For many organizations that develop software, technology transition—the process of facilitating the acceptance and use of a new technology—is a challenging and often unmanaged activity. Researchers developing software-improvement technologies for software developers are realizing that the value or quality of their technologies alone does not ensure their acceptance and use. Software developers, who now more than ever recognize a mission-critical need to improve their software engineering practices, face a spectrum of adoption challenges as they seek to improve their skills, processes, products, and capabilities. And acquirers of software-intensive systems are seeking better, more cost-effective practices for deploying and fielding those systems so that risks to adoption and use are minimized and managed. Each of these is an example of the kinds of technology-transition problems that the SEI helps to solve.

Purpose

SEI staff members have developed methods to help those responsible for technology transition to answer these questions:

>	Is the technology to be transitioned ready for the target community or organization?
>	Is the target community or organization ready to adopt the new technology?

Many organizations do not ask these questions, do not know how to determine an answer, or do not know what to do next when the answer is “no.”

SEI methods help organizations plan to overcome gaps and, ultimately, manage the transition to a successful completion. They are helping researchers, developers, and acquirers to better understand, evaluate, plan, and manage technology transition.

As of FY2003 (beginning Oct. 1, 2002), Technology Transition Practices (TTP) was realigned at the SEI as part of the Technology Transition Services Directorate, which is charged with executing the SEI’s amplify strategy. Before this realignment, TTP was an SEI focus area called “Accelerating Software Technology Adoption.”

2002 Accomplishments

Evolutionary Acquisition Workshop Held
The SEI held a workshop, Building Implementation Strategies for Evolutionary Acquisition, at the Program Executive Officer/System Commander (PEO/SYSCOM) Conference in October 2001 to assess the status of the acquisition community’s transition to evolutionary acquisition (EA). The workshop was the best-attended tutorial at the conference. It focused on transition mechanisms—ways of disseminating information about and implementing EA. Workshop participants determined that mechanisms needed include technology readiness tools and techniques, discipline in the requirements process, and stabilization of funding across the life cycle. The workshop resulted in a letter of thanks from Dr. Nancy Spruill, Director, Acquisition Resources and Analysis, for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics), which read, “As a result of your work, the department has gained significant additional insight on how best to steer down the road ahead for Evolutionary Acquisition/Spiral Development.”

Technology Adoption
Workshops Held
SEI staff members provided a series of workshops to small manufacturing enterprises on the challenges of technology adoption. The workshops were part of the Technology Insertion, Demonstration, and Evaluation (TIDE) Program, which was founded to encourage and assist small manufacturers in the adoption of commercially available software and information technology. The workshops presented information on supply-chain technology requirements, assessing technology-adoption readiness, and use of transition mechanisms to effect technology implementation, and described case studies of technology-adoption factors.

The Technology Adoption Workshop helped us to evaluate our behavior during a recent technology implementation project. We realized that we did not involve enough employees up front. We are doing a much better job now. The workshop helped us to determine when to involve others, helping us to save time and money.
Julie Crawford
Forrester Instruments

Technology Readiness Levels Study Conducted
In early 2002, the Communications Electronics Command Manager of the Army Tactical Wireless Network Assurance Science and Technology Objective (STO) requested help from the SEI in improving STO methods for assessing the maturity of new information-assurance technologies. The STO was seeking to use technology maturity, as measured by the technology readiness levels (TRLs) scale, as a metric in its decision-making process for selecting new technologies for STO development and maturation—technologies that would eventually be transitioned to Army tactical programs. SEI staff members helped conduct a study of the feasibility of using TRLs in STO technology screening, developing or acquiring a TRL tool, and implementing a TRL tool. Results of the study were reported in Using the Technology Readiness Levels Scale to Support Technology Management in the DoD’s ATD/STO Environments (CMU/SEI-2002-SR-027).

Technology Change Management Study Conducted
SEI staff members participated in a study of various aspects of technology change management (TCM). The purpose of the study was to examine the state of the practice of TCM, identify best practices and examples of effective applications, codify those practices and examples, and make them available. The study focused on how TCM is practiced at organizations that have achieved high levels of maturity against the SEI’s Capability Maturity Model® (CMM®), many of which had appeared to be garnering competitive advantage through a strategic focus on TCM.