Title: Increasing flexibility and agility at the National Reconnaissance Office
Description: To help the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) become more flexible and agile in an  increasingly uncertain world, RAND sought answers to two key questions. First, would the  NRO benefit from building modular satellites? RAND researchers developed a method for  evaluating whether a system is a good candidate for modularity and applied it to systems both  inside and outside the NRO. The authors found that NRO space systems do not appear to be strong candidates for modularization. Second, what lessons might be drawn from how chief  executive officers, military personnel, and health care professionals (among others) respond to  surprise? RAND developed a framework to categorize professionals' responses to surprise and  then conducted discussions with representatives from 13 different professions, including former ambassadors, chief executive officers, military personnel, and physicians. The authors observed  that all interviewees used common coping strategies. The authors also found some differences  in response to surprise that depend on two factors: time available to respond and the level of chaos in the environment. The report concludes with recommendations on actions that the NRO can take to improve the flexibility of its hardware and the workforce.
Subjects: Management, Evaluation, American Artificial satellites, Design and construction, Organizational behavior, United States. National Reconnaissance Office, United States, Artificial satellites