In late 2003, recognizing that the current approach to managing air transportation is becoming increasingly inefficient and operationally obsolete, Congress created JPDO to plan NGATS, a system intended to accommodate the threefold increase in air traffic demand expected by 2025. JPDO’s scope is broader than that of traditional ATC modernization in that it is “airport curb to airport curb,” encompassing such issues as security screening and environmental concerns. Additionally, JPDO’s approach will require unprecedented collaboration and consensus among many stakeholders—federal and nonfederal—about necessary system capabilities, equipment, procedures, and regulations. Each of JPDO’s partner agencies will play a role in the transformation to NGATS. For example, the Department of Defense has deployed “network centric” systems, originally developed for the battlefield, that are being considered as a conceptual framework to provide all users of the national airspace system—FAA and the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security— with a common view of that system. Vision 100 required the Secretary of Transportation to establish JPDO within FAA to manage work related to NGATS. The Director of JPDO reports to the FAA Administrator and to the Chief Operating Officer within ATO. JPDO began operating in early 2004. JPDO has developed a framework for planning and coordination with its partner agencies and nonfederal stakeholders that is consistent with the requirements of Vision 100 and with several practices that our work has shown can facilitate federal interagency collaboration and enterprise architecture development. This framework includes an integrated plan, an organizational structure, and an enterprise architecture. Vision 100 calls for the development of an integrated plan for NGATS and annual updates on the progress of that plan. JPDO’s partner agencies developed an integrated plan and submitted it to Congress on December 12, 2004. The plan includes a vision statement for meeting the predicted threefold increase in demand for air transportation by 2025 and eight strategies that broadly address the goals and objectives for NGATS. In March 2006, JPDO published its first report to Congress on the progress made in carrying out the integrated plan. The integrated plan is consistent with effective collaboration practices we have identified. According to our research on federal interagency collaborations, agencies must have a clear and compelling rationale for working together to overcome significant differences in their missions, cultures, and established ways of doing business. In working together to develop JPDO’s integrated plan, the partner agencies agreed on a vision statement to transform the air transportation system and on broad statements of future system goals, performance characteristics, and operational concepts. Vision 100 includes requirements for JPDO to coordinate and consult with its partner agencies, private sector experts, and the public. Accordingly, JPDO established an organizational structure to involve federal and nonfederal stakeholders throughout the organization. This structure includes a federal interagency policy committee, an institute for nonfederal stakeholders, and integrated product teams (IPT) that bring together federal and nonfederal experts to plan for and coordinate the development of technologies that will address JPDO’s eight broad strategies. JPDO’s senior policy committee was formed and is headed by the Secretary of Transportation, as required in Vision 100. The committee includes senior-level officials from JPDO’s partner agencies and has met three times since its inception. The NGATS Institute (the Institute) was created by an agreement between the National Center for Advanced Technologies and FAA to incorporate the expertise and views of stakeholders in private industry, state and local governments, and academia. The NGATS Institute Management Council, composed of top officials and representatives from the aviation community, oversees the policy and recommendations of the Institute and provides a means for advancing consensus positions on critical NGATS issues. In March 2006, the Institute held its first public meeting to solicit information from the public and other interested stakeholders who are not involved in the council or the IPTs. These types of meetings are designed to address the Vision 100 requirement that JPDO coordinate and consult with the public. The IPTs are headed by representatives of JPDO’s partner agencies and include more than 190 stakeholders from over 70 organizations, whose participation was arranged through the Institute. Figure 1 shows JPDO’s position within FAA and the JPDO structures that bring together federal and nonfederal stakeholders, including the Institute and the IPTs. JPDO’s organizational structure incorporates some of the practices we have found effective for federal interagency collaborations. For example, our work has shown that mutually reinforcing or joint strategies can help align partner agencies’ activities, core processes, and resources to accomplish a common outcome. Each of the eight IPTs is aligned with one of the eight strategies outlined in JPDO’s integrated plan, and each is headed by a partner agency that has taken the lead on a specific strategy. Our research has also found that collaborating agencies should identify