T&E Guidebooks and Companion Guides

Overview

This page serves as a one-stop resource for test and evaluation (T&E) guides and helpful information for programs. These incorporate the current T&E guidance as well as the hard-earned lessons and best practices gleaned from past programs. No individual reference or collection can cover all circumstances, so the DTE&A staff stands ready to assist programs in ensuring their T&E programs adequately verify that the warfighter will receive the capabilities they need to survive and prevail. This page is in development and will be updated with links.

T&E Management Guide

The Test and Evaluation Management Guide (TEMG) is kept updated with the cooperation and support of the Director of Developmental Testing, Evaluation, and Assessments (DDTE&A), the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), the President of the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), and the DoD Component T&E representatives. The TEMG is one of many technical management educational guides developed for use by DAU. Although some Service-specific processes are included as illustrative examples, the TEMG, like all DAU products, is written primarily from a Department of Defense (DoD) perspective, i.e., non-Service specific.

The objective of a well-managed T&E program is to provide timely and accurate information to decision makers and program managers (PMs). The TEMG was developed to assist the acquisition community in obtaining a better understanding of who the decision makers are and determining how and when to plan T&E events so that they are efficient and effective.

DoD Cybersecurity T&E Guidebook

The purpose of this updated guidebook is to promote data-driven mission-impact-based analysis and assessment methods for cybersecurity T&E and to support assessment of cybersecurity, survivability, and resilience within a mission context by encouraging planning for tighter integration with traditional system T&E. Cybersecurity T&E starts at acquisition initiation and continues throughout the entire life cycle. The guidebook supplements information provided in the Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) Guidebook, which is linked later on this page.

DoD Cyber Table Top Guidebook

The Cyber Table Top (CTT) process is a best-practice and includes an intellectual wargame-like exercise followed by analysis. The exercise and analysis in the CTT facilitates identification and comprehension of risks from potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The purpose of this guidebook is to provide an overview of the CTT process, guidance on performing a CTT, and instructions for generating actionable information on potential cyber threats for the Program Manager. This process and the templates can be tailored to meet individual organization or program needs.

Integrating T&E into DoD Acquisition Contracts

This guide is designed to help the DoD and industry T&E professionals identify T&E items to consider for inclusion when drafting a statement of objectives (SOO), a statement of work (SOW), and a request for proposal (RFP), and during solicitation and contract execution. This guide presumes the reader has an understanding of T&E and the DoD systems acquisition processes as described in DoD Instruction 5000.02 (DoDI 5000.02) and the Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAG), particularly, DAG Chapter 8, Integrated Test and Evaluation. This guide follows some of the content of the DoD Guide for Integrating Systems Engineering into DoD Acquisition Contracts and T&E topics and issues.

DoD Guide for Integrating Systems Engineering into DoD Acquisition Contracts

The target audience for this guide is the Government program team responsible for (1) incorporating program technical strategy and technical planning into the Request for Proposal (RFP) and (2) performing pre-award functions, including source selection, as well as post-award contractor execution activities. The guide is of most use to the Program Manager (PM), the Lead (or Chief) Systems Engineer (LSE), the Contracting Officer (CO), and the solicitation team.

The primary purpose of this guide is to aid the PM and LSE to effectively integrate SE requirements into appropriate contracting elements in support of system acquisition; however, all Government and industry personnel involved in a program can benefit from this guide.

TEMP Guidebook

A TEMP is a signed agreement between the USD(R&E) or their designee, DOT&E, senior DoD Component leadership, the lead DT&E organization, the lead Operational Test Authority, the Milestone Decision Authority, and the Program Manager. Effective, adequate, and executable test and evaluation strategies are a key element for developing and delivering needed capabilities.

T&E Evaluation Guidebook
(in development)

The best data collection in the world isn’t particularly useful, or could even be detrimental, if not correctly evaluated.

DevSecOps Test and Evaluation Guidebook

DevSecOps is an organizational software engineering culture and practice that aims at unifying software development (Dev), security (Sec) and operations (Ops). The main characteristic of DevSecOps is to automate, monitor, and apply security at all phases of the software lifecycle: plan, develop, build, test, release, deliver, deploy, operate, and monitor. In DevSecOps, testing and security are shifted to the left through automated unit, functional, integration, and security testing - this is a key DevSecOps differentiator since security and functional capabilities are tested and built simultaneously.

T&E Guidebook for Autonomy

The purpose of this handbook is to equip testers with tools, approaches, and insights to confidently test autonomous systems. Due to the breadth of challenges with testing autonomy and the overall immaturity of existing test capabilities, the content of this handbook does not explicitly define specific best practices. Rather, this handbook outlines the considerations for autonomy test, which need to take place at each phase of the test process to ensure a safe, secure, effective, and efficient test. This handbook is intended to be more of a compass than a map.

Handbook on Statistical Design and Analysis Techniques for Modeling and Simulation Validation

Published by the Institute for Defense Analysis, this handbook focuses on methods for data-driven validation to supplement the, vast existing literature for Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (VV&A) and the emerging references on uncertainty quantification (UQ). The goal of this handbook is to aid the test and evaluation (T&E) community in developing test strategies that support model validation (both external validation and parametric analysis) and statistical UQ.