Increasing flexibility and agility at the National Reconnaissance Office

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.