Agile Systems Engineering presents a vision of systems engineering where specification of
requirements structure and behavior meet larger concerns such as safety security
reliability and performance. Traditionally systems engineering has resulted in many
disconnected paper documents each attempting to specify some aspect of the system. Errors in
the documents themselves and in their interconnection are often missed because the primary
means by which quality is ensured is painstaking error-prone manual review. . Leading author
Bruce Douglass incorporates Agile methods and model-based development to consider the goals of
an entire system and avoid errors that can occur when functions are developed independently and
disconnected from the big picture. Douglass covers the lifecycle of systems development
including requirements analysis design and handoff stages to specific engineering
disciplines. Throughout Douglass couples Agile methods with system concepts to address the
needs of system engineers avoid many common specification defects and improve system quality
while reducing the effort and cost of systems engineering.
