A Risk-Based, Practice-Centered Approach to Project Management for HPCMP CREATE

• Published in: Computing in science & engineering Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 40 - 51
• Main Authors: Kendall, Richard P., Hurwitz, Miles M., Dey, Saikat, D'Angelo, John N., Vogelsong, Richard L., Goldfarb, Oscar A., Allwerdt, Sunita B., Post, Douglass E., Atwood, Chris A., Newmeyer, Kevin P., Votta, Lawrence G., Gibson, Paula A., Borovitcky, Deborah L., Miller, Loren K., Meakin, Robert L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.01.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Acquisitions; Antennas; code design; Complexity theory; Computation; Computer applications; Computer programs; configuration management; Design engineering; Engineering; High performance computing; Marketing; organizational management and coordination; Program management; Project management; requirements; Research and development; scientific computing; Software; Software engineering; software process models; software quality; software quality assurance; specifications; SQA; US Department of Defense
• ISSN: 1521-9615; 1558-366X
• DOI: 10.1109/MCSE.2015.135

The Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Program Computational Research and Engineering Acquisition Tools and Environments (CREATE) program is developing and deploying multiphysics high-performance computing software applications for engineers to design and make accurate performance predictions for military aircraft, ships, ground vehicles, and radio frequency antennas. When CREATE started (2007), no commonly recognized set of successful software project management practices existed for developing multiphysics, HPC engineering software. Based on lessons learned from the HPC and computational engineering communities, CREATE leadership developed and implemented a risk-based, practice-centered strategy to organize and manage the highly distributed program. This approach led to a good balance between ensuring a sufficiently structured workflow and accountability and providing the flexibility and agility necessary to create new sets of engineering tools with the capabilities needed to design next-generation weapon systems.