Aug 6
2012
By Robert Stoddard,
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Software Engineering Measurement and Analysis Program
As
part of our research related to early acquisition lifecycle cost
estimation for the Department of Defense (DoD), my colleagues in the
SEI’s Software Engineering Measurement & Analysis initiative
and I began envisioning a potential solution that would rely heavily on
expert judgment of future possible program execution scenarios.
Previous to our work on cost estimation, many parametric cost models
required domain expert input, but, in our opinion, they did not address
alternative scenarios of execution that might occur from Milestone A onward. Our approach, known as Quantifying Uncertainty in Early Lifecycle Cost Estimation (QUELCE),
asks domain experts to provide judgment not only on uncertain cost
factors for a nominal program execution scenario, but also for the
drivers of cost factors across a set of anticipated scenarios. This blog
post describes our efforts to improve the accuracy and reliability of
expert judgment within this expanded role of early lifecycle cost estimation.
Read more...
Jun 11
2012
By Dave Zubrow,
Chief Scientist
Software Engineering Process Management Program
By law, major defense acquisition programs are now required to prepare cost estimates earlier in the acquisition lifecycle, including pre-Milestone A,
well before concrete technical information is available on the program
being developed. Estimates are therefore often based on a desired
capability—or even on an abstract concept—rather than a concrete
technical solution plan to achieve the desired capability. Hence the
role and modeling of assumptions becomes more challenging. This blog
posting outlines a multi-year project on Quantifying Uncertainty in Early Lifecycle Cost Estimation (QUELCE) conducted by the SEI Software Engineering Measurement and Analysis (SEMA)
team. QUELCE is a method for improving pre-Milestone A software cost
estimates through research designed to improve judgment regarding
uncertainty in key assumptions (which we term program change drivers), the relationships among the program change drivers, and their impact on cost.
Read more...
Dec 19
2011
Acquisition , Acquisition Dynamics , Agile , Architecture Documentation , Architecture Driven Design (ADD) , Binaries , Cyber-physical Systems , Fuzzy Hashing , Handheld Devices , Malware , Measurement & Analysis , Resilience Management Model (RMM) , Safety-Related Requirements , Security-Related Requirements , SEI Research , Software Cost Estimates , Team Software Process (TSP) , Technical Debt
By Douglas C. Schmidt
Chief Technology Officer
A key mission of the SEI is to advance the practice of software engineering and cyber security through research and technology transition
to ensure the development and operation of software-reliant Department
of Defense (DoD) systems with predictable and improved quality,
schedule, and cost. To achieve this mission, the SEI conducts research
and development (R&D) activities involving the DoD, federal
agencies, industry, and academia. One of my initial blog postings
summarized the new and upcoming R&D activities
we had planned for 2011. Now that the year is nearly over, this blog
posting presents some of the many R&D accomplishments we completed
in 2011.
Read more...
Aug 1
2011
Part 1: Software Sustainment Trends and Challenges
By Douglas C. Schmidt,
Deputy Director, Research, and Chief Technology Officer
Department
of Defense (DoD) programs have traditionally focused on the software
acquisition phase (initial procurement, development, production, and
deployment) and largely discounted the software sustainment phase
(operations and support) until late in the lifecycle. The costs of software sustainment are becoming too high to discount since they account for 60 to 90 percent of the total software lifecycle effort.
Moreover, in an era where DoD new-start programs are being reduced in
favor of prolonging legacy systems, significant software sustainment
cost increases are themselves unsustainable. The growing expense and
prolonging of legacy systems motivates the need for greater discipline
and attention on defining and applying appropriate methods and
technologies to improve sustainment capabilities and efficiencies. This
SEI blog posting—the first in a two part series—summarizes key
software sustainment challenges faced by DoD; the subsequent post
describes R&D activities conducted by the SEI to address some of
these challenges.
Read more...
Jun 13
2011
By Robert Ferguson
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Software Engineering Process Management Program
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has frequently cited poor
cost estimation as one of the reasons for cost overrun problems in
acquisition programs. Software is often a major culprit. One study on cost estimation
by the Naval Postgraduate School found a 34 percent median value
increase of software size over the estimate. Cost overruns lead to
painful Congressional scrutiny, and an overrun in one program often
cascades and leads to the depletion of funds from others. The challenges
encountered in estimating software cost were described in the first post
of this two-part series on improving the accuracy of early cost
estimates. This post describes new tools and methods we are developing
at the SEI to help cost estimation experts get the right information
they need into a familiar and usable form for producing high quality
cost estimates early in the life cycle.
Read more...
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