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Parallel Development Can Be Useful in an Agile Acquisition Context but Is Not Always the Appropriate Approach

• Our review of historical program developments resulted in identifying five enablers of parallel development: effective assessment of technological risk and maturity; effective management of system integration risk; planned incremental approach to fielding capabilities; tight alignment of requirements, acquisition, and budget stakeholders; and strong contingency planning.
• The single most important issue for successful parallel development is performing and acting on an honest assessment of technological risk and maturity. This requires an independent, unbiased assessment of that risk, including system integration risk. Only technologies that are mature and well understood should be incorporated into the design of new systems.
• Parallel development is more successful when applied incrementally, focusing on introducing one major new subsystem at a time. A block upgrade strategy can enable this, focusing on an element of either a mission system or the platform, but not both in the same increment.
• While parallel development allows increased focus on a narrower set of issues, it also increases the importance and risk of system integration. Because the decoupled subsystems are designed and developed separately, integration risk may increase.
• Parallel development has the potential to reduce the time from technology development to the fielding of new capabilities, but it is not a panacea for the persistent acquisition challenges that affect complex system development. It must be carefully and wisely applied, and it may not always be an appropriate development approach.