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The promise and perils of spiral acquisition: a practical approach to evolutionary acquisition. (Tutorial).

Article Excerpt
Many in the Department of Defense consider the acquisition process broken. One means to address these problems involve spiral acquisition, an approach often misunderstood. It is evolutionary in the sense that the changes are incremental instead of one long, large acquisition. This gains flexibility in requirements definition and application. But few can actually state where they have seen spiral development in practice, or simply explain the difference between spiral development and block approaches or other approaches tried in the past. This paper offers a practical guide for spiral development, the major attributes in order to be successful, and one specific example. It is hoped this discussion is useful and provoke some additional thinking into how best to use spiral development.

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Every five years or so, the Department of Defense evaluates the state of defense acquisition and comes to a not-so-startling conclusion. The acquisition process for defense in the United States is considered broken. To many, it seems ripe for repair. After all, tens of billions of dollars go into a system plagued by cost over-runs, late schedules, and unfulfilled expectations. Of course, there are many, many reasons for this.

Many causes are often cited. There are problems with changing or incomplete requirements or misunderstandings on what the ultimate need should be. Sometimes unrealistic or demanding expectations lead to high production costs. But so do changing budgets, inefficient production quantities, and occasional incompetence. Often the technical and schedule risks are understated by those "selling" the program, in and out of government, and wishful thinking by the end user also plays into the eventual problems that surface.

So when there are enough of these problems and a string of partial and full-blown failures occur in succession, good people in and out of government look for fixes to the underlying systemic causes. Sometimes there are causes and cures that cannot be addressed. Some would argue it is not that the problems cannot be solved. Some might suggest it is the systemic characteristics of defense acquisition that we must accept and realize in order to move forward.

Certainly there are fundamental facts that are a way of life in defense acquisition. But this is not to say that the experts are not trying to solve the problems. For example, low order quantities of fighter aircraft can be partially addressed by buying more through production partnerships with coalition allies (e.g., F-16 or Joint Strike Fighter). The downside is that partnerships can get complicated with varying requirements and the sharing of production costs. Other problems arise such as technology transfer. The fact is that an increased production base will solve only part of the problems. Other initiatives such as extensive increased use of commercial-off-the-shelf items and multiyear buys can help in some cases, but these initiatives, too, have their own baggage when it comes to solving the problems in defense acquisition. The community also needs to face the fact there is tremendous oversight to defense acquisition.

The checks and balances put in place to ensure the acquisition office is doing it right often contribute to why it takes so long to do it at all. Most of the acquisition process improvements streamline around the edges and make marginal improvements in cycle time. Sometimes the acquisition community even tries new approaches. Now there is a new (some would argue, repackaged) approach to defense acquisition called spiral development.

As in most cases when the acquisition community desperately looks for answers that could save billions of dollars, the term spiral development has the potential of becoming little more than a buzz phrase. It is part of the overall plan to change how acquisition is done. The term has been in vogue for a little over two years and seemingly, one cannot turn around without running into a Pentagon staff briefing or business manager pitch that is not singing the praises of evolutionary, spiral development. It is evolutionary in the sense that the changes are incremental. The acquisition strategy is no longer to try to develop one big acquisition. Spiral developments are one way (some would agree the obvious way) to accomplish this. But few can actually state where they have seen spiral development in practice, or simply explain the difference between spiral development and block approaches or the old style [P.sup.3]I (Preplanned Product Improvement) approach that has been used for decades.

The purpose here is to offer a practical guide for spiral development. The primary audience is program managers who are considering whether it should apply to their programs. Others in the acquisition and programming communities may find this helpful as well. This discussion will produce a simple (albeit nonregulatory) definition, some areas where it can be used, some attributes and must-dos in order for it to be successful, and one example in which it has a good chance of working. It is hoped this discussion will be useful and provoke some additional thinking about how best to use...

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