Assessing the likelihood of achieving prototyping benefits in systems acquisition

[...]a formal discussion to assess prototyping benefits versus funds, time, and opportunity costs is nonexistent in the DoD.[...]the use of prototypes varies from one acquisition program to another.For this research, the purpose of the ranking is twofold: (a) to determine which benefits and factors are most important for prototyping success, and (b) to determine, for each, the weight of its contribution to prototyping success, which is then used to calculate the overall likelihood of success.Since the use of a prototype is expected to reduce risks to cost, schedule, and scope, the weights provide flexibility when (and if) one risk is determined to be more significant than another in future programs.In indirect explication, weights are assigned based on the data.Because weights were not elicited from survey participants, the indirect explication method of weighting by ranking is chosen due to its simplicity and because its explanatory power remains high when there are a relatively small number of criteria.