Developmental OODA Loop 3: Design

Once you have completed some essential derivations and trade studies to understand the practical limitations of a concept, it's time to work on the actual design implementation. In this step, you are now focused on getting to a useful high-fidelity Minimal Viable Product (MVP) that showcases the concept in a meaningful way that you as a developer or targeted users can experiment with to understand functionality and execution approaches. The goal here is to keep the MVP concentrated on addressing the critical needs of potential users to showcase base functionality and demonstrate an understanding of the capability and technology driving it. The OODA steps for this phase follow these steps:

1. Observe the products on previous trade studies and users' feedback on findings of digital engineering tools or low-fidelity MVPs serving as proofs of concepts. Work with stakeholders to identify Minimum Success Criteria (MSC) for next-stage products with consideration for threshold and objective metrics ideally informed by digital engineering models.

2. Orient design plans with a schedule that fits within resources and desired deadlines to take low-fidelity MVPs to high-fidelity components that can be further integrated based on well-defined interfaces.

3. Decide on an execution strategy based on a balancing of externally procured funds or IRAD with different design approaches. If the goal is to go fast, prioritize what design features need to be done in-house vs. purchased externally.

4. Act design plan ensuring configuration control and document completeness in any final designs. These interface control documents and test plans/reports will be critical for what comes next in the integration into a demonstration platform.

By following these basic steps, developers should be able to work towards a fairly mature product that should be about ready to market or secure partnership for higher-level integration into larger systems.