Apr 9
2012
By Robert Nord,
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Research, Technology, & System Solutions
New acquisition guidelines
from the Department of Defense (DoD) aimed at reducing system lifecycle
time and effort is encouraging the adoption of Agile methods. There is a
general lack, however, of practical guidance on how to employ Agile methods
effectively for DoD acquisition programs. This blog posting describes
our research on providing software and systems architects with a
decision making framework for reducing integration risk with Agile
methods, thereby reducing the time and resources needed for related
work.
Read more...
Mar 26
2012
By Mike Phillips
Principal Researcher
Acquisition Support Program
In my preceding blog post, I promised to provide more examples highlighting the importance of software sustainment in the US Department of Defense (DoD). My focus is on certain configurations of weapons systems that are no longer in production for the United States Air Force, but are expected to remain a key component of our defense capability for decades to come, and thus software upgrade cycles need to refresh capabilities every 18 to 24 months. Throughout this series on efficient and effective software sustainment, I will highlight examples from each branch of the military. This second blog post describes effective sustainment engineering efforts in the Air Force, using examples from across the service’s Air Logistics Centers (ALCs).
Read more...
Feb 27
2012
By Mike Phillips
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Acquisition Support Program
Our SEI blog has included thoughtful discussions about sustaining software, such as the two-part post “The Growing Importance of Sustaining Software for the DoD.”
Software sustainment is growing in importance as the lifetimes of
hardware systems greatly exceed the normal lifetime of software systems
they are partnered with, as well as when system functionality
increasingly depends on software elements. This blog post—the first in a
multi-part series—provides specific examples of the importance of software sustainment in the Department of Defense (DoD),
where software upgrade cycles need to refresh capabilities every 18 to
24 months on weapon systems that have been out of production for many
years, but are expected to maintain defense capability for decades.
Read more...
Feb 13
2012
By Douglas C. Schmidt
Visiting Scientist
We
use the SEI Blog to inform you about the latest work at the SEI, so
this week I'm summarizing some video presentations recently posted to
the SEI website from the SEI Technologies Forum.
This virtual event held in late 2011 brought together participants from
more than 50 countries to engage with SEI researchers on a sample of
our latest work, including cloud computing, insider threat, Agile
development, software architecture, security, measurement, process
improvement, and acquisition dynamics. This post includes a description
of all the video presentations from the first event, along with links
where you can view the full presentations on the SEI website.
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Feb 6
2012
By Mary Ann Lapham
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Acquisition Support Program
Over
the past several years, the SEI has explored the use of Agile methods
in DoD environments, focusing on both if and when they are suitable and how to use them most effectively
when they are suitable. Our research has approached the topic of Agile
methods both from an acquisition and a technical perspective. Stephany Bellomo described some of our experiences in previous blog posts What is Agile? and Building a Foundation for Agile.
This post summarizes a project the SEI has undertaken to review and
study Agile approaches, with the goal of developing guidance for their
effective application in DoD environments.
Read more...
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