Open Source Systems Engineering Guides, Deployment Packages and Support Tools for Very Small Enterprises – A Case Study

Very small entities (VSEs) play an increasingly important role in the global economy. The products they develop are often integrated into products made by larger enterprises. The “Big League” clients, furthermore, demand of the VSEs that they assume a much broader role, spanning the entire development life-cycle of the product instead of being limited to a “build-to- print” approach. To address this new reality, to exploit the lean and efficient nature of VSEs and to adapt to their typical budget and resource constraints, the ISO/IEC 29110 systems engineering standards, management and engineering guides were developed from ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288. In addition, and by design, the standard is supported by Deployment Packages, software tools and training kits. The INCOSE VSE working group developed the deployment packages. A deployment package is a set of artefacts designed to facilitate the implementation of a standard or a set of practices in a VSE. In tune with the need for low cost and flexibility, Open Source software tools are emerging to complete “Big League” development life-cycle toolsets, which are often out-of-reach to VSEs. Finally, to make the deployment of the standard possible in the VSE, training packages, supported by relevant pilot projects help VSE personnel learn how to apply all of the above.