Planning System Development: SEMP

While the Project Management Plan (PMP) addresses general project management tasks, the Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) outlines the technical plans and systems engineering activities that will be used to develop, integrate, test, validate, and deploy the ICM system.  Developed early in the systems engineering process as a supplement to the PMP, the SEMP uses the foundation laid by the PMP to build the framework for carrying out the technical tasks of the project.

Answering "how" questions

The SEMP does not attempt to answer what is to be done, but rather how what needs to be done should be executed.  For example, the SEMP does not seek to define what the product concept is.  It asks instead how the product concept is to be determined.  This distinction between “how” and “what” is important in understanding the purpose of the SEMP.  While the SEMP answers “how” questions, the various documents and processes it describes are used to answer the “what" questions.

A living document

Because the SEMP is produced early in the life cycle of a project, it is generally written with only a partial understanding of what is to be developed.  Available information typically includes only the results of preliminary corridor operational evaluations and needs assessments, as well as preliminary concept explorations that might have been conducted to assess project feasibility.  As a result, several versions the SEMP may be released during a project, usually within the first half of the systems engineering process. As the project progresses through the Concept of Operations, system requirements, and system design, the various sections or plans identified in the SEMP framework are gradually completed.

The SEMP includes the following:

Item
Description
Technical planning and control plan Technical plans, documents, and control gates that will be used to manage the project
Systems engineering process application Processes that will be used to guide activities during each phase of the project
Transitioning critical technologies Expands on the risk management strategy pertaining to technical issues, as described in the Project Management Plan
System configuration management plan Processes for establishing and maintaining configuration control of the products and documentation of the project
System integration and deployment plan Processes that will be used for bringing together the developed components and subsequently deploying the resulting system on the I-210 corridor
System verification plan Activities that will be conducted to verify that the system being built meets the identified system requirements
System validation master plan Activity to validate that the developed system meets its intended purpose and the stakeholder needs that were identified in the Concept of Operations
System evaluation plan General approach that will be used to evaluate the benefits provided by the deployed system against metrics jointly agreed to by Caltrans and corridor partners


Click image to download the SEMP