Mechanisms for Web-based Systems Engineering Training

Lessons Learned from Company ABC Company ABC has in-house training for a sophisticated systems engineering tool. Training focuses on step-by-step procedures for using the tool to accomplish specific tasks. At the end of the training, employees can use the tool to work through simple tasks, but have extreme difficulty in connecting high-level systems engineering (and organizational) processes to lower-level tasks. Connecting High-level Processes to Lower-level Tasks Employees need to see how high-level systems engineering (and organizational) processes are supported by tools. How to make this connection? We need an expressive notation for bridging the gap between high-level learning objectives and systems engineering processes, and lower-level task- and tool-oriented procedures.

Lessons Learned from Company XYZ

What did we observe and learn from our training classes at XYZ? Systems engineering is a team activity -- training needs to support multiple viewpoints, levels of experience, and backgrounds. Systems engineering processes make use of many different entity types (e.g., primary and derived requirements; traceability links; various models of system behavior and system structure), sometimes connected in complicated ways. Training materials are linear -- but systems concepts are best organized into a variety of architectures. See the adjacent figure. Too many pages! Too many links! Readers feel overwhelmed. They jump around material and gloss over content rather than learning it. Students need to see how new systems engineering concepts can be applied to applications they are familiar with. (i.e., if you're at a company that makes trains, you need a case study on trains). Challenge Need to find ways of using web technology to enhance quality of learning. Otherwise, whole exercise is a waste of time. How to work with XYZ's businesses to create business-specific case studies?

Figure : Architecture of Training Material Contents

Section 3-1: April, 2002.