Applications of Digital Engineering Tenets to Naval Special Warfare Requirement(s) Definition

The world continues to advance at a hastening pace towards a technology enabled, digital-centric future. Legacy organizations, not born in the ‘digital age’ are examining methods to adapt through Digital Transformation (DT). The US Department of Defense (DoD) is one such organization. The DoD emerged their 2018 Digital Engineering Strategy intending on transforming the enterprise from one with ‘engineering process [that] are document-intensive and stove-piped, leading to extended cycle times with systems that are cumbersome to change and sustain’ to one that is ‘transforming its engineering practices to digital engineering, incorporating technological innovations into an integrated, digital, model-based approach’. The 2018 Strategy acknowledges that the integration of digital engineering will not be exclusive to the engineering communities of the DoD; rather, the integration will impact the ‘research, requirements, acquisition, test, cost, sustainment and intelligence communities’. While the Strategy is designed to explain the ‘what’ necessary to integrate digital engineering, the various DoD Services (and their subordinates) will need to develop the ‘how’ regarding implementation that is culturally appropriate to their commands. The study sought to examine ‘how’ implementation of digital engineering tenets may be appropriated to the existent culture of one US Special Operations Command subordinate at the Echelon III level (namely Naval Special Warfare Group – FOUR). The results of this study are intended to provide understanding and illuminate meaning behind those themes in Digital Engineering that Subject Matter Experts within Naval Special Warfare view as suitably adaptable to their processes. The intent is to provide themes with utility towards further efforts and research aimed at phasing Digital Transformation initiatives at Naval Special Warfare Group – FOUR