Capability Assessment

Magpie is able to help organisations to assess their own internal systems engineering capability and processes in order to identify areas where improvements can be made. Magpie typically uses a combination of workshop training and group activities with key personnel within an organisation to discuss a range of systems engineering processes contained in sources such as established global systems engineering standards and customer requirements artefacts. Workshop discussions and assessment processes described in capability maturity models are then used to explore both the relevance of the specific systems engineering processes and the current level of execution performance that the organisation is achieving. By combining relevance and performance, workshop discussions then turn to identifying which systems engineering processes would benefit most from improvement.

Standards and maturity models typically referred to by Magpie in performing this work include:
  • MIL-STD-499 - Systems Engineering Management
  • ANSI-EIA 632 - Processes for Engineering a System
  • IEEE 1220 - Application and Management of the Systems Engineering Process
  • IEEE 15288 - Systems and software engineering — System life cycle processes
  • IEEE 24748 - Systems and software engineering — Life cycle management
  • EIA/IS 731 - Systems Engineering Capability Model

Following this type of process, Magpie generates recommendations in the form of a written report or a verbal brief to relevant stakeholders in the organisation. Magpie is then able to continue supporting the organisations to refine and improve systems engineering processes; train, recruit or mentor key systems engineering personnel; and identify toolsets needed to improve the organisation's systems engineering capability. Finally, Magpie is also able to support the subsequent measurement of the capability improvement against the pre-improvement performance baseline.