Tag Archive for: MBSE


This is Part I of a blog series covering a whitepaper titled, The Comprehensive Guide to Successfully Adopting Model-Based Systems Engineering MBSE. Visit these links for the rest of this series: Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

Introduction 

In a previous paper, we discussed key questions concerning Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) including what MBSE is, its true intent, why organizations should adopt MBSE, and the benefits. If you haven’t read that paper, it’s worth taking a look. 

We made the point that the goal of an organization when adopting MBSE, is to move from a document-centric to a data-centric practice of Systems Engineering (SE) to realize the real intent of MBSE which is to develop, maintain, and manage a data and information model of the system being developed — along with a model of all the system life cycle process activities, resulting in artifacts, and their underlying data and information. 

This paper will go into more detail as to key factors associated with successfully adopting MBSE, what it means to practice SE from a data-centric perspective, and provide a methodology to define a road map tailored to your organization resulting in the successful adoption of MBSE. 

RELATED POST: The Real Intent of Model-Based Systems Engineering

Key factors associated with successfully adopting MBSE 

Sadly, the attempts of many organizations to successfully adopt MBSE often end in failure. The process of adopting innovative technology like MBSE and moving toward a data-centric practice of SE can be considered to be a project in its own right. There have been numerous studies and reports concerning factors of why projects fail, and factors associated with projects that succeed. When adopting MBSE, these factors must be considered. Organizations that are able to successfully adopt MBSE and move to a data-centric practice of SE address the following key factors: 

01 – Getting Corporate Level Management Buy-In and Support – Success Starts at the Top! 

In an earlier paper, we discussed issues associated with a document-centric approach to product development of today’s increasingly complex, software-centric products along with the benefits of adopting MBSE from a data-centric perspective to address these issues. There must be a project champion that can clearly communicate these issues and benefits at the corporate level in order to get buy-in across the organization. 

A key consideration when getting this buy-in is how these issues and benefits are communicated. The adage “know your audience” is important. A common mistake when approaching higher-level management is using terminology that does not address their needs in a language they understand. When getting buy-in concerning the company adopting MBSE, you must clearly communicate to them what MBSE is and how the organization will benefit in terms of outcomes they can relate to. Giving them a demonstration of a specific tool using a lot of technical jargon can result in them quickly losing interest. They are interested intangible outcomes of a proposed solution that addresses business-related issues (problems): less overhead, decreased time to market, higher quality, decreases in post-launch issues, fewer issues associated with a product being approved for use, increased profits, rising stock prices, and a growing company. They want to understand how adopting MBSE will result in these types of outcomes. 

02 – Forming a Dedicated Project Team 

Rather than leaving it up to individual project teams to each attempt to adopt MBSE, a corporate level dedicated MBSE Implementation Project Team (IPT) is needed. For smaller organizations and startups this IPT might be a single person. MBSE is just one puzzle piece in the larger set of organizational puzzle pieces. To be successful, the larger, integrated puzzle must be considered to ensure the MBSE puzzle piece will fit. Other puzzle pieces include data governance policies, information management plan procedures and work instructions, information technology (IT) infrastructure (networks, internet, clouds, applications, computing devices, etc.), the product line, product development processes, procurement processes, company culture, workforce, etc. A dedicated project team can deal with possible issues in all these areas from a corporate, holistic perspective across organizational silos enabling a successful adoption of MBSE, helping to ensure the MBSE puzzle piece can be integrated within the overall corporate puzzle. 

RELATED POST: Webinar: Eliminating Barriers to MBSE Adoption with Jama Software

03 – Involving Key Stakeholders 

The various stakeholders involved in adopting MBSE must be included. These stakeholders must not only include the users, but other stakeholders that will be affected by the adoption of MBSE including those that will benefit, those involved in the activities required to adopt MBSE, and those from enabling and supporting organizations. Referring back to the puzzle analogy, stakeholders must be included that represent each of the above-listed puzzle pieces. Each stakeholder has expectations that must be addressed by the project team along with key drivers and constraints a successful project must consider in order to achieve a successful outcome. 

04 – Defining The Problem, Opportunity, Outcomes, Needs, and Requirements at the Beginning of the Project 

The project team and stakeholders at all levels of the organization must be aligned to a common understanding of the problem/opportunity that is driving the adoption of MBSE, to a common mission statement, goals, objectives, clear outcomes, needs, and requirements. Like any other project, these must be defined and agreed to from the beginning so that there is a clear roadmap to success and well-defined outcomes against which success can be measured. 

05 – Understanding the “Goldilocks Principle” 

The Goldilocks principle is about doing what is “just right” – not too little, not too much. When adopting MBSE and moving towards a data-centric practice of SE, the project team must understand the needs of the organization, what it means to practice SE from a data-centric perspective, and develop a practical and feasible roadmap. Delivering an MBSE capability that is too little can result in stakeholder expectations not being met, disappointment, and a failure of project teams to successfully adopt MBSE. Going overboard and implementing more than is needed can be overwhelming, turning people off to the concept and again a failure of project teams to adopt MBSE. 

This last point is especially important. “Just right” must be defined from a user perspective. The users are the product development project team members who will be conducting their project based on the processes and tools provided that will enable them to adopt MBSE for their project and move to developing their products from a data-centric perspective. They have expectations concerning being able to be more productive and effective. Meaning the processes and tools provided should not be viewed as things they have to do and use in addition to their job – resulting in more work; rather processes and tools they can follow and use that are an integral part of how they do their job – resulting in less work, a higher quality product with a shorter time to market. The new processes and tools enable them to deliver winning products: those that meet the needs of their customers, within budget and schedule, with the required quality. 

From a user perspective the following attributes must be addressed within the processes defined and tools selected for use: 

  • Full functionality; does what is needed, nor more, no less
  • Intuitive; easy to learn and use
  • Easy and fast to implement
  • Enable collaboration between team members, no matter their geolocation
  • Enable traceability of data, information, and artifacts across the system lifecycle
  • Enable change impact assessment across the system lifecycle
  • Reduces the time to define and manage needs and requirements
  • Supports verification and validation planning and execution
  • Tailorable to the organization’s product line, work instructions, and workflow
  • Helps ensure compliance with standards and regulations
  • Helps manage risk across the lifecycle
  • Enables management to track project status across the lifecycle 

Visit these links for the rest of this series: Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

To download the entire paper, visit: Whitepaper: The Comprehensive Guide to Successfully Adopting Model-Based Systems Engineering MBSE


SysMLWith the trend of organizations practicing Systems Engineering to move towards what is referred to as “Model-based Systems Engineering” (MBSE), there are various perspectives as to just what is meant by MBSE. Similar to the old story of the blind men and the elephant, MBSE cannot be effectively practiced when viewed from just one perspective (requirements, models, patterns, standards, industry specific application, etc.). To successfully practice MBSE, wise systems engineers recognize and use each perspective as appropriate to their specific needs. Based on these needs, they choose the appropriate capabilities, tools, and visualizations that will meet their needs. One size doesn’t fit all.

