# Presentation: 801011

## Defining the Future

- Paul Doremus
- Director of Strategic Planning
- Program Planning & Integration
- November 30, 2005

## Session Goal

- Discuss approaches to identifying future opportunities during this Summit
- Context:  Uncertainty and complexity
- Process:  Brainstorming; organizing and evaluating ideas
- Content:  Elements of strategic thinking
- Provide ideas for the way ahead
- Near-term actions:  drawing connections to NOAA’s decision-making cycle
- Long-term actions: Ways to approach topics we currently do not understand

- Defining the Future

## Identifying Opportunities:Context

- Analytical / informational challenge:  complexity and uncertainty—especially over the long term

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**Notes:**
Identifying the right questions to ask—what decisions do we need to make?
Deciding what we need to know to make good decisions

## Identifying Opportunities:Brainstorming

- Summit provides an opportunity for structured brainstorming
- Use “resident knowledge”; tap collective experience
- Assess opportunities, not solutions (yet)
- Identify what we need to know more about
- Basic brainstorming rules
- Focus initially on generating ideas, not evaluating them (minimize explanations, debate, pro/con assessments)
- Ideas do not need to be fully formed, well backed, or obviously valuable; all contributions are valid
- Allow flexibility; short digressions can generate new ideas
- Combine ideas to generate new ideas
- Stay focused on the question

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## Identifying Opportunities:Organizing Ideas

- Basic tools for organizing ideas
- Affinity diagram:  clustering ideas, looking for patterns
- Look for natural groupings of similar ideas; categorize
- Create labels / headers capturing the central theme or idea
- Discuss cause / influence relationships
- Identify root causes / drivers
- Identify outcomes
- Prioritization matrix: sorting and ranking ideas
- Establish limited number of criteria for rating ideas
- Rate ideas against each criterion; evaluate net result
- Use to focus on a limited set of high-impact opportunities

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## Identifying Opportunities:Evaluating Ideas

- Criteria for sorting and ranking potential opportunities
- Common criteria for prioritization matrices
- Likelihood of success
- Ease of implementation
- Fit to capabilities
- Urgency
- Anticipated impact
- Criteria NOAA has used in other prioritization efforts
- External demands:  urgency (impact if not met); stakeholder demand
- Performance to date:  strength of track record; risk of failure
- Capabilities:  capacity to implement; clear case for NOAA
- Potential impact:  scale and scope of impact paths

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## IF a small number of opportunities emerge early, identify external drivers and NOAA’s ability to respond
External dimensions of opportunities
Internal capabilities relative to opportunities

- External dimensions of opportunities
- Internal capabilities relative to opportunities

- Identifying Opportunities:Assess Specific Ideas

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## Identifying Opportunities:Assess Specific Ideas

- Identify strategic issues by assessing opportunities against capabilities

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## Identifying Opportunities:Elements of Strategic Thinking

- Strategy = organizational responses to external conditions
- Basic structural characteristics of markets
- Firms / producers: size distribution; dispersed v. concentrated; variation in resources and capabilities
- Scope:  single- v. multi-product; domestic v. global
- Strategies:  low cost v. differentiation; innovation v. imitation
- Customers define market segments
- Size and distribution of customers
- Stability of demand
- Variation in distribution channels
- Differences in technology, supply chain dynamics, and other factors
- Implications for NOAA
- Define opportunities in terms of market features and customer needs
- Identify NOAA’s strategic assets in context of markets

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## Identifying Opportunities:Organization v. Market

- Organization

- Market

- Rivals

- Customers

- Partners

- Government

- Substitutes

- Entrants

- Environmental Factors

- Suppliers

- Resources
- Funding channels
- Transferable assets

- Capabilities
- Inf. based
- Tangible / intangible
- Intermediate goods

- Strategic Assets

- Organization-specific
- Scarce; difficult to transfer
*Non*-appropriable
- Determine value to customers
- Form the basis of competitive strategy

- Strategic
- Industry
- Factors

-  Market-specific
-  Shape profitability
-  Dynamic
-  Uncertain

- Identifying Opportunities:Organization v. Market

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## Identifying Opportunities:Relevant Questions

- Market structure
- What markets are we focusing on?
- What are the structural features of those markets?
- What value do NOAA’s assets have in those markets?
- Customer demands
- What are the major customer segments in those markets?
- How are customer needs evolving?  What factors are driving customer demands?
- What distinct value does or can NOAA provide?