the resources needed to initiate or sustain their collaborative effort. To leverage human resources, JPDO has staffed the various levels of its organization—including JPDO’s board, the IPTs, and technical divisions— with partner agency employees, many of whom work part time for JPDO. Finally, our work has shown that involving stakeholders can, among other things, increase their support for a collaborative effort. The Institute provides for involving nonfederal stakeholders, including the public, in planning NGATS. Vision 100 requires JPDO to coordinate NGATS-related programs across the partner agencies. To address this requirement, JPDO conducted an initial interagency review of its partner agencies’ research and development programs during July 2005 to identify work that could support NGATS. Through this process, JPDO identified early opportunities that could be pursued during fiscal year 2007 to coordinate and minimize the duplication of research programs across the partner agencies and produce tangible results for NGATS. For example, one identified opportunity is to align aviation weather research across FAA, NASA, and the Departments of Commerce and Defense; develop a common weather capability; and harmonize and incorporate into NGATS those agency programs designed to seamlessly integrate weather information and aircraft weather mitigation systems. In addition, the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and System Wide Information System (SWIM) programs at FAA were identified as opportunities for accelerated funding to produce tangible results for NGATS. JPDO is currently working with the Office of Management and Budget to develop a systematic means of reviewing the partner agencies’ budget requests so that the NGATS- related funding in each request can easily be identified. Such a process would help the Office of Management and Budget consider NGATS as a unified federal investment, rather than as disparate line items distributed across several agencies’ budget requests. JPDO’s effort to leverage its partner agencies’ resources for NGATS demonstrates another practice important to sustaining collaborations. Our work on collaborations has found that collaborating agencies, by assessing their relative strengths and limitations, can identify opportunities for leveraging each others’ resources and thus obtain benefits that would not be available if they were working separately. JPDO’s first interagency review of its partner agencies’ research and development programs has facilitated the leveraging of technological resources for NGATS. The budget process under development with OMB provides a further opportunity to leverage resources for NGATS. Vision 100 requires JPDO to create a multiagency research and development roadmap for the transition to NGATS. To comply with Vision 100, JPDO has been working on an enterprise architecture and expects to complete an early version of the architecture by September 2006. Many of JPDO’s future activities will depend on the robustness and timeliness of this architecture development. The enterprise architecture will describe FAA’s operation of the current national airspace system, JPDO’s plans for NGATS, and the sequence of steps needed for the transformation to NGATS. The enterprise architecture will provide the means for coordinating among the partner agencies and private sector manufacturers, aligning relevant research and development activities, and integrating equipment. JPDO has taken several important steps to develop the enterprise architecture—one of the most critical planning documents in the NGATS effort. For example, JPDO has drafted a concept of operations—a document that describes the operational transformations needed to achieve the overall goals of NGATS. JPDO has used this document to identify key research and policy issues for NGATS. For example, the concept of operations identifies several issues associated with automating the ATC system, including the need for a backup plan in case automation fails, the responsibilities and liabilities of different stakeholders during an automation failure, and the level of monitoring needed by pilots when automation is ensuring safe separation between aircraft. As the concept of operations matures, it will be important for air traffic controllers and other affected stakeholders to provide their perspectives on this effort so that needed adjustments can be made in a timely manner. JPDO officials recognize the importance of obtaining stakeholders’ comments on the concept of operations and are currently incorporating stakeholders’ comments into the concept of operations. JPDO expects to release its initial concept of operations by the end of July. Another step that JPDO has taken to develop the enterprise architecture is to form an Evaluation and Analysis Division (EAD), composed of FAA and NASA employees and contractors. This division is assembling a suite of models to help JPDO refine its plans for NGATS and iteratively narrow the range of potential solutions. For example, EAD has used modeling to begin studying how possible changes in the duties of key personnel, such as air traffic controllers, could affect the workload and performance of others, such as airport ground personnel. According to JPDO officials, the change in the roles of pilots and controllers is the most important human factors issue involved in creating NGATS.