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/ Journal Issues / Design and Development Process for Assured Software – DoD Software Assurance Community of Practice: Volume 1 / Keys to Successful DoD Software Project Execution

Keys to Successful DoD Software Project Execution

Published in Journal of Cyber Security and Information Systems
Volume: 5 Number: 2 - Design and Development Process for Assured Software – DoD Software Assurance Community of Practice: Volume 1

Author: Joe Heil
Posted: 07/13/2017 | Leave a Comment

KEY: Data Driven Management and Technical Execution Best Practices

Mature data-driven best software project management and technical engineering practices are required to consistently achieve the goal of delivering high quality, safe, secure, and reliable systems on schedule and within budget.

The software project management processes and technical development processes must be documented, institutionalized and enforced. The software development plan must specify the steps, activities, roles and responsibilities, and required reviews and metrics that are used for both the initial system development (pre-IOC) and sustainment (post-IOC) efforts. This includes the set of required metrics and measures-of-success that will be utilized to proactively control cost, schedule, technical performance, quality, and risk for the current effort as well as facilitating analysis and continuous improvement for cost, schedule, technical, and quality performance of future efforts. At a minimum, each software development organization must collect, maintain, share and report on a frequent, regular and structured basis the quantitative and qualitative information to address all of the critical execution questions listed below:

  1. Are the expected system requirements stable and understood?
  2. Is the scope and size of the effort understood?
  3. Is the activity adequately staffed?
  4. Is the activity making the required progress?
  5. Is the activity being executed within budget?
  6. Is the activity meeting technical performance, assurance, and quality goals?
  7. Is the activity formally successfully identifying and mitigating risks?
  8. Is the activity continually improving efficiency and effectiveness?

Continuous improvement requires the software teams to maintain awareness of and apply emergent best practices which include tools, techniques, methods, technologies, etc. For example, a few proven best sw engineering technical practices include:

  • User Centered and Model-based system and software engineering.
  • Documented traceability between requirements, design, code and test artifacts.
  • Multi-Discipline-expert peer reviews of artifacts (specifications, code, tests, etc.).
  • Build-a-Little Test-a-Little (Rapid prototyping, Agile development, etc.).
  • Automated testing (at CSCI level) and simulators for go/fault/stress testing.
  • Tracking defect detection and removal in each development phase.
  • Regular causal analysis of defects to improve earlier detection and removal.

Project teams must take the time to formally and regularly assess their cost, schedule, technical, quality and risk management performance trends and then identify and track to closure the associated specific process improvement actions.

Software assurance (quality AND resiliency against cyber vulnerabilities) must be engineered-in throughout all development activities. This entails much more than applying the latest COTS security patches prior to delivery. SW assurance requirements must be defined, the software design must not only defend against cyber intrusions, but also be resilient enough to detect and complete mission critical functions after intrusion; coders must be trained on and apply secure coding techniques; multiple tools must be integrated into all activities to identify and remove vulnerabilities as early as possible; and all testing phases should include penetration testing.

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References

  1. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Research Development and Acquisition (ASN/RDA), Chief Engineer, Software Process Initiative Software Acquisition Management Focus Team, “As-Is and To-Be State Reports”, 2007, 2008.
  2. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Research Development and Acquisition (ASN/RDA), ASN/RDA Memo: “Department of the Navy (DoN) Software Measurement Policy for Software Intensive Systems”, July 2009.
  3. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Research Development and Acquisition (ASN/RDA), ASN/RDA Memo: “Strategy to Balance Acquisition In-House and Contractor Support Capabilities”, December 2008.
  4. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Research Development and Acquisition (ASN/RDA), ASN/RDA Memo: “Meeting of the Navy Laboratory/Center Competency Group”, November 2008.
  5. Government Accounting Office (GAO), Report to Congressional Committees Best Practices, February 2008.
  6. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on Developmental Test and Evaluation, May 2008.
  7. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on Defense Software, November 2000.
  8. Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), SECDEF Memo: “Department of the Navy Acquisition”, December 2008.
  9. Senator Carl Levin, U.S. Senate Committee of Armed Services Press Release, March 2009.

Author

Joe Heil
Joe Heil
Joe Heil has worked as a Software Engineer for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) for over 30 years. The majority of Joe’s career was spent as the Lead of Government and Industry Software Development Integrated Product Team (IPT) for the Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missile Weapon Control System (TTWCS). As the TTWCS Software Development IPT lead, Joe was responsible for defining the software development processes, leading, coordinating the software development efforts and ensuring successful cost, schedule, technical, safety, and quality performance. Joe founded and is the current lead of the Naval Software Community of Practice (SW COP). The NAVAL SW COP has over 300 registered government in-house software experts from across 19 different organizations, including the various Naval Warfare Centers, Naval System Commands, Army and Air Force engineers, and leaders from the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS), Defense Acquisition University (DAU), and Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Joe’s current leadership roles and responsibilities are focused on increasing awareness and application of data-driven software engineering best-practices across the naval enterprise. These leadership roles include:
  • Deputy Chief Engineer for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division
  • Navy Advisor to the Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force (TF) for Software
  • Lead of the Naval Software Community of Practice (SW COP)
  • Lead of the Naval System Engineering Stakeholders Group (SESG) SW Group
  • Contributor to the DOD SW Assurance Community of Practice (SWA COP)

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