Part V - Planning, management, and implementation issues

Summary

This final section of the book primarily deals with the topic of how managers – both line managers and project managers – plan, implement, develop, and sustain verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification (VV&UQ) capabilities in their organizations. Some readers may feel this topic is inappropriate in a book on scientific computing; however, our experience and the experience of others has convinced us that while technical issues and computing resources are important, they are not the limiting factor in improving the credibility and usefulness of scientific computing used in a decision-making environment. We point out that although computing speed has continued to increase by a factor of ten every four years for multiple decades, we do not believe there has been a comparable impact of the information produced in modeling and simulation (M&S). We believe that nontechnical issues have significantly constrained improvements in the credibility of the information produced in M&S. Examples of these issues are (a) poor allocation of resources relative to the simulation needs of a project, (b) inadequate and ambiguous characterization and understanding of uncertainties in simulations, and (c) the difficulty of management and staff to assess how the time and resources invested in VV&UQ produce a net benefit for the credibility of the simulation results produced.