7.2.1 Bricks for a Lean Systems Engineering Yellow Brick Road

A Yellow Brick Road can be thought of as the fabled path to a promised land where achievement of hopes and dreams is highly probable. Yellow bricks highlight the appropriate road, and destination mileage and speed limit signs support progress assessment to the chosen objective. Similarly, a common systems engineering (SE) framework, properly implemented at the approproate level of rigor, facilitates monitoring and achievement of a quality product that supports the intended mission. Bricks for a lean SE Yellow Brick Road are described. The bricks include a) using a common framework that integrates SE, project management and quality management; b) right sizing project implementation of this framework using a graded approach; c) applying the framework as early as possible; d) tailoring and waiving as needed; e) using project archetypes; and f) providing a repository that contains reuseable processes, plans, templates, examples, training and associated subject matter experts. © 2013 The Authors.