Tradespace and Affordability – Phase 1

One of the key elements of the SERC’s research strategy is transforming the practice of systems engineering – “SE Transformation.” The Grand Challenge goal for SE Transformation is to transform the DoD community’s current systems engineering and management methods, processes, and tools (MPTs) and practices away from sequential, single stovepipe system, hardware-first, outside-in, document-driven, point-solution, acquisition-oriented approaches; and toward concurrent, portfolio and enterprise-oriented, hardware-software-human engineered, balanced outside-in and inside-out, model-driven, set-based, full life cycle approaches.This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract H98230-08- D-0171 (Task Order 0031, RT 046).This material is based upon work supported, in whole or in part, by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) under Contract H98230-08- D-0171 (Task Order 0031, RT 046)

When the Project Absolutely Must Get Done: Marrying the Organization Chart with the Precedence Diagram

ABSTRACT Very little is new in project planning, but this is! We present a technique to marry the organization chart with a project's task precedence diagram. This permits us to simulate the project at a micro, project-specific level never before achieved. We can perform "what-if" scenarios related to organization structures, the deployment of specific individuals and skills, and the structure of information flow and exception-handling in a project. The tool used, ViteProject, was developed over the last ten years in a Stanford University laboratory, where substantial results have been achieved when applied to design activities other than software. We present our real-world experience with several software projects, where it has improved project visibility and allowed us to rationally optimize projects in a way hitherto impossible

Appropriate life cycles depend upon enterprise strategy

Selecting the best life cycle depends upon a number of factors. One of them is the market discipline or strategy of the organization. Certain strategies are aligned, that is fit, with corresponding strategies

Applying Program Comprehension Techniques to Improve Software Inspections

: Software inspections are widely regarded as a cost-effective mechanism for removing defects in software, though performing them does not always reduce the number of customer-discovered defects. We present a case study in which an attempt was made to reduce such defects through inspection training that introduced program comprehension ideas. The training was designed to address the problem of understanding the artifact being reviewed, as well as other perceived deficiencies of the inspection process itself. Measures, both formal and informal, suggest that explicit training in program understanding may improve inspection effectiveness. The software technical review is a widely-recommended mechanism for software defect removal. Such reviews go by many names---inspections, Fagan-style inspections, code reviews, peer reviews, formal reviews---and exhibit significant variations among organizations [Fagan, Freedman, Gilb]. All such review methods rely on the self-evident notion that softwar..

Measurement in Practice

A few organizations have reputations for implementing excellent software measurement practices. A sample of these organizations was surveyed in site visits. Clear patterns of practices emerged and they are reported at a consolidated, lessons learned level and in more detailed case studies

Conservation of Information: Reverse engineering dark social systems

A broad appeal for a new theory of interdependence, 'iota', has been requested for the science of complexity in a special issue of Science, for social network analysis by the National Academy of Sciences, for effects-based operations by the US military, and for modernizing the fields of law and economics. We have proposed a new theory of 'iota' for organizations and systems that already appears to exhibit some validity. It is expressed in a physics of 'iota' (e.g., bistability) that includes Fourier pairs for social uncertainty and Lotka-Volterra-like equations for population effects in social systems. Unlike traditional social science, it assumes that despite the tension between self and collective organizational processes, perfect organizations and social systems become dark, but that purposively dark systems emit more light in the form of unique information (e.g., gangs, terrorists, high-security systems). To reverse engineer dark social systems (DSS), our theory replaces methodological individualism with a physics of social 'iota'. But the many challenges in applying 'iota' to control theory or to metrics for organizational performance make this high-risk research