Evolutionary Acquisition: Learning to Navigate the Spiral

The last few decades have provided amazing developments in capability and technology in the electronics and computing industries. The increases in capability and technology have touched all of our lives in ways that may be too numerous to count. Industry, in both commercial and military applications development, has experienced the same revolution. Customers are demanding increased capabilities that are compatible with existing technologies and can also be incorporated into new equipment as well as systems that are already deployed. The United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DoD) 5000 Defense Acquisition Guidebook defines Evolutionary Acquisition as the preferred method for "rapid acquisition of mature technology for the user." This paper will discuss key concepts for design and development teams for programs using the Evolutionary Acquisition (EA) tenets set forth in the DoD 5000 Defense Acquisition Guidebook. Emphasis will be placed on integrating Systems Engineering processes and principles with EA processes to reduce overall program risk. The result will be guidance considerations for programs tasked with implementing an EA program. In addition, lessons learned based on real-life examples will be included.