1 SkyNet Information 2

Goal 2

Purpose 2

Business Situation 2

History 2

Project Termination 3

2 Project Outcome versus Project Goal 3

Characteristics of the Project Outcome versus Quality Objectives 3

Project performance versus Performance Quality Objectives 4

Project Lead-time versus Project Plans 4

Project Cost versus Project Budget 5

3 Evaluation of the Project Performance 5

Project Organization and Stakeholder Relations 5

Project Work and Communication 6

Competence Development 7

4 Experiences and Observations 7

5 Suggestions for Improvement 7

6 References 8

7 Distribution List 8

1SkyNet Information

Goal

Complete prototype SkyNet security system using expert learning system with simulated radar, camera, ground sensors. Successful prototype qualification testing will lead to real system using actual sensors.

Purpose

Develop security system for protecting US borders from terrorists, smugglers, and illegal alien crossings.

Business Situation

SkyNet project alternate scope will be limited to a minimal prototype including simulation of camera, radar, and ground sensors. This prototype will provide the baseline software system capability while limiting costs and proving a proof of concept. The SkyNet protoype will provide customer confidence and value. This prototype will also allow strategic alignment with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) organization allowing the necessary operational changes with minimal finanical impacts. The protype plan should provide confidence to all the stakeholders including the DHS, agents, contractors, and local jurisdictions involved in the prototype testing.

The prototype SkyNet system successfully passed a two week Functional Qualification Testing (FQT) concluding December 01, 2008. The Software Test Report (STR) has been released to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cyber Research Systems Division (CRS) is waiting for the next round of funding for the operational system deployment phase.

History

The necessary work product artifacts to complete the SkyNet project include completion of System and Interface Requirement Specifications (SRS/IRS), Preliminary and Detailed Design Reviews (PDR/CDRs), and the system code base installation disks and document deliverables. The installation and deliverables will be installed at the designated border security stations along with operation and training. The code base installations will be tested in the functional, component, and system qualifications. See the above table for the details. Table 2 - Contract Milestones shows the fixed price and variable award fees in millions of dollars for the 67 million prototype contract. The award fees will be determined by and performance evaluation criteria as specified in the CPAF contract.

Project Termination

The protype SkyNet system has been completed and the project is now transitioning into a deliverable system that will be fielded.

The current project artefacts and deliverables are stored at the offsite repository located at http://www.scallinuxsystems.com/SkyNet/

2Project Outcome versus Project Goal

The prototype SkyNet system was successfully qualified by FQT and the project will be transitioning into a development phase for the networked nodes to be fielded as part of the overall goal of improving US border security.

Characteristics of the Project Outcome versus Quality Objectives

See Reference 1 – FQT Test Pass/Failure Metrics for a graphic representation of the requirement pass/fail status counts for FQT testing period.

Project performance versus Performance Quality Objectives

See Reference 2 – FQT Test Failure Classifications for a graphic representation of the breakdown of the test failure causes. These classifications include testing execution, incorrect test environment, test case design, code implementation, bad requirement, simulation update required, requirements and code issues, or an unidentified cause..

Project Lead-time versus Project Plans

Table 1 - Contract Date Milestones shows the start, due, and completion dates. All the milestones completions were late and as a result resulted in a 50% late delivery penalty accessed to each contract milestone. See Table 2 Contract Cost Milestones for the actual contract payments

Project Cost versus Project Budget

Table 2 - Contract Cost Milestones shows the fixed price and variable award fees in millions of dollars for the 50 million prototype contract. The award fees were determined by performance evaluation criteria as specified in the CPAF contract. The fixed price contract was for 40 million and the variable award total was 20. The earned variable award fee was 10 million as there was a 50% late delivery penalty accessed to each contract milestone.

3Evaluation of the Project Performance

Project Organization and Stakeholder Relations

The SkyNet project organization reports to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) prime contracting agency contact Michael Chertoff, DHS secretary. Cyber Research Systems Division (CRS) is the subcontractor working the SkyNet task order. The main CRS point of contact is Joe Schartman who is the Business Manager. Miles Benner Dyson is the chief engineer who will be leading the Systems Engineering, Software Development and Testing Teams. These teams will operate in a virtual environment since they are located Alabama (Systems Engineering), Arizona (Software Development), and California (System Testing).