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## The Way Ahead:Near term

- What we know about the future
- Connect future opportunities to current realities
- Focus on NOAA’s strategic decision-making cycle
- Corporate:  Annual Guidance Memorandum, FY 2009 – 2013
- Goal:  Program Plans / portfolio analyses, FY 2009 – 2013
- Program:  PDM, FY 2008
- Line Offices:  Execution priorities, FY 2006 – 2007
- Major policies (partnership, transition)
- Communication and marketing strategies

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## The Way Ahead:Long Term

- What we don’t know about the future
- Decide what we need to monitor and evaluate
- Science and technology trends
- Environmental trends
- Market dynamics (supply side)
- Customer needs (demand side)
- Public policy
- Distributed discovery process
- Structured, focused interviews:  corporate; other agencies
- Benchmarking inquiries to address knowledge gaps
- Customer / partner outlook on key trends and drivers
- Develop internal white papers
- Reconvene this time next year...revisit NOAA Strategic Plan

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## Reference Slides

- For reference / background:
- An overview of NOAA’s current strategic outlook
- Mission and vision
- Strategic goals and strategies
- AGM priorities
- Enduring roles:  NOAA’s value-creation model

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## Mission Statement

- NOAA Mission...
*To understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources to meet our Nation’s economic, social, and environmental needs*

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## Vision Statement

- NOAA Envisions...
- An informed society that uses a comprehensive understanding of the role of the oceans, coasts, and atmosphere in the global ecosystem to make the best social and economic decisions

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##       Strategic Goals

- Protect, restore, and manage the use of coastal and ocean resources through an ecosystem approach to management
- Understand climate variability and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond
- Serve society’s needs for weather and water information
- Support the Nation’s commerce with information for safe, efficient, and environmentally sound transportation
- Provide critical support for NOAA’s mission

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## Ecosystems

- Strategies
- Engage and collaborate with our partners to achieve regional objectives by delineating regional ecosystems, promoting partnerships at the ecosystem level, and implementing cooperative strategies to improve regional ecosystem health.
- Manage uses of ecosystems by applying scientifically sound observations, assessments, and research findings to ensure the sustainable use of resources and to balance competing uses of coastal and marine ecosystems.
- Improve resource management by advancing our understanding of ecosystems through better simulation and predictive models.
- Build and advance the capabilities of an ecological component of the NOAA global environmental observing system to monitor, assess, and predict national and regional ecosystem health, as well as to gather information consistent with established social and economic indicators.
- Develop coordinated regional and national outreach and education efforts to improve public understanding and involvement in stewardship of coastal and marine ecosystems.
- Engage in technological and scientific exchange with our domestic and international partners to protect, restore, and manage marine resources within and beyond the Nation’s borders.

- Healthy and productive coastal and marine ecosystems that benefit society
- A well-informed public that acts as a steward of coastal and marine ecosystems

- Outcomes

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## Climate

- Strategies
- Improve the quality and quantity of climate observations, analyses, interpretation, and archiving...
- Improve the quantification and understanding of the forces bringing about climate change...
- Advance sub-seasonal to inter-annual climate predictions and climate change projections...
- Develop the ability to predict the consequences of climate change on ecosystems...
- Develop and contribute to routine state-of-the-science assessments of the climate system for informed decision-making.
- Work with customers in order to deliver climate services and information products involved in health, safety, environmental, economic, and community planning that increase the effective application of this information.
- Coordinate among NOAA Line Offices the transition from investigator-driven research projects to operational facilities, capabilities, and products.
- Support educational efforts to create a more climate-literate public...

- A predictive understanding of the global climate system on time scales of weeks to decades with quantified uncertainties sufficient for making informed and reasoned decisions
- Climate-sensitive sectors and the climate-literate public effectively incorporating NOAA’s climate products into their plans and decisions

- Outcomes

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## Weather & Water

- Strategies
- Improve the reliability, lead-time, and effectiveness of weather and water information and services that predict changes in environmental conditions.
- Integrate an information enterprise that incorporates all stages from research to delivery, seeks better coordination of employee skills and training, and engages customers.
- Develop and infuse research results and new technologies more efficiently to improve products and services, streamline dissemination, and communicate vital information more effectively.
- Work with private industry, universities, and national and international agencies to create and leverage partnerships that foster more effective information services.
- Build a broad-based and coordinated education and outreach program by engaging individuals in continuous learning toward a greater understanding of the impacts of weather and water on their lives.
- Employ scientific and emerging technological capabilities to advance decision-support services and educate stakeholders.