The degree to which the data and information is captured and managed is driven by the needs of the organization and projects from a business and technical perspective based on the size and complexity of their systems, their product line, culture, processes, workforce, their diversity and complexity of supply chains, and types of engineering information that comprises a technical baseline for their system of interest.

SysML and other language-based modeling tools

MBSE is a concept that is maturing and means different things to different people.  To some practitioners, MBSE is equated to the use of SysML and other language-based modeling tools. With these tools, practitioners can develop detailed analytical, behavior, and architectural models of a system, with a primary focus of functionality, performance, and interactions between various entities defined to be part of the system being modeled. These types of models are useful tools for system analysis, developing simulations, and creating what is referred to as a “digital twin”.

To others, what they are calling MBSE is really Model-based Design (MBD). MBD design starts with a set of requirements and using various language-based modeling tools to architect and design a system, develop simulations to assess the behavior of the system, and then develop a set of design output specifications to which the system is built or coded. Often the MBD activities are completed in a silo separate from the other SE lifecycle process activities.

MBSE is much more than SysML!

The above language-based modeling approaches do not address the true intent of MBSE. While these capabilities can be useful, MBSE is much more than using language-based modeling tool to develop analytical, logical, behavioral, and architectural models.

The goal of an organization, when adopting MBSE, is to move from a document-centric to a data-centric practice of Systems Engineering (SE) so as to realize the real intent of MBSE which is to develop, maintain, and manage a data and information model of the system being developed along with a model of all the system life cycle process activities, resulting artifacts, and their underlying data and information.

MBSE is not really about any particular type of model or visualization of data and information – whether that be a model, diagram, report, document, sets of needs, or sets of requirements – but is about the underlying data and information model that enables consistency across the data and information that represents the various models and visualizations.

The data and information model that must be developed should represent SE artifacts generated during the product development process activities across all lifecycle stages. Information associated with the elicitation of stakeholder needs and requirements, lifecycle concepts definition, analysis, and maturation, deriving an integrated set of textual needs, transforming those needs into sets of textual design input requirements, verification the system meets those requirements, and validation that the system meets the needs must also be captured within the data and information model. In addition, relationships and dependencies of the individual data items must be captured (traceability) in order to help determine and ensure consistency across all lifecycle stages, prove compliance with standards and regulations, as well as help assess the impact of changes made to any of the data items across all lifecycle stages.

Can my organization adopt MBSE without using SysML or other language-based tools?

Sadly, there are many organizations that have a misconception concerning what the true intent of MBSE is – as a result they think that MBSE is not for them.

In a recent conversation with a system engineer, I was told that her organization was not going to adopt MBSE because they don’t see the utility of developing complex SysML models of their products. In addition, she noted that to do so would require a change in how their managers and engineers think based on the SysML standard as to how to construct models and the specific terminology used.  To them SysML modeling is not intuitive, has a large learning curve, and has little apparent utility and return on investment – for their organization, especially for their product line that has a minimum amount of software and complexity.

My response to her was: MBSE is not SysML!

I told her what the true intent of MBSE is to practice systems engineering with a data-centric perspective, establishing the capability to capture, manage, access data, and manage the interrelationships between SE work products can be accomplished through a variety of methodologies, which range from the establishment of a single relational database to a virtually integrated, but distributed, database by means of a federation (or data map/index) of disparate data sources.

The resulting data and information model can be captured using a variety of SE tools and applications. To effectively manage our ever increasing complex, systems there are benefits to managing this underlying data and information in such a way it can be shared across the system life cycle process activities, shared between the various SE tools used to create and manage this data and information, and shared between organizations involved in the development and operations of the system of interest. This sharing will help ensure correctness, consistency, and completeness of the data and information typical of our ever increasingly complex systems as well as enable collaboration between not only the project team members, but also external stakeholders involved in the development of the system.

Parting Thoughts

The answer to the question: “Can my organization adopt MBSE without using SysML or other language-based tools?” is YES!

Since one size doesn’t fit all, an organization must assess their needs and produce an MBSE solution that best fits its domain, product line (degree of complexity), and culture. As a minimum, they need to establish a capability to define and manage needs, requirements, verification, and validation across the system lifecycle.  These capabilities will allow the organization to build a data and information model of their products and systems engineering process activities and artifacts.

Based on these needs and desired capabilities, the organization can choose the appropriate SE toolset, update their processes, and train their people in these tools and processes.

Stay tuned for more to come from Lou Wheatcraft in the coming months. 


Jama Connect for Companion MBSEIn January 2020, NASA reported that Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE), “has been increasingly embraced by both industry and government as a means to keep track of system complexity.”

And in order to help facilitate accelerated adoption of MBSE, we’re proud to introduce Jama Connect® for Companion MBSE.

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE is a single platform that combines requirements, architectures, behaviors, and V&V into a single model of the system by applying: structure for the data; rules for the data; and a consistent interface language between parts of the system. A Jama Connect model provides engineers, project managers, business analysts, or any stakeholder, an organized way to address all aspects of the system consistently with the assurance of completeness.

Accelerate Your Systems Development

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE provides a path to companies embracing MBSE where the application of collaboration, modeling, and methods reduces time and effort across the lifecycle.

With this solution, you’ll get:

  • Framework aligned to industry best practices from INCOSE and SEBoK
  • MBSE Quick Start Guide
  • Document export templates and reports aligned with systems development
  • Standard features of Jama Connect including requirements management, test management, live traceability, review center, realtime collaboration, reuse & baseline management, workflow & configuration management, diagramming
  • Consulting and training customized to your teams’ MBSE processes

Download the solution overview to learn more about Jama Connect for Companion MBSE.


MBSE AdoptionAn organizational paradigm shift from document centric to model-based systems engineering can be daunting. The learning curve for systems engineers can be steep and the return on investment is often not immediately apparent.  

