Role View

Find information relevant to your project role.

Project participants will vary in level of involvement as well as areas of responsibility throughout the project lifecycle. This page identifies the roles that are needed in each phase of the lifecycle of an ITS project. Select a phase to view the roles and responsibilities for that phase.

The following roles are defined for each phase:

• System Owner (Project Sponsor & Stakeholders)
  The system’s owner [project sponsor & stakeholders] will acquire a set of development services to develop the ITS project.  The services can be either in-house or contracted.  The system’s owner and operating organization will ultimately be responsible for the system and its operations & maintenance.  The system’s owner needs to supply clear requirements and expected project outcomes to the development team.  These outputs must be compatible with the long-term operations & maintenance goals of the system’s owner & stakeholders.  The success of the project relies on the system’s owner’s working relationship with the systems engineering assistant and development team[s] who implement the system.

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• Systems Engineering Assistant (In-house staff, Independent Verification and Validation, System Manager)
  The systems engineering assistant provides the system’s owner with specialty support in systems engineering.  This role can be undertaken by in-house staff, a system manager, or an Independent Verification and Validation consultant [IV&V] to a limited extent.  Contract resources are particularly valuable for large, complex, or unusual projects.  It is also valuable when the system’s owner’s organization is small and lacks systems engineering expertise.  This may be the case with a small or medium size city or MPO. The systems engineering assistant:
  1. defines requirements and the project architecture:
  2. prepares the request for proposal or other system procurement documents,
  3. assists in the review of proposals,
  4. provides independent review services [Independent Verification & Validation], and
  5. Provides technical assistance to the system’s owner during the lifecycle of the ITS system.  
  A consultant who neither offers products nor is affiliated with a development team or vendor can be un-biased in the selection and evaluation of developers and products.  The consultant can assist the agency in Configuration Management, Risk Management, development team evaluations, and process improvement.  It is important to find a consultant who has both systems engineering expertise and ITS knowledge and experience.

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• Development Team (In-house, Systems Integrator)
  An ITS system development team normally develops or supplies hardware and software that integrate custom [project-specific] and COTS products.  The system’s owner secures the services of a development team to:
  • perform the detailed design,
  • develop any necessary custom hardware or software,
  • integrate COTS products, and
  • Verify the system as a whole
The development team may be another department within the system’s owner’s organization [internal development team].  Or, it can be a contracted integration team.  This is the normal case for most organizations.

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