A Method for Aligning Acquisition Strategies and Software Architectures

Abstract

In the acquisition of a software-intensive system, the relationship between the software architecture and the acquisition strategy is typically not carefully examined. To remedy this lack, a research team at the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has focused a multiyear effort to discover an initial set of failure patterns that result when these entities become misaligned and identify a set of desired relationships among the business and mission goals, system and software architectures, and the acquisition strategy. This report describes the result of the third year of the SEI s research, where the team defined a method that indicates such areas of misalignment (i.e., between a program s architecture and acquisition strategy). The alignment method is used as early in a program s lifetime as practical, ideally before the architecture or acquisition strategy has attained full definition. The authors illustrate the method by means of a case study, during which many of the key elements of the method were piloted.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA610661

Entities

People

  • Cecilia Albert
  • David J. Carney
  • Lisa Brownsword
  • Patrick R.H. Place

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Case Studies
  • Congress
  • Contractors
  • Contracts
  • Department Of Defense
  • Deployment
  • Engineering
  • Intellectual Property
  • Logistics
  • Management Personnel
  • Software Design
  • Software Development
  • Systems Engineering
  • Test And Evaluation

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Software Engineering.
  • Systems Analysis and Design