The stakeholder team collaborations were very beneficial to progress development. Daily teleconferences were held to discuss Rapid Application Development/Joint Application Development (RAD/JAD) type issues. Each team held daily scrum meetings and weekly progress status meetings. The peer review and milestone events like design reviews were held using WebEx.

Project Work and Communication

Daily project milestone and inchstone schedules were maintained using the Microoft project tool. These schedules were used to update the official Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) and Integrated Master Plan (IMP) for project cost and scope risk mitigation checks. The daily schedule updates were updated to the project information management (PIMS) shared system so all stakeholders can view the latest project milestones and inchstones. The IMP is an event-driven plan that documents the significant accomplishments necessary to complete the work and ties each accomplishment to a key program event. The IMS is an integrated and networked multi-layered schedule of program tasks required to complete the work effort captured in a related IMP. The IMS includes all IMP events and accomplishments and support each accomplishment closure criteria.

The Distributed Object Orientated Requirements System (DOORS) tool was used for System Requirements Definition and Requirements Management. DOORS provided Intuitive interfaces that encourage all stakeholders, including business users, to actively participate in the requirements process. Our project uses DOORS as a configuration management for many requirements documents including Software Requirements Spec (SRS), Interface Requirements Spec (IRS), System Test Plan (STP), System Test Descriptions (STD), and many other deliverable contract specifications.

This SkyNet project held weekly program management meetings to discuss any impacts and risks to the project milestones. These meetings are held via WebEx with all the virtual management team members. I also chair daily scrum tagup meetings with the development team to get the current status for the inchstone tasks on our project plan. These meetings involve the local members meeting in a conference room and using WebEx and VOIP to collaborate with any telecommuters and virtual team members involved in the inchstone tasks. I have found Microsoft project very useful for tracking tasks, resources, budget administration, and showing the dependencies between these task. Our meetings often involve discussing the dependencies and subtask completion and handoff issues.

Competence Development

The SkyNet management team recognized the key competence development was to reward positive team behaviour. Each team noticed, recognized, and praised team member actions that promote positive, collaborative, and problem solving behaviours. Management offered compliments and praising behaviours, such as honouring commitments, completing tasks on time, asking thoughtful questions, and working collaboratively, fosters a productive team climate. Each team leader continuously looked for opportunities to reinforce exemplary behaviour as well as plan formal recognitions for the entire team. The formal recognitions included successful passing of major SkyNet milestones, project completion celebrations, and awards for team accomplishments.

The reward recognitions included local management in the celebration for virtual team members, whether electronic or face-to-face. Emails were sent acknowledging individual’s and team's accomplishments and copy senior managers, executive, and on-site co-workers of the individuals.

4Experiences and Observations

5Suggestions for Improvement

Produce more detailed requirement use cases since testing details for variants will be deterministic.

Perform metric analysis on results of all the peer reviews that will help to identify and eliminate common problems and offer improved continuous improvements.

List suggestions for improvements made during the project and use the information from the Progress Reports.)

Increase Quality Assurance project staff so complete review of all development artefacts can be reviewed with monthly Software Development Folder (SDF) audits.

Suggest legal departments do more research into usage and modification of Open Source Software (OSS) licenses like the GNU.

6References

CPAF (2008). 16.404-2 Cost-plus-award-fee contracts. Retrieved November 30, 2008 from http://www.farmaster.com/farmaster/data/idx/FAR84/1604040002.htm

Contract Milestones	Start Date	Due Date	Completion Date
Requirement Design Reviews (RDR)	9/2007	1/2008	2/2008
Critical Design Reviews (PDR/CDR)	2/2008	7/2008	8/2008
Functional Qualification Test (FQT)	8/2008	10/2008	12/2008
Component Qualification Test (CQT)	12/2008	2/2009	3/2009
System Qualification Test (SQT)	3/2009	3/2010	4/2010

Contract Milestones	Fixed Price Fee	Variable Award Fee	Date
Requirement Design Reviews (RDR)	5	1	2/2008
Critical Design Reviews (PDR/CDR)	10	1	8/2008
Functional Qualification Test (FQT)	10	1	12/2008
Component Qualification Test (CQT)	5	1	3/2009
System Qualification Test (SQT)	10	6	4/2010
Totals	40	10	50