Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A reminder of a basic from systems engineering. There are several baselines we use most of the time regardless of intent or realization.

I once worked in an organization that (1) flew machines and (2) practiced systems engineering. One of the favorite phrases of persons there is the title of this post: eye’n fly’n and buy’n.

That quaint phrase was a folksy statement of basic baselines.

fly’n: this is the operational baseline. It describes what we are doing now. If someone steals our laptop or our dropped smartphone breaks into a thousand pieces, we can push a button and be back at work.

buy’n: this is the development baselines. It describes what we are building now. In a few days or years, we will deploy this and it will become the operational baseline.

eye’n: this is the requirements or design baseline (depends on how far into the future we peer). One day, what we do now and what we build now will be outdated. What will we do on that day?

There is more to this baseline concept than three abbreviated and rhyming words, but for the basics, this is sufficient.