| The quality of systems deployed is one of the critical metrics for measuring the success of a test and evaluation (T&E) program. To ensure that programs deploy quality systems that meet customer's needs and performance metrics, the verification and validation (V&V) process needs to be managed effectively to minimize schedule delays and cost overruns. This goal has been elusive as the cost of fixing defects continues to escalate. As a consequence, some authors have suggested unifying project/program management (PM) practices with T&E process to enhance the ability to achieve customer satisfaction. However, existing process improvement approaches have not fully addressed the problem situation. To address this issue, a systemic analysis technique was used to identify the critical dimensions of T&E execution and their relationships. By combining the expressive abilities of Systemigrams with a case study approach, the research demonstrates how the critical dimensions of project/program management practices are unified with T&E execution processes to achieve customer satisfaction. This research contributes to the field by identifying critical dimensions of PM practices that contribute to T&E execution success and proposing an empirically validated T&E-PM model derived from multiple-case studies. This model can be applied to similar organization within the US government. |
