Software Engineering Institute

The Mission Success in Complex Environments (MSCE) research team along with Acquisition Support Program (ASP) staff applied the Mission Diagnostic (MD) to a project for the development and broad deployment of a software Application. The purpose of this MD engagement was to conduct a rapid evaluation of the Application project's potential for success during its alpha phase deployment, knowing additional deployments were to quickly follow. Software development and deployment was a new domain for applying the MD, and this particular project included additional constraints. Therefore, we modified the basic MD in several ways. We developed a new set of MD drivers for use with software development and deployment projects, used teleconferencing to collect data from project personnel, and included outcome-based scenarios to assess a variety of mission outcomes. From this experience, we have also derived the basis for a new success-driven framework with an integrated risk perspective. This technical note describes the adaptation of the MD necessary for this customer and the lessons we learned from its use.