| Maturing new technologies through the systems engineering lifecycle has been a perpetual issue for the U.S. systems engineering community. Although there are many reasons why technologies fail to mature, this study examines the perceptions of why technologies succeed. To examine these perceptions, this study proposes to extend an established marketing tool framework, the Technology Readiness Index (TRI), into the systems engineering space. The TRI was originally developed to understand customers' and employees' interactions with technology and their propensity to embrace cutting-edge technology, which is considered as a person's technology readiness. This study uses the TRI framework to survey the perceptions of the U.S. systems engineering community of successful technology maturation traits, and relate these perceptions to the systems engineering lifecycle. This survey framework, in combination with the Mann-Whitney U test method for determining statistical differences in non-parametric data, results in multiple common technology maturation perceptions throughout the systems engineering lifecycle, with cross-cutting themes of communicating regularly with interested parties, reducing implementation risk, and having a positive business case to sell to stakeholders. Moreover, it shows differences in the perceptions of the U.S. systems engineering community in relation to these common perceptions, as well as specific technology transition traits. |
