Spiral Development and Evolutionary Acquisition

The evolutionary acquisition strategy has been promulgated by the forthcoming DoD Instruction 5000.2. It introduces innovations throughout the acquisition cycle: before a contract is considered, technology readiness guides the choice of experiments; contracts are let for one or more blocks; and progress within each block is managed with spiral development. There is some confusion as to the nature of evolutionary acquisition and spiral development and their relationship. To address these problems, a workshop was held September 13-15, under joint sponsorship of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology, the Software Engineering Institute, and the Center for Software Engineering. This report summarizes the workshop and presents its recommendations.

Themes appearing in the workshop presentations included the lack of understanding of the definitions of evolutionary acquisition and spiral development, some extensions to these definitions, the barriers imposed by existing funding and contracting policies, the need for teamwork among all stakeholders, and the role of education and training in acculturation. Work groups at the workshop recommended specific actions aimed at building and spreading a culture for evolutionary acquisition and spiral development. These actions can be grouped under the topics of improvements to contract models, revision of funding approaches, adaptation of acquisition policies, enhancement of integrated product teams, training and acculturation of participants, and studies of evolutionary acquisition and spiral development to validate and improve them.

PDF [1822 KB]

Authors

Fred Hansen

Elliot Axelband

Lisa Brownsword

Eileen C. Forrester

John T. Foreman

Cecilia Albert

This report is related to the following area(s) of work:

Acquisition Support

Special Report
CMU/SEI-2001-SR-005
May 2001

Cite This Report

SEI:

Hansen, Wilfred; Axelband, Elliot; Brownsword, Lisa; Forrester, Eileen; Foreman, John; & Albert, Cecilia. Spiral Development and Evolutionary Acquisition (CMU/SEI-2001-SR-005 ). Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01sr005.cfm

IEEE:

W. Hansen, E. Axelband, L. Brownsword, E. Forrester, J. Foreman, and C. Albert, "Spiral Development and Evolutionary Acquisition," Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Special Report CMU/SEI-2001-SR-005 , 2001. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01sr005.cfm

APA:

Hansen, W., Axelband, E., Brownsword, L., Forrester, E., Foreman, J., & Albert, C. (2001). Spiral Development and Evolutionary Acquisition (CMU/SEI-2001-SR-005 ). Retrieved May 22, 2013, from the Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University website: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01sr005.cfm

CHI:

Hansen, Wilfred, Elliot Axelband, Lisa Brownsword, Eileen Forrester, John Foreman, and Cecilia Albert. Spiral Development and Evolutionary Acquisition (CMU/SEI-2001-SR-005 ). Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01sr005.cfm

MLA:

Hansen, W., Axelband, E., Brownsword, L., Forrester, E., Foreman, J., & Albert, C. 2001. Spiral Development and Evolutionary Acquisition (Technical Report CMU/SEI-2001-SR-005 ). Pittsburgh: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/01sr005.cfm

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