Resolving COTS system assessment clashes

COTS significantly complicates the IV&V process. The necessarily pessimistic culture of IV&V has a perspective on which COTS assessment attributes and techniques are relevant that differs greatly from developer's typically optimistic, success-oriented perspective. There is no basis to assume that the COTS assessments made by developers will ultimately be consistent with IV&V COTS assessments. The result frequently results in a “lose-lose” situation where either large re-work costs are incurred to replace existing COTS with IV&V approved COTS, or higher risk and uncertainty must be tolerated (from the IV&V perspective) to continue with the COTS the developers chose. This work seeks to remedy this “culture clash” of COTS assessment perspectives by integrating IV&V and developers system level COTS assessments that provides a result that is both consistent and cost-effective.