The kinds of courses for which this case was designed include program management, contracting, software, organizational behavior/change and others. As denoted by the title, this particular case has been specifically tailored for use in a software acquisition course. As such, the introduction begins this case instance with a software-specific look at the JSOW program.
The background information pertaining to the JSOW system and program are first discussed to provide a context for the experience and innovation highlighted through the case. This discussion is followed by a general description of the baseline contracting process that is practiced in most acquisitions as well as a high-level overview of the alpha contracting process, which is used to support both comparison and contrast with the specific JSOW experience presented in the fifth section. The case then builds upon these process descriptions and JSOW experience to formulate a rough and preliminary, generalized alpha contracting model to be used for decision making, and the case closes with a software-specific conclusion, augmented by some key references and appendix items.
