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Some Potential Reasons for Longer Cycle Times or Schedule Delays

• Infeasible or unrealistic requirements
• Unstable requirements (e.g., engineering requirements, readiness requirements, reliability and support requirements)
• Inefficiencies in the process (e.g., serial nature of process and requirements evolution)
• Excessive technical, manufacturing, or integration risk (general) or program complexity
• Unanticipated design, engineering, manufacturing, technical difficulty, or technology integration issues
• Overly optimistic assumptions/expectations
• Immature technology
• Concurrency in complicated programs
• Prototyping
• Deficient test planning or testing inefficiencies
• Funding instability or budget cuts
• Lack of focus on schedule or inadequate schedule management
• Overly optimistic assumptions/expectations in cost and schedule estimates
• Personnel issues
• Competition

Some Potential Ways to Remedy Schedule Challenges

• Stable and realistic initial requirements, especially at the engineering level
• Better collaboration between the program management and end-user communities (with proper management)
• Proper management of flexible requirements
• Use of mature/demonstrated technology to ensure a high level of maturity before production
• Employment of "agile" methods that can easily adapt to changes in software development
• Prototyping
• Use of commercially derived items
• Use of the commercial practice of freezing the design before the production contract award
• Use of the commercial practice of reducing the design's complexity
• Stable funding
• Adequate test funds (hardware, modeling and simulation)
• Acquisition of the same number of units but in larger, more economical quantities in the production phase
• Development and maintenance of a comprehensive and realistic master schedule
• Involvement of the test community in all program phases
• Use of integrated product teams
• Realistic schedule estimates
• Senior leadership support