- Outcomes

- Reduced loss of life, injury, and damage to the economy
- Better, quicker, and more valuable weather and water information to support improved decisions
- Increased customer satisfaction with weather and water information and services

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## Commerce & Transportation

- Strategies
- Expand and enhance advanced technology monitoring and observing systems, such as weather and oceanographic observations, ice forecasts and nowcasts, hydrographic surveys, and precise positioning coordinates, to provide accurate, up-to-date information.
- Develop and apply new technologies, methods, and models to increase the capabilities, efficiencies, and accuracy of transportation-related products and services.
- Develop and implement sophisticated assessment and prediction techniques, products, and services to support decisions on aviation, marine, and surface navigation efficiencies; coastal resource management; and transportation system management, operations, and planning.
- Build public understanding of the science and technology involved and the role of the environment in commerce and transportation through outreach, education, and industry collaboration

- Outcomes

- Safe, secure, efficient, and seamless movement of goods and people in the U.S. transportation system
- Environmentally sound development and use of the U.S. transportation system

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## Mission Support:Outcomes

- One NOAA working together, guided by a clear strategic vision for planning, programming, and execution, to achieve NOAA’s goals
- A safe operating environment with efficient and effective financial, administrative, and support services
- Ship, aircraft, and satellite programs that ensure continuous observation of critical environmental conditions
- NOAA Homeland Security-related capabilities that are fully integrated into national planning and available at all times
- A sustainable and strategic facilities master planning process with a 5- to 10-year planning horizon
- Secure, reliable, and robust information flows within NOAA and out to the public
- A dynamic workforce with competencies that support NOAA’s mission today and in the future

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## Mission Support:Strategies

- Provide timely and effective acquisition and delivery of satellite-derived information that supports requirements from the Mission Goals.
- Provide applied research to ensure the quality, reliability, and accuracy of current and future satellite products and services to support the Mission Goals.
- Use effective and efficient approaches to meet NOAA requirements for ship and aircraft support.
- Provide timely and accurate policy, guidance, and information on safety issues affecting NOAA, its customers, and its contractors.
- Formulate and maintain policies, procedures, plans, and processes, including inspections and training, to safely collect data using ships, boats, aircraft, and divers.
- Guide the development of and coordinate NOAA’s homeland security-related plans, programs, and policies to enhance NOAA-wide program response, risk management, continuity of operations, and other contingency planning and program infrastructure.
- Plan for, construct, and maintain facilities, including co-locating facilities among NOAA entities and external partners to allow for consolidation of services.
- Lead agency-wide efforts in education and outreach, public affairs, legislative affairs, international affairs, and legal affairs.

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## Mission Support:Strategies (con’t)

- Develop and maintain an Information Technology Enterprise that does the following: fully supports the life cycle of NOAA’s programs; is secure, reliable, and cost-effective; encourages information sharing; and complies with all applicable policies.
- Implement a strategic approach that attracts and maintains a competent and diverse workforce and creates an environment that develops, encourages, and sustains employees as they work to accomplish NOAA's strategic goals.
- Adopt a functional management model to deliver administrative and financial services that will establish direct lines of accountability from headquarters business line managers to all NOAA financial and administrative staff located in the field.
- Employ a planning, programming, budgeting, and execution system to enhance NOAA’s capabilities and to guarantee effective delivery of needed products and services.
- Improve the efficiency, accountability, and transparency of administrative programs and services through process optimization and customer satisfaction assessment.