In a recent workshop on MBSE adoption, we walked through how Jama Software for Companion MBSE can be used to eliminate common MBSE challenges and provide tactics to help teams eliminate the barriers to broader adoption. We will demonstrate how Jama Connect’s Companion MBSE can be used to streamline a collaborative, data-driven approach and provide more immediate systems engineering value to larger numbers of stakeholders.  

In this demonstration, we cover: 

  • Using Jama Connect to facilitate implementation of MBSE
  • Benefits of Companion MBSE to the broader stakeholder community  
  • Keys to eliminating documents
  • Leverage OSLC and REST for Cross Tool linking

Below is an abbreviated transcript and a recording of the workshop.

In today’s hyper-connected world, we’re not only seeing increasing complexity of systems that are being built, but also experiencing increasing technological and sociological challenges in the work setting to develop those systems. Jama Connect helps address these challenges. Organizations can execute their MBSE journey without the headache of modeling languages or the licensing and rolling out of complex systems modeling tools.

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE is a completely web-based application that is designed to make it easy for any stakeholder technical or non-technical to create models, consume data and participate in a collaborative systems engineering process. The Companion MBSE template comes with data types to capture and segregate different types of requirements, behaviors, architecture, interfaces, and V & V data. It also has a structural template already laid out to organize the data and help users get started quickly.

We’re going to cover using Jama to facilitate that implementation of MBSE, then we’re going to talk about keys to eliminating documents. We’ll look at how you can leverage OSSE and rest for cross tool linking. And we’ll talk about the benefits of Companion MBSE to the broader stakeholder community model based systems. Engineering is more than a modeling tool. It is not simply a tool but a process that demands change to take place, not only at the systems level, but at the project and program levels.

RELATED: Getting Started with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)

Document centered thinking and business practices needs to change at all levels in order to not only deal with system complexity, but to also become more agile organizationally, but leaping to a purely SysML tool is not a leap every organization is mature enough to tackle. MBSE is not all only about moving from document centric to a model. It’s also about being able to communicate the clarity that the modeled information gives to the stakeholders on other teams, whether that be at the implementation level or the program or customer level.

The first step every organization can take is to become more information centric. Our Companion MBSE is designed to do just that. Under the hood, Jama Software’s Companion MBSE is composed of an easy to navigate structure for the data. Automatic version control of the data and baselining, a model language, a diagram editor, a workflow engine, a collaboration engine, document import and export and model integration with wide varieties of tools in your ecosystem like other SysML tools, test execution and more.

Companion MBSE is pre-configured with a meta-model that govern which elements were allowed to be connected together. And which type of TraceLink names are used when elements are connected. For instance, a need can be related to a validation test and its relationship name is validate. A system requirement can be related to a system architecture block and its relationship name is satisfies. Jama Connect automatically chooses the correct relationship name for the user. Users do not need to know any syntax or language.

They just associate one element with another and connect a prize applies the pre-configured trace rules to those elements. You can also easily extend these data element types and relationship names by creating your own. There are distinct benefits from moving away from a document centric to information centric paradigm. Discrete item types, and link names, make it easy to analyze and query the model. Teams using documents, wikis or legacy tools often go through a manual process to relate all that data together, which can be error prone, introduced inconsistent data, or when performed after the fact yield stale inaccurate data.

RELATED: MBSE Tool Maturity – Where does your organization stand?

Jama Connect lets you surface in real time data and display it on the model dashboard. Dashboards can be a central place for any stakeholder technical or nontechnical to come away with an understanding of the current status of the systems engineering effort. Let’s take a look at Jama in action. So I’ve opened up my model, my model essentially is just a Jama Connect project. We have the building blocks of a structure. So on the left, you see the structure of the model, all the different types of data types that we’re collecting in this model.

The thing important data types that we have that come out of the box with Companion MBSE are our needs. So a need item type, that’s where you would capture, you would use this type of element to capture a stakeholder need or an expectation or a requirement. Some regulatory requirements or things like that. Then we have a system requirements. So we’re segregating different types of requirements. System requirement has its own object. So you can demonstrate traceability between the need. So if you have customer requirements that are coming in as need as a need, you can really easily demonstrate that traceability.

We have a third requirement item type is a subsystem requirement. You are not constrained to use our specific nomenclature. You can extend these item types. You can rename them as well. We also then have a use case type. So, this particular use item type in Jama Connect is used to capture textural based more traditional use case flows in a more verbal textural. We also have that the capability to more granularly define the elements within a use case. So if you have actors, if you have different states or activities and you need to granularly break those out of a textual use case so that you can trace them in some way you can do that.

We also have a part. A part is more like a SysML 2.0 construct where a part might be used to capture structural elements, such as system architecture elements, or function blocks or physical objects or abstract objects. We have the capability to capture an interface as well as various different verification validation objects. So we had Jama segregate, verifications and validations. So it’s really easy to demonstrate that you have done both verification and validation of the objects. The model and the other types are extensible. So while the Companion MBSE comes with just a handful out of the box, the ones on the top, you can create your own additional ones to add to your model and extend it for your specific needs. And you can also rename things.

So if you don’t call something a subsystem requirement, maybe you call it a component requirement, or maybe you call it a software requirement, or maybe you even call it a user story. You can rename things as well. Now, Jama Connect does come with a method, we call it our Companion MBSE method. It’s a top-down approach top down where you have at the most abstract within my model, I have my needs but it supports analysis, design and specification. And it starts off with a needs analysis. So, when I want to look at my needs analysis I can click on something in the tree and then it shows in context in the main area of the system.

Now my needs analysis I’m capturing each need as an individual item, typically like you would in a spreadsheet. So I could look at the different views of the needs, whether I have a spreadsheet view or a rich text view. Our diagramming capability is built right in as well. So, when you want to communicate more clearly to your audience a diagrammatic expression of your needs users don’t have to go to external tools. You don’t have to go to a modeling tool per se, but you can build those diagrams right here in Jama.

You want a Companion MBSE is designed for anyone to get started with your MBSE journey and then bringing in and marrying up diagrams right here in the context of the needs is a really powerful thing. You don’t need to be an expert to know how to draw boxes and lines and add textual information to communicate the information that you need to your audience. You also have the ability to do the collaboration that Jama is really famous for. So, if I need to bring people in to look at this particular diagram, we have the capability to add that comment even use at mentioning. So, if I wanted to add, mention a coworker, I can just mention their name.

