Applying Holistic Thinking to the Problem of Determining the Future Availability of Technology

Used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense, the technology readiness level (TRL) has been found to contain a number of deficiencies which reduce its fitness for purpose. This technical note examines the undesirable situation that created the TRL from the traditional and holistic problem-solving processes. The contribution of this technical note to the problem-solving body of knowledge is that the holistic thinking approach could have produced a more useful conceptual tool than the TRL for determining the future availability of technology; a tool that instead of focusing on the early stages of the technology lifecycle focuses on the whole technology lifecycle from conceptualization to obsolescence.