Joint capabilities and System-of-Systems solutions

Defense AR Journal, April-July, 2005 by Mary Maureen Brown, Rob Flowe

The mission of SSTC is to provide information and training on software engineering issues and technologies. Its members derive primarily from the DoD, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The SSTC is touted as being the premier software technology conference relating to the DoD. The conference focuses on matching problems to solutions as representatives from industry, government, and academia present their ideas and solutions through tutorials and presentations. Topics discussed during the week-long conference included interoperability, greater use of software engineering, architecture, reuse of designs and code, and other methods and improvements. The survey items were derived from the literature and personal interviews regarding cost drivers for SOS (see Appendix for a list of the survey items).

In total, 28 attendees visited the SSTC research booth and completed the SSTC survey (see Figure 1). The data were analyzed in two fashions. First, descriptive and correlation statistics were obtained to give insight on respondent perceptions of the factors that influence SOS cost, schedule, and performance. Based on an average majority viewpoint, the descriptive and correlation statistics provided an indicator of the relative importance for each factor (or variable) under study. The second analysis departed from the traditional approach to statistical analysis and used a grouping technique referred to as "Q Methodology." Under this approach, a factor analytical technique (2) was performed to isolate the number of statistically significant factions (or groups) that exists on a given point-of-view. Instead of demonstrating which variable had the greatest consensus, the methodology illustrated the extent to which the respondents, in their total viewpoint, shared similar perspectives and impressions on the factors that contribute to cost, schedule, and performance shortfalls. Hence, the method provided a means for assessing the extent to which similarity exists among perceptions on all of the various survey items. Analyzing the data in both fashions was particularly useful when a multitude of viewpoints existed and had to be considered. As demonstrated below, each of the statistical approaches cast a slightly different perspective on the matter at hand.

SURVEY RESULTS

For the most part, the majority of the respondents indicated extensive hands-on experience in SOS efforts. Sixty percent of the survey respondents identified SOS integration as their primary role in SOS efforts. Thirty-five percent indicated their primary role as SOS acquisition, and 5 percent indicated SOS policy. The average experience level in years ranged from 4 to 30 years with a mean of 12. Overwhelmingly, the respondents identified three critical variables as major hurdles to achieving cost schedule and performance goals for SOS efforts: 1) 75 percent of the sample identified leadership, standards, and requirements communication as major challenges (Table 1); 2) funding was seen as a major obstacle by 68 percent of the respondents; and 3) roughly 50 percent indicated knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), aligning system interdependencies, and end-to-end mission threads as the greatest challenges to SOS efforts. Approximately 35 percent of the sample indicated conflict management, changing environmental demands, and information access as important determinants of difficulty.