Agile Capability Development, Assessment and Transition in Support of the Global War on Terror (GWOT)

Net-Centric Solutions, as enabled through distributed service-oriented architectures, will have a significant effect on the way the DoD acquires capabilities, thereby requiring new ways to address the development and integration of complex enterprises. One approach, based on commercial best practices, entails establishing an environment and set of processes for users and developers to work together in the development and maturation of capabilities as they transform from innovation to fielded capability. In this paper, we discuss an approach that USSOCOM and MITRE are using to evaluate and mature capabilities that support the Global War on Terror. It is based on using a distributed innovation lab environment in conjunction with a series of warfighter workshops focused on themes and challenge problems identified by USSOCOM. The workshops are designed to provide hands-on warfighter immersion into emerging processes, concepts and capabilities combined with facilitated discussions to develop and/or refine CONOPS and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures. We highlight some of the capabilities provided, techniques used, challenges faced, and how this approach impacted the user. Finally, we discuss our future plans to extend this approach to other customers and locations in order to fully assess GWOT missions across a net-centric enterprise.