Can you verify whether we need the X, Y, Z and the act that the comments within Jama are actionable? So it’s not a static comment but I can tell Alex, Hey, I need you to answer this question specifically, or maybe I’m just a read only user of this Jama model, and I’m looking at something and I want to raise an issue, or they be an engineer and I need someone to make a decision about something I’m unclear. I need some direction, just help me make a decision about that. Under the covers comments go into people’s email, they can reply back through email. They can answer questions, or they could click on the link in that email that would essentially take them right to this context, and then they can answer back.

So now we can have that sort of a conversation live captured part of the auditable trail and bringing more people into participate. If I wanted to, I could have even had mentioned my customer by just putting in their email address, and then my customer could have replied back to the comment thread. Well, it’s all about having more people being able to participate in the MBSE process.

Watch the full training to learn more about overcoming barriers to MBSE adoption.


MBSE

Have you ever heard the saying that a systems engineer is the chief cat herder? Have you as systems engineer ever been branded as the person who asks “Why?” all the time? A systems engineer often perceived as the person that says, “Why do you need that? No, that won’t work. No, that is out of scope.” All systems engineers want to say “yes” more often. Systems engineering is a reductionist discipline so saying yes is often difficult. But perhaps systems engineers get a bad reputation because stakeholders cannot “see” the same things as the systems engineer and information is not getting communicated clearly. If your organization is trying to adopt a model-based approach to systems engineering (MBSE), then a SysML model might be too intimidating for most to interpret and consume which could result in even worse communication with the broader stakeholder development team. 

A transformative systems engineering practice lets the data do the talking to stakeholders. It enables its data to be easily consumed and understood. As a tool vendor I spend a lot of time talking to all kinds of customers that are in various stages of maturity. One common theme I hear from systems engineers is that they can’t get people to look at their data. They are always asked to provide a document or slide or walk them through the model. The systems engineer then ends up spending far more time working as a librarian and tech writer. 

If you aren’t already doing good SE then MBSE with a SysML tool might not be the answer. The SERC study shows an overwhelming measure of lack of value and adoption of MBSE (check my previous blog here). It is my belief that organizations should not be using their SysML tool to perform the functions of requirements management, management of verification and validation, or change and configuration management of this data. 

Jama Connect® for Companion MBSE is designed to make it easy for non-systems engineers to consume data and participate in a collaborative, systems engineering process. It provides familiar navigation and views of data along with an industrial-grade configuration management and a workflow engine at its heart. Actionable collaboration at the element level provides a thread of decision points and audit trail of who said what and changed what. It enables real-time collaboration, no waiting for publishing of a model file or meeting date for a design review. Actionable collaboration means comments on elements can be framed as questions, issues, or decision requests. Discussion for each comment is threaded and its status can be queried. Comments can optionally trigger notifications when @mentioning users or groups. Users don’t need to leave the element in the model they are working on and use an external email or collaboration tool get input from additional stakeholders since you can just add their email address to the comment. 

RELATED: Getting Started with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)

When getting started with your system model, a Companion MBSE template can be used where systems engineers and stakeholders can begin entering data. The Companion MBSE model provides a starting point with pre-configured types to capture and segregate different types of requirements, architectures, behaviors, and V&V objects. The types can be tailored where you might add additional fields to capture various attribute information or even enable a workflow to display lifecycle state information. 

The Companion MBSE template also comes with a structure laid out to organize the data. The structure is easy to navigate by opening the nested hierarchy. The highest level of abstraction is at the top of the tree and subsystem/component level data is nested below. This specific data organizational approach is not only an aid to users who want to understand the breadth of an entire system but is also present to facilitate reuse strategies for parallel development, variants, or product lines. 

A Jama Connect model is like a chameleon. It can appear to users like a familiar document, or it can be browsed and consumed as just data to provide the best of both worlds. For those stakeholders who still need a document, the data can be easily annotated with textural information to capture relevant background information. The data can also be organized under section headings. This data driven approach makes it easy to segregate data from background information. Views of the information can easily be switched from a rich contextual view containing both background info, section headings, and data; to a view that just displays the data elements alone (i.e. requirement statements, block names…). These built-in views make it easy for any type of stakeholder to read and understand what they are looking at and saves the systems engineers lots of time doing that librarian/documentation work. 

Jama Connect does not limit modeling to just creation of elements but provides these mechanisms for textural and section headings to be applied to architecture, interfaces, behaviors, and V&V elements. Model documentation is captured right here and does not need to span to other tools. The rich text editor lets the user format text, add tables, bullets, insert images, or enter formulas. The built-in diagram tool is where model diagrams can be constructed. Users aren’t required to know a modeling language and can add descriptive to and annotate the lines between the elements in any way they choose.  

RELATED: MBSE Tool Maturity – Where does your organization stand?

For those that are used to capturing architectures in documents, it might seem attractive to use an issue tracker or wiki like Atlassian® Jira® and Confluence®. These tools are not model-based and offer only the most rudimentary of links. Connect lets you capture functions, blocks, behaviors, requirements, and individual elements in the Connect model. Each element can have a rich descriptive area and fields configured for commenting, relationships, and workflow. They can be viewed in list form, in the tree, or as documents. 

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE provides easy ways to associate relationships between different objects. Companion MBSE is pre-configured with a schema and naming syntax that govern which elements are allowed to be connected together and which type of trace link name us used when elements are connects. For instance a Need can be related to a Validation test and its relationship name is “validates.” A system requirement can be related to a system architecture block and its relationship name is “satisfies.” Jama Connect automatically chooses the correct relationship name for the user. Users do not need to know any syntax or language; they just associate one element with another and Jama Connect applies the pre-configured trace rule constraint to those elements.  

This data-driven approach using a combination of textural model elements and diagrams makes it easy for organizations to participate directly in MBSE activities; share systems engineering data with broader audiences; and report on progress. Discrete item types and link types make it easy to analyze and query the model. Teams using documents, wikis, or legacy tools often go through a manual process to relate all the data together which can be error prone, introduce inconsistent data, or when performed after the fact yield stale, inaccurate data. Connect lets you surface in real-time data and display it on the model dashboard. The model dashboard can be a central place for any stakeholder, technical or non-technical, to come away with an understanding of the current state of the systems engineering effort.  

Award-winning ease of use and built-in collaboration mechanisms combined with our approach to MBSE give both MBSE mature teams and teams new to MBSE the ability to deliver high value systems engineering. Systems engineers will find it easier to say “yes” and cat herding will be more of a delight than an act of hide and seek. 


