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if your organization is developing a complex system chances are very high that you'll need to hire some help to design develop integrate and test your system unless you have all the expertise and supply materials completely in-house then perhaps you can avoid contracting otherwise it's inevitable that you're gonna need to develop one and likely several different contracts throughout the system's lifecycle in this lesson we'll merely scratch the surface of how contracting works with special focus applied on how the systems engineer fits into all of it in context contracts and contracting falls within the agreement process which we'll be covering later in this course the agreement process is only shown once in this diagram but it can occur pretty much anywhere within the lifecycle and within any of the technical processes for example during the early technical processes the acquiring organization might need help defining the system requirements perhaps they don't have the expertise in-house to write requirements so they'll hire a consulting firm to help them write their requirements they'll use an agreement process to acquire the consulting firms skill and labor of a specific duration or until a specific product like the specification is delivered in the example the product would likely be the system requirement specification in another example during design definition the developer wants to acquire several pieces of hardware to incorporate into the overarching system so they're gonna hire suppliers to supply them with the hardware that they want and this is done by using the agreement process let's move on to continue our discussion let's talk for a minute about what's happened up to this point someone somewhere had a great idea to develop some complex product or system they identified that there's a need perhaps driven by a newer piece of technology but a need nevertheless this need was analyzed and validated that it actually is a need to analyze and validate the need the systems engineer and perhaps the whole team had to perform at least a single iteration of the systems engineering activities during the business and mission analysis process the feasibility of the system was proven and the business requirements were drafted and agreed to by major stakeholders for the system from there the team was provided further funding and resources to expand and explore various concepts for the system yet another iteration of the systems engineering activities were performed an initial system architecture was developed and a requirements behavioral physical and mission domain was established at the system level the system was decomposed into at least one lower level the subsystem level and perhaps even the component level in some areas each subsystem that was identified also had a recursive application of the systems engineering activities applied to each as well this further expanded the system architecture and uncovered risks key performance parameters measures of effectiveness and perhaps some measures of performance and a more robust mission analysis the architecture was decomposed and the systems engineering activities applied for the primary purpose of developing a stakeholder requirement specification which describes what the primary characteristics that the system will possess as well as how well each of those characteristics needs to be performed in order to successfully accomplish its mission that's been defined in the lifecycle concept this stakeholder requirement specification was baselined perhaps at a gate review and thus marked the end of the stakeholder needs and requirements definition process once stakeholders were comfortable with the maturity of the system and the risk was acceptable then the systems engineer and their team proceeded into defining the system concept in greater detail you may have guessed yet another iteration of systems engineering activities took place at the system subsystem and the component levels this time each subsystem was decomposed down to the component level and further recursions of the systems engineering activities are applied at the component level critical interfaces component level activities and sequences of activities were identified and defined various alternatives were analyzed against each other and a single solution was ultimately chosen the solution is captured in the defined system architecture and converted into a more reader or user-friendly format in the form of the system requirement specification the system requirement specification was baselined and approved at a system requirements gate review at this point other key personnel in the organization assess the cost schedule technical scope and readiness for the project to proceed with the next phase of development we're ready to get some help with actually constructing the widget described in the system requirement specification and that's the story so far so what's next what do we do with these cost estimates and system requirement specifications next we likely discovered probably long before now that we would need help developing our system our organization are not experts in developing the system that we want to have built we need to hire help for that there are many other experts in the field outside of our organization so we need to organize an agreement with them our organization will pay them to design and develop our system for us not only will they design and develop our system they'll also integrate the lower-level components into a whole system and then test the whole system to ensure that it meets the requirements that we give them to get this whole process started we need to draft what's called a request for proposal a request for proposal is also called a solicitation these are formal means of initiating a contract for products services or a combination of both these contracts can include purchasing already existing systems just as they stand or the contracts can include only labor perhaps if we only wanted to hire consulting services for example the contracts can also include developing an end item as is the case for our ATM example here contracts can also span relatively brief periods of time perhaps we only want to hire someone to design the system but not to develop or integrator test the system perhaps we've got someone else in mind for those things or perhaps we want to ensure that the design is a robust enough to proceed into another contract for development and integration this all depends on the level of risk heading into the engineering development stage if the level of risk is acceptable perhaps we can contract for a much larger piece of the pie or period of time perhaps we can hire someone to design develop integrate and test the system all in one contract we might do this in circumstances where the developer of the system has done this many times before and the level of risk is relatively low so what goes into a request for proposal here's an example of the contents of an RFP from the Department of Defense in the United States as you can see there are many elements that feed into an RFP for the government contracts to develop weapon systems instead of reading all these things out loud to you just pause the video and take a look at these sections if you're interested in the details a couple points to highlight are you might be asking where the system requirement specification resides in this well the system requirements specification is a part of section C this is where the system is described the specifications provided and we've previously mentioned in other lessons this document called the statement of work this is also a requirements document but it describes services and service related products instead of the end widget or the end item itself and that's described by the specifications the end item itself as you learned is described by the system requirements specification services and service related products include actually designing the system that's a service documenting those designs and blueprints and CAD drawings developing the system or perhaps developing prototypes of the system integrating the lower-level elements into a cohesive system those are all services and a few products like the prototypes and then testing the system as they're integrated until the system level testing monthly status reports earned value management reports project plans master schedules all kinds of other project management and systems engineering related products are generated during the development effort these are all requested and asked for in the statement of work not in a specification the specification merely describes the widget