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## AGM Priorities, FY2008-2012

| Core Function | PRIORITIES FOR FY2008 – 2012 |
| --- | --- |
| Observation systems, data, and models
See table 1.A | Globally integrated oceanic and atmospheric observations and data management
Ocean and Earth system modeling
Capable and reliable observations infrastructure |
| Information services, forecasts and predictions
See table 1.B | Science-based climate information services
Water information services
Forecast accuracy for high-impact weather 
Information services for aviation, marine, and surface transportation systems |
| Ocean and coastal ecosystem  management
See table 1.C | Collaborative, science-based approaches to ecosystem management
Environmental information on oceans and human health
Climate variability and ecosystem predictions |
| Environmental literacy
See table 1.D | Formal education in the environmental sciences
Life-long learning in environmental sciences, resource management, and stewardship |
| Breakthrough organizational performance
See table 1.E | Improve service delivery excellence and value to customers 
Strategic use of information technology
Modernized, safe, high quality facilities
Strategic workforce management |

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**Notes:**
Core AGM—the AGM on a page

5 core functions.  s/b stable over time; s/ frame our programming and budgeting 

16 priority areas; 3-4 per core function

These priorities are stated in reasonably broad terms.  Covers quite a large segment of NOAA’s program portfolio

AGM unbundles each area and tries to set out tangible out-year product / capability objectives.  These s/b the hooks for programming, and s/ better convey the focus and intended outcomes from our programmatic efforts

Subsequent sets of slides provide the actual core content from the AGM for each functional area.  Will not describe in great length...

## Table 1.A:Observation Systems, Data, and Models

| Priorities | Products / capabilities by 2012 |
| --- | --- |
| Globally integrated oceanic and atmospheric observations and data management | Operationally integrated NOAA observing systems based on a common architecture and nested within other national and global Earth observation systems 
Priority gaps in ocean observing systems have been closed, and a fully functional Integrated Ocean Observing System has been established 
Multi-mission geospatial data collected through integrated ocean and coastal mapping
Integrated data assimilation and management: archived, interoperable, accessible, and readily usable observations and data products |
| Ocean and Earth system modeling | Expanded operational capacity through an Earth Systems Modeling Framework
New data assimilation methods that support expanded observational system capabilities
Operational ocean and coastal modeling capabilities that support all NOAA programs
New analytical and predictive capabilities for ecosystem parameters and air and water quality |
| Capable and reliable observations infrastructure | Long-term satellite and fleet upgrades deployed
Multi-disciplinary, multi-sensor ocean data collection
Improved productivity of data collection platforms |

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**Notes:**
Observations systems, data, and models provides an interdependent set of priorities that respond to GEOSS mandates; 
OAP and other stakeholder commitments to developing IOOS in particular; and 
importance of including observations infrastructure

Key contextual point:  new capabilities in obs systems, data and models are needed to generate the capacity in other core functions:  inf systems, F&P, as well as ecosystems / stewardship function

## Table 1.B:Information Services, Forecasts, and Predictions

| Priorities | Products / capabilities by 2012 |
| --- | --- |
| Science-based climate Information services | Improved intra-seasonal to inter-annual predictions
New information products for climate extremes, coastal ocean climatologies, climate normals, precipitation frequency estimates, and assessments of climate forcing agents and substitutes for ozone-depleting substances
Decision support services for drought, health, agriculture, and urban / coastal management |
| Water information services | New hydrologic forecasting information services for drought and water management
Observations expanded to regional watersheds, covering coasts, rivers, and upland areas
New analytical tools and predictive capabilities that link forecast models of water resources, hydrology, weather events, climate, and oceans
Hydrological forecasting capabilities that support NOAA’s priorities for environmental information on oceans and human health |
| Forecast accuracy for high-impact weather  | Accelerated research and optimization of observing strategies yield improvements in the accuracy of one-day to two-week high-impact weather forecasts
Accurate 48-hour hurricane intensity forecasts  |
| Information services for aviation, marine, and surface transportation systems | Increased lead-time prediction of low ceiling and visibility at airports
Increased 48 hour forecast accuracy of high seas marine warnings
Expanded geographic coverage of real-time, integrated marine navigation products and services
Increased operational availability of weather information for surface transportation systems |

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**Notes:**
Inf Systems, Forecasts and Predictions captures a more distinct suite of individual priority areas

Reflects Administration and other stakeholder concerns regarding climate—where we’re trying to move here into a more product and service-driven portfolio, 
and in water, where we’re trying to take our hydrological forecasting capabilities to a new level in both scale and scope
scale of core hydrological forecasting capabilities and services, and
scope of coverage (geographic—regional watersheds—as well as linkages to other prediction and analytical capabilities).  

