Systems Engineering Glossary
Term | Definition |
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Acceptable Risk | The risk that is understood and agreed to by the program/ project manager, governing authority, and other stakeholders and requiring no further mitigation activity. |
Acceptance | The act of acquirer’s authorized representative to assume ownership of the items after verification. |
Acceptance Test | A series of tests conducted in accordance with the approved plan and test procedures that are witnessed by the acquirer’s representative. Results are audited during the Functional Configuration Audit (FCA). |
Acquirer | The entity acquiring goods or services. |
Acquisition | The acquiring of goods or services by contract. |
Activity | A task that consumes resources and has a time duration. |
Agile | A technical development strategy characterized by frequent, incremental deliveries of value. The requirements and architecture for a system of interest are allowed to evolve as development progresses, rather than attempting to fully define them at the beginning of development. This is sometimes called spin development. |
Allocated Baseline | The approved functional and interface characteristics that are allocated from higher level requirements to configuration items for development. |
Allocation | The apportionment or assignment of a requirement to items in the architecture. |
Analysis | A verification technique involving a process, which may include computer modeling, to determine compliance with specifications where test, demonstration, or inspection is not feasible. |
Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) | A formal decision-making technique that compares alternative options to estimate the ability of the options to satisfy requirements. Also called a Trade Study. |
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) | A multi-attribute decision analysis methodology that uses hierarchical decomposition and pair-wise comparisons. |
Approval | A documented authorization by a designated official to move forward with a recommended course of action. |
Architectural Design | The activity of specifying the constituent elements of a system of interest to include: responsibilities, properties, and interfaces, and how they relate and interact with each other. |
Architecture | The framework of a system’s constituent elements, showing how they relate to one another and their environment. |
Architecture Descriptions | Representations of the architecture in views from various perspectives. An architecture view is a graphical or textual description/ representation of the functions, tasks, activities, operational elements, data, information flows, systems, interconnections, and relationships that make up the architecture. |
Architecture Framework | A set of tools, vocabulary, and standards for showing how the building blocks of a system fit together. |
Assembly | A system element consisting of an integrated set of components and/or subassemblies that form a distinct portion of a subsystem. |
Assessment | The activity of identifying and analyzing project information to determine the likelihood of meeting cost, schedule, and technical objectives. |
Audit | An inspection against a standard to determine adherence to policies, plans, requirements, and specifications. |
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