Model-Based Systems Engineering

For companies building complex systems whose stakeholders come from diverse engineering and business disciplines and need to have very precise and efficient communications, Jama Connect provides a collaborative, 100% web-based MBSE platform and a proven systems engineering approach to product development. Jama Connect provides a path to companies embracing MBSE where the application of collaboration, modeling, and methods reduces time and effort across the lifecycle. We call that path Jama Connect for Companion MBSE. 

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE is a single platform that combines requirements, architectures, behaviors, and V&V into a single model of the system by applying structure for the data; rules for the data; and a consistent interface language between parts of the system. A Jama Connect model provides engineers, project managers, business analysts, or any stakeholder, an organized way to address all aspects of the system consistently with the assurance of completeness. 

MBSE Defined by Industry 

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) describes MBSE as the “formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing through-out development and later lifecycle phases.”  

NASA says MBSE “involves applying software-based tools to capture systems engineering evidence—typically called “artifacts”—in a systematic, disciplined way that allows people to manage complexity while communicating effectively across the life cycle of a system. 

What is a model? Don’t be fooled. 

It is a myth that a system model can only be created in a UML or SysML tool. Models can be expressed texturally, mathematically, visually, or physically and are meant to assist in helping people look at problems from different directions. Jama Connect represents a model as a project containing textural data items, views, graphical diagrams, and collaboration content.  

NASA’s definition provides a good deal of information, but they don’t even use the word “model” in their description. Lenny Delligatti, one of the most respected MBSE experts in the world wrote that, “A modeling method is something like a road map; it’s a documented set of design tasks that a modeling team performs to create a system model. More precisely, it’s a documented set of design tasks that ensures that everyone on the team is building the system model consistently and working toward a common end point. Without such guidance, there will be wide variance in the breadth, depth, and fidelity that each member of the team builds into the system model.”  

For example, a switch in a system is expecting the command “On” but for some reason receives the command “Start.” The switch will not function. The “On” and “Start” is the communication language and must be consistent. 

What in simple terms is a model then? Wikipedia tells us that a “model is an informative representation of an object, person or system” and INCOSE defines a model as “a simplified version of a concept, phenomenon, relationship, structure or system.”  

Before the invention of SysML, we used to use a document called an “Interface Control Document (ICD)” to describe the syntax of interfaces between different parts of a system, often physical. While essential, the ICD lacked the ability to describe scenarios which the interfaces would be used for. While a SysML model allows for communication of scenarios to be documented, it often lacks the ability to communicate the depth of requirement needed to describe the core workings of each part. This puts a heavy onus on the verification needed to ensure a part on its own was working as intended.   

While SysML is a wonderful language to represent abstractions and there are some fine tools out there that let you do some powerful things (I want to say something different here); it is still immature in the core aspects of systems engineering as it relates to communication, cross-domain collaboration, project management including cost and schedule, and oversight of verification and validation activities to name a few.  

RELATED: MBSE Made Easy – Overcoming the Organizational Challenges 

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE – The Nuts and Bolts 

Jama Connect for Companion MBSEMBSE in simplest terms is a framework for problem solving and system expression. In traditional systems engineering the domains of requirements, architectures, V&V and behavior are recorded and analyzed in a series of documents or data structures with loosely connected affiliations. Our Companion MBSE combines these four domains into a single model of the system by applying: structure for the data; rules for the data; and a consistent interface language between parts of the system, which in combination we at Jama Software call a “framework.” The framework provides engineers, project managers, business analysts, or any stakeholder, an organized way to address all aspects of the system consistently with the assurance of completeness. 

The Jama Connect for Companion MBSE framework takes requirements, architectures, behaviors, and V&V and forms their data into a query-able mesh. As development progresses the mesh becomes more stitched together. A built-in ruleset that uses a consistent language, constrains users to create the correct associations between the data elements. The framework’s ruleset eliminates risk that manual methods or tools lacking these constraints introduce. Jama Connect for Companion MBSE also supports leveling – representation of system decomposition within a model. Each successive level will follow the same consistent ruleset. 

Visualization is an important part of Jama Connect for Companion MBSE and plays a major role in communication of information and ideas. Data is easily visualized in an easy to navigate hierarchal tree view. This view not only displays the content of the data but also how the elements are tied to each other. These structures can be represented visually as a series of diagrams within the model.  

Requirements 

Requirements are typically the first data elements to be worked on in the model. Jama Connect for Companion MBSE’s flexibility gives users the ability to define unlimited levels of requirements – even those considered outside the “system” level. A Need Requirement which is an input to the systems engineering process, might consist of multiple types such as: user needs, ConOPS, business requirements, mission objectives, goals, regulatory requirements, or even constraints to name a few. A needs analysis is performed to flesh out those requirements which are human-centric. Systems engineers will analyze all the broad and at times abstract needs and then refine them into system level requirements that are representative of the system and might describe all the functions that the system shall deliver as well as non-functional characteristics such as performance or reliability of the system.  

In Jama Connect each need and system requirement is captured as a unique entity with its own ID. As a single entity it can then be managed, version controlled, and linked to other entities. When using Jama Connect for Companion MBSE framework, it provides mechanisms that keep needs and system requirements appropriately leveled and describe how they are linked to each other. This link itself also has a name and is called “derivedReq” which is similar terminology used in the SysML language. 

Behaviors 

Behaviors assist the systems engineer in identifying the functions, sub-functions, and interactions that the system performs. Behaviors can be elicited from needs and requirements through techniques such as use cases, activities, states, interactions, sequences and more. Behaviors are most often in the form of a verb (ex: regulate voltage, make deposit, heat water, charge controller, brake…). Capturing behaviors adds value because they help explain how the system will work and sometimes more importantly, what could go wrong. Behavior can assist in establishing the cost and complexity of the system. Functions can be analyzed and become a deciding factor for which requirements are then used to build the system.  

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE

In Jama Connect behaviors can be richly annotated so one can capture the full reasoning. This is extremely useful to stakeholders that are not necessarily modelers yet need this information to make informed decisions.  

Architecture 

Application of MBSE is not complete without tying in architectures and making them be a central point of data. Architectures can be defined to conceptually represent functions of the system, structure of the system to subsystems, physical components of the system, or even behaviors of the system. An architecture is organized so that its own structure conveys meaning and relationships between its members. In Jama Connect, architecture objects can be managed as discrete elements where relationships to other data such as requirements can be made. It is also possible to create diagram to illustrate the relationships between the elements. 

