Verification, validation, and accreditation (VV&A): one voice --- unified, common & cross-cutting

This paper establishes support for a unified Verification, Validation, and Accreditation (VV&A) approach to serve as the one "common and cross-cutting" voice for VV&A across the Department of Defense (DoD) and Military Services. Modeling and Simulation (M&S) management has been transforming for over a year. Various communities enabled by M&S have been identified at the DoDand Service-levels. Transforming M&S management has brought about coordination amongst and between the communities to support common services, data, and tools. These common and cross-cutting areas include the standardization of processes, development of best practices, and the utility and application of M&S that together provide overarching benefits to all communities. Currently, M&S management decisions are made by committees through a process of proposals, presentations, and interviews. The VV&A leaders from the DoD, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have collaborated on this paper to reaffirm the need for VV&A by all communities, to identify the need for one voice to speak for VV&A to all communities, and to offer solutions for the road ahead.