the end item the features and characteristics it has to possess and how well each of those characteristics must be performed in order for the system to accomplish its mission in the operational environment let's walk through the process and simplify things a bit throughout this process our gonna focus more on the systems engineering aspects behind how a contract is awarded to a developer as discussed previously first you have an idea that's worth developing you've heard several times up to this point that the idea must be refined a bit analyzed and must gain acceptance or approval by stakeholders and project sponsors before proceeding here we assume that has already occurred another iteration of the systems engineering activities are applied and the artifacts for those efforts are created and captured in stakeholder requirements specification and perhaps other documents like the lifecycle concepts use case descriptions and so on the stakeholder requirement specification might be reviewed and baseline at a gate review once accepted and baselined the team performs another iteration of the systems engineering process at deeper levels decomposing more of the system architecture and defining the system in much greater detail typically down to the component level these are captured in this system requirement specification which is a representation of the system architecture in requirements language other artifacts include updated lifecycle concepts updated use case documents and so on the concepts are evaluated against each other using the decision support technical management process and a single concept is typically selected to carry forward into the development stage the system requirements specification might be reviewed and baselined at yet another gate review this baseline specification becomes one of many pieces of documentation in the organization's request for proposal or RFP that's aimed at the system development effort once that request for proposal is ready then is made available to the public at large or select industries within the public sector on rare occasions sometimes they're given specifically to a single source called sole source contracting for government contracts they're required by law to make RFPs available to the general public or allow competition but may select a single developer if it can be shown that there are no other companies that can develop a system in the same price range time range and level of risk is the sole source supplier this is called justification and authorization or a JEA anyway once the RFP is made available to the public then anyone can make an offer to fulfill the terms of the potential contract if a company decides they want in on the development effort then they'll develop a proposal outlining the solution described by that RFP to include the system requirement specification the statement of work and other documents within that RFP each potential supplier takes the RFP analyzes it and creates a proposal the proposal describes the suppliers intended solution for meeting the customers requirements from the RFP or more specifically from the system requirement specification the proposal includes a breakdown of the amount of money in the amount of time each particular task might take to accomplish in order to provide the customer with the product or service requested in that RFP proposal development is a science all on its own and a lot can be learned about this particular subject unfortunately this course can't cover all the details regarding the development of proposals as the level of information for the subject constitutes an entire course or series of courses all by themselves once a solution has been determined and the cost schedule and resources have all been added up the details are provided in a proposal package sometimes the customer will request proposals be provided in a standardized format going back a few slides if it's a government contract then Section L will provide the requested format for that proposal the proposal is then provided back to the customer within the timeframe requested if it's a competitive contract then other potential contractors may submit their proposals as well the customer will then evaluate each of the proposals using a standardized set of proposal evaluation criteria to determine which proposal will provide the best value at the least amount of risk they may then select a single proposal to award a contract for once the contractor has been selected then the customer and the potential contractor enter a negotiation phase where they come to terms on an agreed to price and schedule for developing the system and all of the artifacts requested in the potential contract this negotiation effort typically takes place in the presence of legal representatives from both sides and the agreed to terms become a part of the base contract that will be awarded one son agreed to price scheduled terms and conditions and other factors have been reached by both the customer and the contractor then legal representatives with Warren Authority from each side generate and signed contracts for the development effort once the contracts are signed then the contractor might begin work assuming the initial payments have been provided and the period of performance begins right after contract award in this example the contract is to design develop integrate and test the ATM concept the contractor will pick up where the customer left off with the systems engineering activities they'll conduct systems engineering activities to perform design definition and to advance high-risk technologies within the ATM system focusing on lowering the technical risk of the system prior to proceeding with designing the rest of the system once the risk is at an acceptable level preliminary designs are provided and reviewed perhaps it another gate review once accepted then the designs can proceed into detailed design or implementation as it's called here where the system segments are constructed and begin to perform integration and evaluation various gait reviews might be held to assess the maturity and the risk of the development effort as the team progresses in the integration process the system segments are integrated and verified at various integration points typically starting at lower levels once the tests are acceptable then lower level integration segments are again integrated into subsystems and tested at subsystem levels then subsystems are integrated to form a cohesive system as a whole then the system as a whole is tested against the system requirement specification which is a part of the initial contract that started the system development effort in the first place prior to system level verification typically the contractor will review the design with the customer once again to ensure that they're ready to proceed with testing this is done it another gate review once the system is verified it might be validated either within the system development stage or under an entirely new contract associated with system transition validation and production this is typically where the development contract ends and another contract might begin for the transition production and deployment of the system at this point the RFP process starts all over again for the production of the system this time instead of the development of the system something they should be mentioned here is that even though there's a primary contract driving the design development integration verification of the entire system with a prime contractor the prime contractor may themselves also be awarding and managing out multiple sub contracts to lower-level suppliers for each of the segments that are within the system for example they may contract with a display manufacturer to purchase displays or pay for encryption analysts and software engineers to develop state-of-the-art encryption technology in software and so on the amount of work and effort required to actually define implement integrate and verify a system is usually much much greater than the amount of work and effort done in the initial stages of the lifecycle this is why ensuring that the contract is sound cohesive feasible and at an acceptable level of risk is of critical importance any changes due to mistakes made in the beginning stages of the lifecycle may have serious cost schedule or technical implications in the system that's being designed implemented integrated and verified the bottom line is make sure that the contract is written properly and that is written so the system delivered on the back end of the system development stage will represent what's desired by the end-user and will operate effectively in the operational environment you