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE

V&V

The verification and validation of the model and its entities within it is the last major domain for MBSE. Any element defined within the model can be verified or validated through means of analysis alone, review, trace demonstration, or even by test execution collecting pass/fail status. An MBSE model  

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE tests and validates system characteristics early with engineers and stakeholders for fast feedback on design decisions and phase it is believed that this will: 

  • Predict performance 
  • Verify design choices 
  • Meet stakeholder expectations 
  • Avoid failures 
  • Reduce risk 
Visualization 

Visualizing the model is an integral part of MBSE. As maturity of stakeholder’s fluency in MBSE increases, reliance on heavy text in some areas will decline. Jama Connect facilitates the best of both worlds by providing fully textural representations of data as well as diagrams that can easily be annotated to describe the purpose behind the “line” the connection between two objects.  

Jama Connect for Companion MBSE

Why Jama Connect for Companion MBSE? 

The inefficiency of non-integrated data leads to wrong decisions. When MBSE is done properly, the result is an overall reduction of development risks. Jama Connect for Companion MBSE provides a flexible framework that is 100% web browser based for capturing and communicating the model to all stakeholders. The model can be queried programmatically to surface up gaps in the model, display progress information, and be validated against the rules of the framework. These rules enforce users to create and relate data in a consistent way. Jama Connect for Companion MBSE gives users easy graphical and textural views of information in real time and is structurally SysML ready if mature organizations wish to integrate Jama with these specialized tools. Most importantly, users do not need lengthy indoctrination into the semantics of modeling which is required for modeling tools. Jama Connect as a data-centric tool, does not have this barrier and so is much easier for every stakeholder to adopt.  


MBSE Tool Maturity LevelsMy initial intention for this blog was to talk about what I describe as MBSE tool maturity levels. And I will surely get around to those levels. But first I think it is important to draw attention to the definitions of MBSE that experts use and offer some observations that might be helpful to those who are beginning their own MBSE initiatives.

What is MBSE?

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) describes MBSE as the “formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification, and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing through-out development and later lifecycle phases.” This is simple enough to digest and the only noticeable difference between it at their definition of systems engineering is the reference to “formalized application of modeling.” They do not however, define what “modeling” means.

NASA says MBSE “involves applying software-based tools to capture systems engineering evidence — typically called “artifacts” — in a systematic, disciplined way that allows people to manage complexity while communicating effectively across the life cycle of a system.

  • MBSE is to perform systems engineering – connects system relationships
  • Controlling system configurations
  • Communicates an overall system picture accessible to all
  • Makes it easier to integrate disparate material
  • Ensures everyone is working on the same up to date material at all times
  • Eliminates problems with version control

RELATED: MBSE Made Easy – Overcoming the Organizational Challenges 

What is a Model?

NASA’s definition certainly provides a good deal of information, but they don’t even use the word “model” in their description. Lenny Delligatti, one of the most respected MBSE experts in the world wrote that, “A modeling method is something like a road map; it’s a documented set of design tasks that a modeling team performs to create a system model. More precisely, it’s a documented set of design tasks that ensures that everyone on the team is building the system model consistently and working toward a common end point. Without such guidance, there will be wide variance in the breadth, depth, and fidelity that each member of the team builds into the system model.” What in simple terms is a model then? Wikipedia tells us that a “model is an informative representation of an object, person or system.” These definitions are super informative.

An observation I have is that organizations instantly equate MBSE with the use of a SysML tool. The experts tell us however, that MBSE is the combination of methods to create a representation. None of them say that to perform MBSE one must adopt a graphical modeling tool. There are many different methods to create models/representations. Some are graphical and some are textural. At the heart of MBSE is the drive to move from static documents (Word and Excel) into an information-based paradigm. The table below eloquently articulates the differences and standout benefits of using an MBSE approach.

MBSE table

Table source: Laura Hart, Lockheed Martin

MBSE Tool Maturity Levels

There are certainly many organizations that are still performing systems engineering only using documents. For the rest, there are a plethora of tools in the ecosystem used to create models including tools that support SysML. To begin the journey of MBSE, you don’t have to adopt a SysML tool right away. Maturity of MBSE is still young. Very few organizations do it for a program in an end-to-end manner. The learning curve is steep. Generally, a few engineers become the “scribe” and then end up translating to the extended team. And keep in mind a systems engineer is a “cat herder.” This person is the one who sees the big picture, understands the problem, and is the translator across engineering domains and the business. A SysML tool won’t be the only tool in their arsenal.

MBSE Maturity Levels

This finally brings me to describing MBSE tool maturity levels. Many organizations are already performing MBSE without even calling it MBSE just by the tools and processes they use in the organization. Level 0 is what I describe as only using documents and having no model representations at all. Level 1 is barely a step up from level 0 but the have a requirements tool in place or possibly a Kanban board that is capturing loosely coupled relationships between data. Level 2 is where teams are now combining the use of the RM tool with diagrams. Perhaps they are drawing diagrams in Visio or a UML tool. Level 3 is the combination of requirements, architectures, diagrams are used in conjunction with a defined methodology for how the information is defined, related, and analyzed. The tool will programmatically constrain the data in order to provide consistency as well as provide the mechanisms to define once and then reuse. Level 4 tool maturity is where organizations use a requirements tool and SysML tool.

Jama Connect aligns as Level 3 maturity. Customers who use Jama Connect experience their requirements becoming a source for strategic information during all stages of the system lifecycle. Requirements are turning into actionable data. The software world with its mass adoption of agile practices is trickling into the systems space and requirements now take different shapes. MBSE takes more than use of a language-based graphical modeling tool. Even for a Level 4 maturity, natural language is still the great common denominator. Not everyone will be an engineer and able to interpret models. Requirements and the structured architecture within Jama Connect provides the necessary context. Jama Software’s Companion MBSE approach can be seen as the bridge one uses to leave behind documents and move towards Level 4 maturity.



Last month we held a webinar on model-based systems engineering titled, “MBSE Easy, Overcoming Organizational Challenges.”

This webinar was well received by our customers, and we wanted to make sure nobody missed out on this great content. Below, you’ll find a recording of the webinar and an abbreviated transcript.

Shifting to MBSE is an Organizational Paradigm Shift

An organizational paradigm shift from document-centric to model-based systems engineering (MBSE) can be daunting. The learning curve for systems engineers can be steep and the return on value is not often immediately apparent. In this webinar, I will explore some of the most common MBSE challenges and tactics to help teams eliminate the barriers to broader adoption. I will also illustrate how Jama Connect can be used to streamline a collaborative data-driven approach and provide more immediate systems engineering value to larger numbers of stakeholders. The agenda topics that we’re going to go over today are benefits of MBSE to the broader stakeholder community, best practices for cultural adoption, the expected return on value, keys to eliminating documents and then using Jama Connect to facilitate the implementation of MBSE.   

