Software Engineering Institute

This report presents a systemic approach to software development process improvement and its impact for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center, Fire Control Systems and Technology Directorate (FCSTD) and its stakeholders. The report presents the best practices that improved the FCSTD’s ability to meet organizational goals, primarily in the context of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). This process improvement effort extended to dozens of projects and earned the FCSTD a CMMI Maturity Level 5 rating. The report discusses how the FCSTED defined strategy, quality, and risk as interrelated elements of a conceptual system and used conceptualizing quality as a thought process to drive product and service design decisions. It also discusses how the use of tools, such as Defect Leak Matrices and Rayleigh Curve Models, drove cost savings, up to nearly $2 million on each Paladin project, and similarly improved costs and efficiency across many projects, enabling the FCSTD to consistently deliver new or improved functionality in less time. Also discussed is how the FCSTD effort to improve software development processes was coupled with significant effort to improve the quality of software-intensive armament systems for the U.S. Army and for allied armed forces worldwide.