DOD Weapon Systems Software Acquisition and Management Study. Volume I. MITRE Findings and Recommendations.

There is increasing concern about the problems of software cost growth and overruns, schedule delays, and unreliability currently experienced in some weapon systems software efforts. There is also an increasing recognition of the importance of the software roles in the overall mission effectiveness of major DoD weapon systems. These factors led to the Assistant Secretaries of Defense (Installation and Logistics, and Comptroller) and the Director of Defense Research and Engineering issuing a memorandum on 3 December 1974 to establish a joint OSD/Service Software Steering Committee. The charter of the Software Steering Committee is to oversee a two-phase study program to find methods for controlling increasing costs, improving the quality, and minimizing the adverse impact of poor software performance on weapon systems effectiveness. The MITRE Corporation and the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University were requested to conduct separate, but coordinated, four-month studies in support of the first phase of the Software Steering Committee study program. This report presents the results of the MITRE study.