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Experimentation and Prototyping
he systems engineering problems our government sponsors face today are more challenging than ever. Understand-ing how to build and manage these complex systems often involves experimentation and prototyping to find not just a solution to the problem, but the most efficient and effective solution—one that all stakeholders can support. MITRE's involvement in experimentation covers a wide range of activities, from small experiments in our own R&D facilities to participation in global military exercises involving multiple organizations. Advancements in computer technology, prototyping tools, and simulation and visualization capabilities enable diverse stakeholders to share a "real world" experience in a laboratory or in the field. Stakeholders can then discuss their hands-on perspective of a proposed capability or concept and provide feedback about its pros and cons. When it comes to understanding and agreeing on change, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but a prototype can be priceless! Our prototyping efforts also cover a wide range, from creating a simple virtual prototype that helps people understand an approach to building a complex prototype that we will turn over to industry in a technology transfer. Prototyping provides invaluable experience to the developers. Only through building something do you truly understand the design tradeoffs and possibilities. Mistakes are a critical part of this learning process. (As Dr. Craig Lawrence of IDEO, a firm that helps companies innovate through design, says, "Fail early in order to succeed sooner.") It is through prototyping and experimentation that we are able to fully explore a range of possible solutions to a problem and move efficiently toward consensus-based agreement. MITRE conducts and participates in experiments and creates prototypes for many reasons, including:
The articles in this issue highlight some of our work in experimentation and prototyping, our methods (e.g., the use of simulations and rapid prototyping), issues we encountered (technical and organizational), and solutions we have achieved for our various sponsors. |
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| For more information, please contact guest editors Glenn Roberts or Spurge Norman using the employee directory. Page last updated: January 7, 2005 | Top of page |
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Solutions That Make a Difference.® |
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