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The Technical Risk Assessment, Risk Workshops, and Schedule Risk Data Decision Methodology Deliver Inputs to Determine Acquisition Risks

• The U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA) Technical Risk Assessment measures the risk that a technology relevant to an Army acquisition system will not be delivered within the desired time frame, cost target, and performance designation. AMSAA also developed a system-level schedule risk modeling approach called Schedule Risk Data Decision Methodology.

The Performance, Schedule, and Cost Dimensions of the Methodologies Are Treated as Independent

• AMSAA's incumbent methodologies lack a system-level approach in which performance, schedule, and cost are interdependent.

The Risk-Informed Trade Analysis Model (RTRAM) and Methodology Provide a System-Level Approach to Acquisition Risk

• RTRAM and its underlying methodology provide an approach to quantitatively and consistently estimate output distributions related to performance, schedule, and cost based on AMSAA's risk workshop and previously developed methodologies. It allows users to investigate multidimensional trade-offs both within and between weapon systems prior to production, using elements of system engineering, production economics, and risk analysis to functionally and probabilistically relate performance, schedule, and cost outcomes and their related uncertainties holistically and understandably.

This report describes the methodology for risk-informed trade-space analysis developed by the U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity Risk Integrated Product Team and researchers from the RAND Corporation and the first iteration of the associated Risk-Informed Trade Analysis Model. The framework combines elements of system engineering, production economics, and risk analysis to functionally and probabilistically relate performance, schedule, and cost outcomes and their uncertainties holistically and understandably. The technology development process is conceptualized as one in which the physical system is described as a portfolio of technologies with associated technical capabilities, and the completion of each technology's development is a discrete random variable. The performance characteristics of the final system are stochastic. In addition, the time of technology development is also stochastic and, in part, drives the overall cost of the system. In a departure from previous analyses, the authors incorporate technology-specific courses of action, or risk-mitigation behaviors, that are assumed to take place in the event that the technology is not developed at the milestone date. For example, one might assume that a lesser-performing but existing substitute could replace a particular developmental technology or that, if that technology is of critical importance, the schedule might be allowed to slip. Through analysis of alternative courses of action and their effects on the resultant probability distributions estimated for performance, schedule, and cost, decisionmakers have a means to understand the implications of certain risk-mitigating actions. Technology, schedule, and cost trades can be examined between or within individual systems.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Current Cost, Schedule, and Performance Risk Methodologies Within the Army

• Chapter Three

  Theoretical Framework for Risk-Informed Trade-Space Analysis

• Chapter Four

  Proposed Conceptual Model of Risk-Informed Trade-Space Analysis in the Acquisition of Weapon Systems

• Chapter Five

  The Model

• Chapter Six

  An Example Application of the Risk-Informed Trade Analysis Model Using a Demonstration Tool

• Chapter Seven

  Conclusions

• Appendix A

  User Manual for the Risk-Informed Trade Analysis Model Demonstration Tool, Version 1.0

• Appendix B

  Outline of Specific Assumptions and Methods in the Risk- Informed Trade Analysis Model

• Appendix C

  Expert Elicitation and Minimizing Bias from Heuristics

• Appendix D

  Computer Code