Larger-scale acquisition programs are always daunting in their size and complexity. Whether they are developing commercial or government systems, they are hard to manage successfully under the best of circumstances. If (or when) things begin to go poorly, however, program-management staff will need every tool at their disposal to get things back on track. One of those tools is conducting an assessment of the program, which variously may be called an independent technical assessment (ITA), an independent program assessment (IPA), or a red team; or may simply be a review, investigation, evaluation, or appraisal. Whatever the name, the goal of such activities is to produce objective findings about the state of a program, and recommendations for improving it. Assessments are an indispensable way for a program or project management office (PMO) to try to get an accurate understanding of how things are going and what actions can be taken to make things better. If you’re considering sponsoring such an assessment for your project or program, this blog post provides 12 useful rules to follow to make sure it gets done right, based on our experience at the SEI in conducting system and software assessments of large defense and federal acquisition programs.
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