Identifying requirement attributes for materiel and non-materiel solution sets utilizing discrete choice models

Abstract

In 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) performed a study on 11 Department of Defense (DoD) programs and compared how requirements were developed between DoD and private industry. The study found that the DoD did not follow good Systems Engineering practices when developing requirements, resulting in program cost and schedule overruns. With 2011 Defense spending at approximately $711B, it is undeniable that significant portions of these resources are spent on programs that meet their demise due to poorly developed requirements documentation. Such requirements are poorly written, lack clear traceability and threaten the viability of the programs. The question arises whether these issues are due to poor training during the requirements definition process, lack of suf- ficient information and expertise available at program initiation, or a decrease in emphasis on establishing quality attributes for requirements. This study evaluates requirement attributes for materiel and non-materiel solution sets, and whether these attributes are the same or different. A case study example is presented identifying a selected set of requirement attributes and, with the aid of expert practitioner knowledge, these attributes are ranked in order of preference for materiel and non-materiel solutions sets.