Test and Evaluation and the ABCs: It's All about Speed

Abstract

When Lt General Charlie Croom took over as the Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) in July 2005, he brought us a new message: "It's All about Speed." What he meant was simply this: It takes us too long to get new capabilities into the hands of the warfighters. When he retired this past summer, three years after his arrival, he left a legacy of change -- of innovation -- in how we acquire and test information technologies (IT) in DISA. Shortly after his arrival, Lt Gen Croom cast his message of speed in these terms: "Adopt before Buy, Buy before Create" -- the ABCs. It was a simple message; to speed up the process of getting enhanced capabilities into the hands of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that need them, we would look first for something already available in the Department -- say an Army system for example, that would satisfy a need identified by the Navy -- and adopt it for fielding to the entire Department. If there was no capability already fielded, then we would look for a commercial product and buy it for fielding to the Enterprise, then add capability in short cycles. As a last recourse, we would create it; last because that approach comes with a lot of program management overhead, cumbersome decision-making processes, and sometimes heavy-handed oversight, not to mention lengthy periods of development and testing -- processes that are slow to move and adjust when it's all about speed. In DISA, we are working to unite all test activities into a holistic, coherent T&E model. We refer to this model as capability T&E (CT&E). We can fundamentally change the way we acquire and test information technologies in the Department. By focusing on small improvements to capability, development cycles in sprints, and a one team, one time, one set of conditions T&E model, we can simultaneously reduce time to fielding while improving product quality.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA513930

Entities

People

  • Steven J. Hutchison

Organizations

  • Defense Information Systems Agency

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Agile Software Development
  • Command And Control
  • Department Of Defense
  • Developmental Tests
  • Information Assurance
  • Information Systems
  • Interoperability
  • Military Acquisition
  • National Security
  • Performance Tests
  • Program Management
  • Security
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Test Methods

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.