This is a summary of the GAO's Technology Readiness Assessment Guide (August 2016); GAO is currently in the process of evaluating comments made on this draft to produce a final report by the end of 2018.

Technology readiness assessments (TRA) are an evaluation of the maturity of critical elements of a product's technologies, also known as “critical technologies”. The TRA process is a risk identification tool that was designed to aid in highlighting concerns of critical technology maturity. This assessment was inspired by the system engineering process, and it relies on data generated during the course of technology or system development. The TRA uses a technology maturity scale, also known as Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), which are “ordered according to the characteristics of the demonstration or testing environment under which a given technology was tested at defined points in time.” This TRL scale consists of nine levels. Each of these nine levels are require the technology to be demonstrated in incrementally higher levels of fidelity and complexity in terms of form, level of integration with other system components, until at the final level, the technology can be described in terms of actual system performance in an operational environment.