Lessons from Army System Developments

Abstract

This paper documents the results of a multi-year Army Materiel Command-sponsored research project which employed a structured case study approach to examine the history and processes that had resulted in the introduction of a number of technology-based Army systems in time to make a positive contribution to the outcome of Desert Storm. In addition to the fifteen case studies documenting these programs, a common set of data was obtained for each system studied. These data were analyzed to identify factors contributing to successful systems development; this paper contains the results of this analysis. Several of the statistically significant relationships found involve factors that are related to the stability of the program. When key members of the project team left the program too early, project outcome suffered. Further, both project funding cutbacks and project team turn-over negatively correlated with the quality of the testing program and the timeliness of key test events. These two attributes of the testing program also had the strongest correlation with project outcomes. In addition, changes in systems requirements during development correlated with poor project cost performance. Finally, turn-over in key user-representative personnel correlated negatively with system performance in the field. A central conclusion from this study is that shorter development cycle-times favorably correlate with key project outcome variables, largely by minimizing the exposure of the project to destabilizing influences which were also shown to correlate negatively with these same outcome variables.