GCN: Weapons projects misfire on software

Weapons projects misfire on software

Every year the Government Accountability Office issues a report that gives a brief summary of the status of major weapons acquisition programs. And every year the reports say that many, if not most, of those acquisition programs are experiencing cost overruns and schedule delays in their software development segments.

The problem is huge. In fiscal 2006, the Defense Department will spend as much as $12 billion on reworking software—30 percent of its estimated budget of $40 billion for research, development, testing and evaluation. By comparison, Motorola—and other large commercial companies—spends just a small percent of its budget on rework.

Nor can the significance of the problem be overlooked. In its summary for 2006, Assessments of Selected Major Weapon Programs (GCN.com, Quickfind 605), GAO pointed out that, in the past five years, “DOD has doubled its planned investments in new weapons systems from $700 [billion] to $1.4 trillion. This huge increase has not been accompanied by more stability, better outcomes or more buying power for the acquisition dollar.”

The huge difference between military and private-sector efforts, according to Carol Mebane and Cheryl Andrew of GAO’s weapons acquisition audits practice, exists because corporations use a structured, replicable approach to software development that emphasizes requirements planning upfront.