RAND&rsdquo;s Portfolio Analysis Tool (PAT): Theory, Methods, and Reference Manual — 2009

Paul Davis, Paul Dreyer

Strategic planning often involves investing in a mix of capabilities and activities and assessing the adequacy of options for meeting a variety of objectives. Such an analysis “portfolio” may be characterized by allocation across investment categories or by the corresponding allocation across objectives. RAND's Portfolio Analysis Tool (PAT) was designed to facilitate strategic analysis dealing with both uncertainty and differences of perspective. PAT generates high-level summary depictions for discussing issues of balance. It uses a spreadsheet-based format with options shown in rows and various measures of option goodness in columns. The PAT user can drill down (zoom) to understand the basis of high-level characterizations and to identify troublesome problems. PAT can depict various types of risk in a number of ways and present options that mitigate or hedge against those risks. Built on an earlier application-specific tool, PAT-MD, which was developed for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Program Integration Office (MDA/PI), PAT reflects lessons learned, and it has evolved considerably. The approach to analysis enabled by PAT is oriented toward assisting high-level decisionmakers to frame their thinking about balance, to construct good multifaceted options for consideration, and to make subsequent choices. This report documents the theory and methodology of PAT and serves as a combined reference manual and user's guide. It will be of interest primarily to analysts and those who manage analysis.

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Controlling the Cost of C4I Upgrades on Naval Ships — 2009

Command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) systems — the lifeblood of naval ships — have evolved at a rapid pace over the last few decades. To keep up with technological advances and to take advantage of improvements nurtured in the civilian marketplace, the U.S. Navy extensively uses commercial hardware and software for its C4I systems. However, the cost of keeping these products up-to-date is high.

In their search for factors that influence the cost of upgrading C4I systems, the authors considered both new-ship construction and installations aboard in-service ships, identifying such issues as design margins, access to C4I spaces, and challenges associated with configuration, integration, and testing. Looking across a specific set of completed C4I upgrades, the authors searched for factors (such as hull type and ship age) that may have influenced the labor cost to install the upgrades. They also attempted to identify biases and other influences that may have led to misestimates.

Overall, the authors found some evidence that costs decreased across certain successive upgrades, but they were unable to identify consistent cost trends associated with the upgrade factors they studied. The analysis uncovered both a high level of variability in costs and a trend toward overestimating the installation-labor costs of upgrades, particularly for certain hull types.

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Integrating Civilian Agencies in Stability Operations – 2009

In a project entitled “Integrating the Interagency in Planning for Army Stability Operations,” RAND Arroyo Center examined the question of how the Army can help make key civilian agencies more capable partners in the planning and execution of stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations. The authors identify the primary and secondary civilian agencies that should be involved in strategic-level planning and implementation of SSTR operations. Then, relying on available information on Provincial Reconstruction Teams and using a variety of federal databases, the authors identify the skill sets needed for the envisioned Field Advance Civilian Teams and where these skills reside in the federal government. The authors then assess the capacity of the main civilian agencies to participate in SSTR operations and analyze the recurring structural problems that have plagued their attempts to do so. The authors suggest a series of options that are worth considering in order to improve the current situation. Even without much action at the national level, the Army can still improve the situation by improving Army Civil Affairs and by executing a well-thought-out strategy of liaison officers assigned to the civilian agencies most important for SSTR operations.

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