The SEI created Acquisition Support (ASP) specifically to engage directly with federal defense agencies (the Department of Defense and the military services), intelligence agencies and other federal government organizations that acquire software and software-intensive systems. The purpose of these engagements is two fold:

• help organizations meet their business and mission objectives
• encourage and advance the adoption of the best software engineering practices, as developed by the Software Engineering Institute
  

Direct Support

An ASP engagement can consist of providing direct support for some activities, tools, and methods:

• Acquisition Process Improvements
• Support for Software Acquisition and Systems Engineering

Strategic Planning

Often, ASP helps acquisition programs develop acquisition strategies, as well as conducting hands-on workshops before and after contracts are awarded:

• Acquisition Strategy Planning Workshop
• IT Strategic Planning
• Pre- and Post-Contract Award Workshops

Assessments, Reviews, and Evaluations

For many organizations, the most valuable engagement with ASP comes in the form of a program assessment, review, or evaluation. The SEI has developed a valued reputation as a skilled, fair, and neutral examiner of software acquisition programs:

• Independent Technical Assessments
• Software Risk Evaluations
• Process Appraisals
• Request for Proposal Preparation and Reviews
• Source-Selection Reviews
• Measurement-Plan Evaluations
• System and Software Requirements Architecture Reviews
• Quality Assessments of System Architectures and their Requirements (QUASAR)
• Testing-Approach Evaluation
• Sustainment-Readiness Review
• Document Reviews

We're Here to Help

If we can help your organization with any of these efforts, call us at 1-888-201-4479, or write to us at info@sei.cmu.edu. We're here to help.