briefing is targeted at executives and senior/middle managers and others who need familiarity with systems engineering in a business context. The briefing demonstrates the business purpose of systems engineering and provides abundant evidence of its value. We explain how and why using a systems engineering approach can contribute to improved business performance and we create an awareness of the key SE concepts, principles and terminology, to help align technology with business. The briefing is structured to allow the most senior executives to participate in just the first hour, if desired. The first hour is oriented towards the evidence of business benefit, the business case. The briefing goes on to overview the nature of systems engineering practices, and to discuss broad implementation aspects. Participants receive bound notes and a soft copy in PDF format of the presentation material.

• This course may be credited toward the maintenance of the Project Management Institute (PMI) certifications. Suggested PMI Talent Triangle® PDU allocation:
  • Ways of Working – 1
  • Business Acumen – 1