Assessment on How Much DoD Information Technology Testing Is Enough

Abstract

The Department of Defense has mandated that all military programs implement integrated testing within their program whenever possible; however, the concern of information technology being agile steadily grows within the Department. The Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee appointed the Defense Acquisition Reform Panel on March 2009 to review the acquisition processes. The panel study claimed that the nature of defense acquisition has changed considerably over the years; however, the acquisition process has not been able to keep up with the changes. Moreover, the current position on how the DoD buys, adopts, creates, and implements testing of information technology has become an antiquated process. The DoD is looking for an agile process to rapidly develop and deploy information technology to the user while the technology is still relevant. The purpose of this research is to determine how much information technology testing is deemed necessary prior to deploying equipment to DoD users.