Pathways to Changeability: Examining Form, Operational, & Cyber Change Mechanisms

Abstract

Through an examination of three cases of change in the U-2 platform, this paper compares three pathways to changeability: form changes, operational changes, and cyber changes. Each pathway can lead to change in similar properties of a system but have varying levels of performance and time to implement. For each pathway, we describe the design mechanisms necessary to implement change in that pathway. We analyze the tradeoff between performance or extent of change and agility or speed of change and find that form changes offer the highest degree of changeability but take the longest time to implement. Operational changes offer the least degree of changeability but are far quicker to implement. Cyber changes lie in between these two pathways. Understanding the design choices needed and the underlying tradeoff of each pathway can enable decision makers to better select a pathway to change when the need arises. This comparative analysis is especially useful since literature has thus far examined each of these pathways in isolation, not as different paths to the same goal.