Continued national experience with severe weather is motivating a research-intensive effort to develop better one day to two week high impact weather forecasting, and to improve hurricane intensity forecasts

Likewise, growing demands for effective and efficient infrastructure for transportation systems calls for a set of information services focused on distinct problems / gaps in aviation, marine, and surface transportation systems

## Table 1.C:Ocean and Coastal Ecosystem Management

| Priorities | Products / capabilities by 2012 |
| --- | --- |
| Collaborative, science-based approaches to ecosystem management | Region-specific collaborative approaches to ecosystem-based management that are generating specific, measurable improvements in ecosystem health and productivity 
Integrated assessments and forecasts of ecosystem health and productivity, including socioeconomic impacts
Harmonized legal-regulatory approaches to coastal and marine resource management
Regulatory structure and robust scientific and technical support for marine aquaculture |
| Environmental information on oceans and human health | Prediction, monitoring, and multi-region warning systems for harmful algal blooms and hypoxia
Ecological monitoring, forecasting and environmental modeling for human health risk characterization |
| Climate variability and ecosystem predictions | Improved monitoring and forecasting of ecosystem conditions based on climate observations and models 
Improved understanding of climate change and climate predictability at decadal time scales, with impacts on marine ecosystems |

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**Notes:**
In response to a broad array of Administration, Congress, and other broad stakeholder priorities related to ecosystem management, we are recommending a set of priorities that focus on 
Core ESM roles:  regional approach, ecosystem-specific results; expanded forecasting capabilities, and response to emerging roles in aquaculture
Extension of nascent capabilities in oceans and human health, focused on prediction and monitoring for algal blooms and hypoxia, and broader monitoring and forecasting capabilities for ecosystem conditions that impact human health
Advance the integration of climate predictions and ecosystems management—v. promising cross-goal collaboration to improve decision support services for ecosystem management

## Table 1.D:Environmental Literacy

| Priorities | Products / capabilities by 2012 |
| --- | --- |
| Formal education in Earth system science, as it relates to NOAA’s mission | Widespread use of high quality, multi-disciplinary curricula and learning tools that broadly leverage NOAA’s scientific and technical expertise

Increased number of students receiving formal education in Earth system science |
| Life-long learning in Earth system science, as it relates to NOAA’s mission | Improved public awareness of and responsiveness to warnings about oceanic and atmospheric phenomena 

Improved public stewardship of environmental resources

Improved information for the public’s use in making decisions about natural resources |

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**Notes:**
Those who attended the LO / GTL workshop know that this entire priority did not emerge from a bottom-up goal / program priority-setting process; it was added in response to strong stakeholder demands for an increased NOAA capacity 

The approach we’re suggesting here focuses on formal and informal education channels, and seeks to 
develop the capacity to integrate NOAA science into formal educational curricula and standards, and to expand the student pipeline in environmental / Earth systems sciences; and
Directly improve how the public uses and reacts to NOAA’s information services and stewardship functions

(Note terminological issue from Ed Council, and request to change approach here—covered in “coordination and views”)

## Table 1.E:Breakthrough Organizational Performance

| Priorities | Products / capabilities by 2012 |
| --- | --- |
| Improve service delivery excellence and value to customers | Accelerated transition of research capabilities to new or improved operational products and services 
New service delivery models deployed that provide higher quality, higher value, fully integrated information services, forecasts, and predictions |
| Strategic use of information technology | A single, secure NOAA enterprise network that integrates data and information across physical and disciplinary boundaries and time scales, adequate to support GEOSS and NOAA’s national mission imperatives
A comprehensive Management Information System for corporate NOAA |
| Modernized, safe, high quality facilities | Modernized, consolidated facilities portfolio, leveraged in collaboration with partners |
| Strategic workforce management | A more flexible, diverse, and mobile workforce with minimal skill gaps
Ability to rapidly reconfigure or acquire new skills as technologies and program needs change  |

- Defining the Future

**Notes:**
Final functional area captures 2 core concepts:  
The on-going need to “evolve” many current services
The on-going need to plan and deploy the information systems, facilities, and workforce required to fulfill NOAA’s mission requirements

## Enduring Roles:NOAA Value Creation Model

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