Capability Maturity Models support of modeling and simulation verification, validation, and accreditation

Both government and industry are involved in the acquisition and development of modeling and simulation (M&S) products. The effectiveness and maturity of an organization´s acquisition process directly affect the cost, schedule and quality of the M&S products that are delivered to the user. When M&S program sponsors implement best practices throughout acquisition, critical verification, and validation (V&V) tasks can be conducted without inordinate cost. Department of Defense (DoD) Instruction 5000.61 on M&S Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (W&A) directs that M&S systems used for acquisition decisions will be verified, validated, and accredited (DoDI 1996). However, many M&S users are attempting to implement VV&A processes for legacy M&S systems that lack documentation and are finding the costs unsupportable. The Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has described processes involved in implementing and measuring capability in software acquisition and development. These Capability Maturity Models (CMM and Capability Maturity Model are trademarks registered by Carnegie Mellon University) when applied together ensure that the acquisition process is in place before the software development process is implemented. This paper discusses how the use of these two CMMs can improve DoD´s ability to develop M&S with the customer´s need for VV&A in mind