Code of Best Practice: Experimentation
Abstract
Experiments of various kinds have begun to proliferate throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) as interest in transforming the defense capabilities of the United States has grown. DoD transformation is motivated by a recognition that the national security environment of the 21st century will be significantly different, and the roles and missions the nation will call upon the DoD to undertake will require new competencies and capabilities, Information Age concepts and technologies provide unparalleled opportunities to develop and employ new operational concepts that promise to dramatically enhance competitive advantage, and the DoD's business processes will need to adapt to provide the flexibility and speed necessary to keep pace with the rapid changes in both national security and information-related technologies. There is growing concern that many of the activities labeled experiments being conducted by the DoD have been less valuable than they could have been. Their contributions to DoD strategies and decisions, to the development of mission capability packages (MCPs), and to the body of knowledge in general have been limited by the manner in which they have been conceived and conducted. Given the prominent role that both joint and Service experimentation need to play in the transformation of the DoD, it seems reasonable to ask if it can do better. This Code of Best Practice (COBP) is intended to do the following: (1) increase awareness and understanding of the different types of experimentation activities that the DoD needs to employ to inform the transformation, (2) articulate a useful set of organizing principles for the design and conduct of experiments, (3) provide both producers of experiments and consumers of experimentation results with "best practice" and lessons learned, (4) provide future experimenters with a firm foundation upon which to build, and (5) promote a degree of scientific rigor and professionalism in the DoD experimentation process.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA457917
Entities
People
- David S. Alberts
Organizations
- United States Assistant Secretary of Defense