In January 2018, ITEA and DEPS combined two long running events and focused the Joint theme on how test and evaluation could or should be involved in the DoD trend to focus significant energy on prototyping and experimentation.  This focus was encouraged in an August 2017 DoD “Report to Congress Restructuring the Department of Defense Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Organization and Chief Management Officer Organization” that stated the:

Department (of Defense) must increasingly leverage prototyping, experimentation and other developmental activities to retire technical risk before either weighing down the research and engineering phase with costly procurement decisions or weighing down a procurement program with costly technical risk.

Recently in November 2019, the DoD Prototyping Guidebook was updated by the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emerging Capability and Prototyping Office. The Guidebook shares the following:  

In its report, ‘Weapon Systems: Prototyping Has Benefited Acquisition Programs, but More Can Be Done to Support Innovation Initiatives’ (GAO-17-309), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) states that DoD has become increasingly risk averse” and further asserts that risk aversion stifles innovation.

One way of mitigating this risk-averse culture is institutionalizing a new definition of what constitutes prototyping ‘success’ and ‘failure.’ Quite simply, since at its core prototyping is meant to generate a data set to inform a future decision, a prototyping project ‘succeeds’ if it provides that data set—even if the prototype itself does not work.

Likewise, a prototyping project that does not generate a data set to inform a future decision ‘fails.’  Perspectives of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in prototyping should have less to do with the prototype itself and more to do with the data that the prototyping project generates.

In most cases, the most important step in the prototyping process is evaluating the prototype. In fact, prototypes are often built specifically for the evaluation activity, and will be discarded after the evaluation. Evaluations should be designed and conducted in a way that addresses the purpose of the prototyping project. Evaluations typically come in three forms: demonstrations, experimentation, and red teaming.

Our Joint Conference leverages that DoD vision and the recent significant increases in prototyping and experimentation efforts to explore the role of T&E in “prototyping, experimentation and other developmental activities.”  This Conference will discuss the practical implications of T&E support to getting “game changing” technologies to the Warfighter. The partnership with DEPS allows for high energy laser and high-power microwave experimentation to be an integral component of our technical program and permits us to hold both limited distribution and classified sessions on all topics. 

• How are we incorporating new ideas about prototyping and experimentation “success” and “failure” into test planning, execution, and analysis?
• How is testing in support of experimentation different than traditional T&E?  How is it the same? 
• What are the roles of DoD T&E organizations and the Major Range and Test Facility Bases (MRTFBs) in designing, planning, executing, and supporting these activities? 
• Given that each Service has already embarked on significant prototype development and experimentation campaigns, with execution timelines that span years not decades, how do the Service and DoD T&E communities respond to rapidly emerging needs for instrumentation, infrastructure, and test methodologies to support these campaigns?
• How is testing in support of experimentation affected by the use of conceptual, developmental, and operational prototypes?

Key plenary speakers, panel discussions, and technical sessions will be part of a program to identify challenges, solutions, innovations and a future state; all contributing to moving us closer to creation of an infrastructure and principles, conducive to testing and training in a more operationally realistic environment.

 Sessions will be unclassified and open to the general T&E community, however, restricted sessions (up to FOUO) may be made available. Abstracts will be reviewed for a presentation during a conference session or as a poster paper. Abstracts accepted for presentation, along with the slides, will be available on the online proceedings for attendees after the Workshop concludes.

Abstracts should be non-commercial in scope, pertinent to conference topic, no longer than 500 words, and releasable to the general public. Visit the DEPS website for the Abstract submission form and instructions for submittal. Abstracts due 11 December 2020.

TOPICS FOR PRESENTATION SUBMISSIONS

• DoD and Service Experimentation Plans/Campaigns and Results
• Designing Experimentation with Modeling and Simulation
• Distributed Testing and Experimentation
• Methodologies for Experimentation vs Test
• Implications of Using Conceptual, Developmental, and Operational Prototypes
• Instrumentation and Target Requirements for Game Changing Technologies
• Policy Recommendations (OSD, Services) to Accommodate Better Prototyping “Pass/Fail” Definitions
• Role of T&E in Experimentation Across the Kill Chain
• T&E Capabilities for Directed Energy Systems
• Testing Game Changing Technologies Integrated with Current Warfighter Capabilities
• Impacts of OPSEC on Testing and Experimentation

Visit the DEPS website to register. Note that some of the technical sessions will have limited participation requirements. See the conference Security information for instructions on participating in session with limited distribution.

Virtual Conference Registration Fees
$350 – Non-Member*
$300 – ITEA Member / Government Employee / Active Duty Military

*Registration rate includes one-year membership to ITEA.

ITEA is a 501(c)(3) professional education association dedicated to the education and advancement of the test and evaluation profession. Registration fees, membership dues, and sponsorship is tax deductible.

Your sponsorship dollars help defer the cost of the conference and support the ITEA scholarship fund, which assists deserving students in their pursuit of academic disciplines related to the test and evaluation profession. Sponsorship and related benefits will become effective on receipt of payment.

NOTE:  This ITEA event is a non-competitive environment meant for a free exchange of ideas and information. 

SPONSORSHIP PLEDGE FORM 

Program Chair – Ed Trzcienski and Whitney Winchester
Technical Co-Chairs – Mark Henderson and Tim Andreadis
Tutorial Chair – Cristina Crowson and Lena Moran, Lena@itea.org
Exhibits and Sponsorships Chair – Lena Moran, Lena@itea.org
STEAM Co-Chairs – STEAM Co-Chairs:  Steve Woffinden and Kathi Swagerty
Conference Coordinator –  Cynnamon Spain, cynnamon@deps.org
Security Coordinator – Kat Gonzales, Kat@deps.org
Registration Coordinator – Dawn Gutierrez, Dawn@deps.org
Technical Program Coordinator – Cristina Crowson, Cristina@deps.org