The Benefits of MBSE – Specifically Human Understanding

To help us understand the benefits of MBSE to a broader stakeholder community, let’s talk about what it is used for. MBSE in the words of industry leaders like INCOSE, NASA, or Gartner Research describe it as “facilitating understanding or providing aid to decision-making, connecting system relationships, controlling system configurations, providing communication of an overall system picture that’s accessible to all.”

It ensures everyone is working on the same up-to-date material at all times. I see a theme here. Many of these are very human-centric. MBSE is designed to take that complexity and allow it to be consumed and understandable by everyone. From a technical standpoint, configuration control, versioning, relationship management are some of the keys. Why MBSE? Human understanding, decision-making, relationship management, configuration and version complexity management are just not things you can easily achieve when you mire yourself in documents.   

RELATED: Strategies for Remote Engineering Teams

The Limitations of a Document-Centric Approach

In a document-based world, engineers might be manually searching documents, manually managing a section number heading scheme in the document, it might be creating siloed trace information and spreadsheets. They might not know where the latest version of a particular document is or who might have even changed the document last. They might be relying on a single person who is the tool guru because the tool is old and too hard to learn how to use. They might be spending hours or days cross-referencing many data sources just to determine an impact change or consider a trade-off. Here we are in 2021 and still, so many of us are kind of swimming in the sea of documents. Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and even software engineering, these disciplines have been using models for decades, right. Now, having the best information at the system level is critical. What we need is a paradigm shift away from documents and a shift in the way you think.  

The Benefits of MBSE for the Broader Stakeholder Community

The benefits of a paradigm shift from documents to data that MBSE brings is not merely for the systems engineer to reap. The new ways of thinking about the system being developed and the new structure of the data itself benefits everyone. I’d argue that the system view is the most important view of all. I think most of you are systems engineers out there and I think you tend to agree. MBSE allows engineers to work successfully at greater levels of complexity. It also improves the communication between the technical communities as well as the business and even the customer. It provides visibility of the gaps that you might have, errors, misalignments of the system design — those kinds of problems might result in defects in the system or cause design rework or cause missed requirements or even dropped requirements. Some of the MBSE challenges — there are challenges out there with adopting MBSE.  

RELATED: MBSE and The Digital Thread

The Unique Challenges of MBSE – And Tips for How to Solve Them

The benefits that MBSE promises do present some of these unique challenges to those who are beginning their MBSE journey. The learning curve can be steep. Learning the language of SysML and maybe your chosen modeling tool takes a long time. This learning curve can’t be done in silos or via tutorials. The learnings need to be backed by your experience. Organizations need to adopt strategies for not just how their systems engineers are trained but how they will use MBSE and then how they need to adopt strategies for how the entire organization works and communicates in that paradigm.

Overcoming Organizational Resistance to Change

Organizational changes are often met with resistance to change. Change has to start at the executive sponsorship level. I think that goes without saying — any organization adopting any kind of change really needs an executive sponsor. That executive sponsor needs to demonstrate their leadership with their actions. MBSE lip service won’t work. They have to be involved and they have to demonstrate that they’re willing to make the changes themselves.  

MBSE isn’t necessarily a one-size-fits-all either. The method and extension of the methods needs to be adapted to the actual system of interest that’s being developed. Systems also need to be developed with modularity and reusability. 

RELATED: Jama Connect in the Digital Engineering Ecosystem

Misaligned Teams and Overcoming Boundaries

Many of the challenges to adoption are human factors and they might be the easiest to mitigate by perhaps simplifying your tools and your approach. Misaligned teams struggle to overcome those cultural boundaries to develop the services and products. MBSE is not something that just the systems engineering team does but it’s a technique. It’s similar to the Agile method, it’s something that the entire organization embodies. It requires that change in culture in order to adopt.

Moving from a documents-based approach to MBSE doesn’t have the be daunting. Start small. Put aside doing day-to-day work in the documents and have everyone across the team access data in your chosen MBSE solution. Even if you don’t have a dedicated SysML tools, you can perform MBSE by creating lists or drawings that capture architectures and behaviors.

In many cases, it takes time to fully adopt MBSE and engineers might feel insecure. Moreover, implementing MBSE is not about just using the tool, it’s about understanding what to model, why, and for which outputs. Again, that comes with experience. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t just roll out your SysML tool and expect to be doing MBSE. That just doesn’t work. Try to leverage web-based tools that provide more stakeholders a consumable view of the information that maybe they would regularly see in documents. 

If tools are becoming your focal point, make sure that they are usable and do provide value across the teams. Communicate the MBSE return on value to them. Communicate the return on the value back to your leadership team. Systems engineering, unlike software or electrical or mechanical engineering doesn’t have that output that’s tangible to the customer. Leaders need reminding of the value that MBSE is delivering.  

Download our new whitepaper, A Path to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with Jama Connect, to learn more about digital engineering & MBSE benefits, obstacles, and success factors.

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Digital Thread Defined

Digital Thread Definition – a data-driven architecture that links together information generated from across the product lifecycle and is envisioned to be the primary or authoritative data and communication platform for a company’s products at any instance of time.

This is the best definition of Digital Thread we are aware of and is from an excellent 2018 paper by Singh and Willcox at MIT entitled Engineering with a Digital Thread. The term Digital Thread was first used in the 2006 with the publication of the Global Horizons report from USAF Global Science and Technology Vision task force. (If you have an earlier reference please share in the comments). In this document, Digital Thread is defined as “the use of digital tools and representations for design, evaluation, and life cycle management.”

As with many business terms, Digital Thread has now become over-used by consultants and software vendors. The definition of it — and how it differs from Digital Twin — have been interspersed with more general concepts of integration, simulation, data, and analytics and has lost the original, more precise meaning.

Digital Thread Components

Let’s break down the definition of Digital Thread into its components to better understand the concept and share the most common approaches we see as companies move to make the Digital Thread a reality. Here is the definition breakdown:

1 – a data-driven architecture

This recognizes that the use of a single common platform is impossible across all engineering disciplines (software, hardware, electrical, systems, risk, QA, etc.). Instead, a data-driven approach is required that determines the key information required from multiple tools. It’s important to remember that data-driven does not mean “gather all your data” but rather that you should be using data to answer questions. In other words, do not fall into the trap of tool focus, but rather focus on the questions and collect data to provide the answer.

