Careful consideration of user engagement and participation requires programs:

- Select user representatives from all user communities.

- Balance the user population to ensure the product is optimized for all user communities.

- Select user representatives that provide proportional representation based on program objectives/goals.

- Select user representatives with both a deep understanding of the mission and familiarity with modern software development methods.

- Consider the use of test detachments that are specially designated to work with software programs to prioritize features and evaluate early versions of software.

- Embed end-users within the software development team or (if not possible) consider other methods to actively engage with end-users.

- Collocate users and developers and establish virtual/remote tools to fosters a holistic team environment, active collaboration, and information exchange.

- Consideration of the guidance in the bullets above informs user engagement and participation across various user communities, which should be captured in the table below:

If you navigate to the file, “Estimated User Representative Participation” (found by clicking “Show Help”, then “View documents” [Under Additional Resources], and “Excel Tables”), you will find an example table with notional data.