2.3.2 Towards a Work Breakdown Structure for Net Centric System of Systems Engineering and Management

As the system engineering industry sees an increasing focus on the lifecycle development, acquisition, and sustainment of net-centric Systems of Systems (SoS) and Family of Systems (FoS), organizations find the need to evolve current processes and tools to better handle the increased scope, scale, and complexity of these efforts. One such tool, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is important in planning and execution of program activities as requirements and goals of the program evolve. This paper provides an overview of the limitations of current WBSs with respect to SoS efforts and presents a proposed WBS structure that more adequately reflects the evolving processes and cross-organizational complexities.