Lessons learned and challenges of developing the NATO air command and control information services

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Communications and Information (NCI) Agency is responsible for procuring and maintaining systems that are aligned with NATO Alliance operational requirements and national agreements, and are interoperable, when appropriate, with national systems. In the current NATO environment, long lead items, such as obtaining nationally agreed to capability packages and financial investments, are now leaving less time to engineer complex solutions in a fluctuating financial and mission environment. In addition, NATO is challenged with fielding systems to operational and system administrative users provided by 28 allied nations. This presents challenges with language, data exchange, security issues, and training for users that may rotate back to their nation every three years. This unique NATO environment has forced Project Managers (PMs) and Technical Leads (TLs) to operate with constraints imposed by contracts built around traditional systems engineering waterfall methods. In contrast, system lifecycle short timelines demand engineering solutions using agile methods supported by iterative, user validation of the system fit for purpose and usability with regard to changing peace-time and war-time missions (International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Libyan Operation Unified Protector (OUP), etc.). The NCI Agency will be fielding a new Air C2 information service (AirC2IS) in 2013. This system, AirC2IS, was partially installed for initial system validation 21 months after contract award and will be fielded to over 20 NATO sites 35 months after contract award. The system will replace an interim capability and offer a vast array of software functionalities, using a web-based design, including, but not limited to, air track management, shared early warning, air planning, theatre ballistic missile defense planning and monitoring, and collaborative tool integration. The system capabilities are being procured by NCI Agency and developed- by an industry partner. The AirC2IS design phase utilized a Human Machine Interface (HMI) driven approach and the development phase an agile methodology with user validation of functionalities before formal testing. The overall systems engineering approach was tailored to reduce risks of system non-acceptance and ensure high usability and software fit for purpose, matching user requirements. This paper will present lessons learned in the procurement, development, and fielding of AirC2IS in the following areas: Project management of agile development in a traditional waterfall contract environment; Agile software development with a HMI driven approach; and Validation of systems optimizing mission flexibility.