Treffer: DoD Software-intensive Systems Development: A Hit and Miss Process

From remotely piloted aircraft and smart bombs to autonomous vehicles and advanced fighter jets, software is crucial to the success of today s weapon systems. Focusing solely on developing and maintaining military hardware is no longer an option. With shrinking defense budgets and increasingly complex systems, the defense industry and services must fight to deliver on this ambitious objective, the military must drastically transform its approach to software. New organizational structures, operating models, and tools will be essential to modernizing and sustaining the U.S. weapon systems. (Hagen, Hurt, & Sorenson, 2013, p. 31) Although the Department of Defense (DoD) has developed some very successful software-intensive systems, such as the Aegis, Tomahawk Missile, and F/A-18 Hornet, we continue to struggle with successfully developing like systems. The software development in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) continues to be problematic. The GAO (2012) stated that JSF software development is one of the largest and most complex projects in DoD history, providing essential capability, but software has grown in size and complexity, and is taking longer to complete than expected. Developing, testing, and integrating software, mission systems, and logistics systems are critical for demonstrating the operational effectiveness and suitability of a fully integrated, capable aircraft and pose significant technical risks moving forward. (p. 7) The report went on to state, This program [JSF] has modified the software development and integration schedule several times, in each instance lengthening the time needed to complete work (GAO, 2012, p. 11). The results of the software development problems have contributed to a two-year delay and increased costs of about one billion dollars. ; Published in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Acquisition Research Symposium, Thursday Sessions, v2, 2015. Presented at the Twelfth Annual Acquisition Research Symposium held in Monterey, CA on 13-14 May 2015.