Toward mission assurance: a framework for systems engineering management

From its inception, NASA has pushed the boundaries of science and engineering and prided itself on knowing how to manage these engineering innovations. However, pushing the management boundaries requires a careful adaptation of risks, resources, and procedures, and projects must clearly assess the complexities and uncertainties of the task. Too often attempts to resolve errors in these areas are through technical solutions when the root cause is managerial failure. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the value of using a systems engineering management framework based on a contingency approach for associating a correct management style to a project classification, thus reducing the ultimate failure point (i.e. managerial error). Shenhar and Dvir’s Novelty-Complexity-Technology-Pace (NCTP) framework was used as a representative framework to provide an empirical analysis of four noted NASA projects. The NCTP framework uses a contingency approach to provide a multidimensional categorization of projects based on their novelty, complexity, technology, and pace with a correlation to an appropriate management style. The paper will conclude with a discussion of how a contingency framework can have implications on NASA and systems engineering. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 9: 213–227, 2006