2 – that links together information generated from across the product lifecycle

From initial requirement definition through to product release, significant information is generated across multiple tools. The challenge is to identify what information is most relevant and how to best link the information to make it actionable. The most common link we see is the definition of value to be delivered (user and system requirements). The most typical information captured across the product lifecycle are process statuses and exceptions (e.g., requirements that have not been approved, require rework, or are not fully addressed, gaps in testing or risk analyses). By linking these process statuses to requirements and tracking them through the product lifecycle it is possible to reduce the risk of negative product outcomes (e.g., delays, defects, cost overruns).

3 – and is envisioned to be the primary or authoritative data and communication platform

Most companies refer to this as a “system of record” or a “single version of the truth.” A Digital Thread is much more than simply integration or a data lake. By tying the definition of what is to be delivered (requirements) to the most critical downstream process meta-data, a Digital Thread create the ability to understand the state of the product development process, what risks are visible and what corrective actions should be considered. Without a Digital Thread, a company is flying blind in terms of the risks it faces in product development.

4 – or a company’s products at any instance of time

For a Digital Thread to be truly useful it must always reflect the current state of the product development process. The value is in seeing the product development process for the first time across fragmented teams and tools, to be able to identify process exceptions and early indicators of potential downstream risks. A static database of days or weeks old data will not be sufficient for a process that is changing rapidly across multiple, siloed teams.

Why the Digital Thread is So Important

The product development process is often fragmented across siloed teams and tools which leads to significant risk of product delays, defects, cost overruns, failed verification and validation, recalls, etc. End-to-end process visibility is required for better cross-team collaboration and the early detection of anomalies to reduce these risks. To solve for this, organizations often attempt to force everyone to use one common software platform, forgoing their choice best-of-breed tools. This solution is neither practical — nor particularly realistic — since engineers are (and should continue to be) allowed to choose discipline-specific tooling which optimize their activities.

What is required is a loosely coupled approach that ties together the necessary metadata across these disparate tools in a way that connects the desired outcome (user and system requirements) to downstream activities – the Digital Thread. The Digital Thread is the best approach to reduce the risk of negative product outcomes while preserving engineering autonomy and productivity.

To learn more on the topic of requirements management, and more specifically, living requirements, we’ve curated some of our best resources for you here.

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Benefits of Collaboration

The Benefits of Collaboration for Government and Defense Teams

Tomorrow’s defense and government systems must be built at a lower cost with shorter timelines often using new Agile acquisition strategies. Since government and defense program teams are largely comprised of civilians and contractors working in distributed locations, efficient and streamlined collaboration is crucial.

In 2018 the US Secretary of Defense encouraged everyone to adopt new practices in order to modernize delivered systems and prioritize the speed of delivery. This encouragement was backed by a Digital Engineering Strategy with aims to allow the DoD and industry partners to work more collaborative at the engineering level. They defined digital engineering “as an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of system data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal.”

Expected benefits of digital engineering include: 

  • Better informed decision making
  • Enhanced communication
  • Increased understand of and confidence in the system design
  • A more efficient engineering process

Jama Connect’s digital mission engineering platform has been specifically designed to assist in reaping these benefits. The platform’s core functionalities – including requirements version control, change management, baseline management, traceability, verification and validation, and risk analysis – are enhanced with a streamlined collaboration capability that establishes alignment across teams working within complex government programs.

Jama Connect lets government programs leverage lean, information-driven lifecycle techniques for managing strategic objectives, requirements, Agile user stories, features, risks and more.

Two qualities that set Jama Connect apart from the competition include:

  1. Ease of use without lengthy training
  2. Ease of adoption by broader types of user roles

RELATED: How to Realign Engineering Teams for Remote Work with Minimal Disruption

Aligning Distributed Government and Defense Teams

Distributed government and defense teams must consider ease of adoption and usability when researching requirements management (RM) solutions. Our customers confirm that if engineers and stakeholders don’t find a system intuitive and accessible, acquisition and implementation can be a costly miscalculation. Jama Connect is built and maintained with high-fidelity usability as the guiding principle.

Many requirements management tools require users to achieve unrealistic levels of expertise or otherwise hire expensive experts who fit the criteria. Consequently, most teams end up working outside the system using documents and spreadsheets. The result: A requirements and traceability ordeal that slows the development cycle, introduces unnecessary amounts of risk, and defeats the purpose of having a dedicated RM tool.

RELATED: A Path to MBSE with Jama Connect

The Benefits of Collaboration in a Modern Requirements Management Platform

Requirements management in Jama Connect eliminates reliance on documents and supports rapid delivery of complex, workable systems by bridging all the teams and work in real-time. The result is the connection of a multitude of interacting subsystems with a robust digital thread.

Jama Connect provides a modern solution that transforms system development into a transparent, measurable, and controlled systems engineering discipline. With industry-leading competence in an enterprise-class platform that is rapidly adaptable to the unique needs of each organization, Jama Connect is an analyst-recognized leader in the requirements management market, delivering unmatched value in each of the following areas:

  • Requirements Engineering: Our web-based application provides the ability to intuitively author requirements, maintain versions, control change, baseline, and collaboratively review and approve.
  • End-to-End Traceability: Link and decompose program-level capability requirements and operational requirements to derived system requirements, and then down to lower-level software and hardware requirements.
  • Change Management: With fine-grain impact analysis providing instant data insights, you can make informed decisions as requirements evolve during long development cycles or shift in mission, cost, or technology.
  • Fast Reviews & Approvals: Share and gain consensus on acceptance criteria by leveraging higher levels of stakeholder collaboration among government, suppliers, and subcontractors.
  • Virtualized Control Boards: Built-in collaboration technology lets teams capture all communication in a central system alongside system data. Items linked to related conversations, questions, and reasoning can be reviewed throughout development and archived after.
  • Quicker, Clearer Decisions: Request decisions on changes within the context of the items and projects. Transparent decision-making gives you immediate clarity and saves time.
  • Risk Management: The pressure to develop systems with lower costs, shorter timelines, and agile acquisition never stops. Jama Connect provides a voice across acquisition, development, and integration teams to collaboratively define, validate, and verify risks and ensure that they are accounted for and mitigated in the earliest stages of development.
  • Verification & Validation: Seamlessly manage traceability between requirements and test cases used for verification & validation and provide evidence to comply with regulations and standards.
To learn more about how Jama Connect supports digital engineering and collaboration for Government and Defense teams, download our whitepaper.

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