Executive Summary

Surprise is a recurring feature in our lives, our scientific community, and in the realm of national defense. It is inherent to the human condition and fundamentally a mismatch between what is expected and what is experienced. Our expectations are informed by institutional norms, our assumptions, and our experiences. By understanding that organizational norms drive the expectations that underpin surprise, organizations can seek to systematically expand expectations by exploring possible futures. This implies that the goal of preventing technology surprise is much more than simply foretelling the future; it is the commitment to being flexible and adaptive, to minimize shock and maintain mission effectiveness.

The possibility that technological surprise could be prevented is open to debate. The Committee on Preventing Technology Surprise: The Army’s Leading Edge Research Programs and the Subject Matter Expertise that Fuels Them found that there are two schools of thought on futures thinking. The orthodox school espouses the idea that no one can predict the future perfectly and, while preventative measures can be used to mitigate surprise, eliminating the risk of surprise is simply not possible. The revisionist school, on the other hand, believes that prediction and prevention can come from better processes, information, intelligence, and decision making. The committee concluded that the possibility of technology surprise cannot be completely eliminated but, fortunately, also determined that the same actions for attempting to prevent surprise will similarly mitigate the effects of surprise, should it occur.

The committee’s analysis was principally organized into three categories: futures thinking, Essential Research Program (ERP) analysis, and the individual and organizational traits to keep the U.S. Army at the fore. The main part of the analysis opens with an exploration of the role of futures thinking, particularly emphasizing the need for scenario planning. The committee believes a disciplined, systems approach is the best way to expand comprehension of the range of possible unknown outcomes. The committee concluded that the Army does a fair amount of futures thinking, but found its outputs are neither linked together in a meaningful way, nor are they regularly used to inform science and technology (S&T) investments. To solve that problem, the committee proposed a new model for linking the leadership, talent, and technology in a way that crosses organizational boundaries, prevents missed opportunities through improved insight management, fosters collaboration at the individual and organizational levels, and finally, presents those ideas to leadership regularly for consideration in the Program Plan Budgeting and Execution System (PPBES) process as early as possible.

The ERP analysis is in three parts. First, the ERPs were compared against a large number of vignettes to see if the range of known possibilities are covered, and the committee concluded that the current ERPs are sufficient to develop the next generation of technologies to address the anticipated futures. The second part looked at the ERPs’ ability to address the range of unexpected futures. The committee proposed a list of vignettes that could be built upon to better inform futures thinking, expand comprehension of the range of unknown outcomes, and inform new, more creative avenues of research (see Appendix C). Finally, the committee took a review

of private investment in those areas comparable to the ERPs. Although not definitive, the committee believes that in some ERPs, private investment is orders of magnitude higher than the Army’s.

The committee recommends the S&T investments in these areas receive a more detailed project-level review to see if the S&T dollars are spent best on early research, or perhaps better suited for adoption (Recommendation 4-2). The full market analysis is provided in Appendix B.

During the ERP market analysis portion of deliberations, the committee concluded that an update to the “lead, follow, adopt” technology adoption model was warranted. It recommends a new model, one that aims to balance the competing pressures of simultaneously supporting modernization priorities and discovery for 6.1/6.2 research. It includes new criteria such as dual use potential, the ability to respond to (or create) surprise, freedom of action in a contested environment, and the “ilities”¹ (Recommendation 4-3). See Figure 4-4 for the proposed technology adoption model.

Finally, the committee reviewed the individual and organizational traits that drive research forward in a way that prevents technology surprise. It concluded that although the Army understands in principle that the technology maturation process is not a linear process, but rather a collaborative one, its organizational boundaries and lack of stakeholder visibility present challenges (Conclusion 5-2). In theory, a linear progression can work via coordination when the sequence of organizations through which the innovations flow is aligned in their operations and share a common mission, despite their distinct organizational structures. In the Army’s case, soldiers at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC’s) Centers of Excellence identify capability gaps that turn into requirements for the Army research community. When the technology has reached the desired degree of maturity, it is put into the hands of the warfighter to test and provide feedback to the research community. In practice however, the committee judges that these activities throughout the innovation phase are not well linked, particularly regarding futures thinking programs and their outputs. Additionally, at each step a different command or component is responsible, creating barriers to collaboration across technology readiness levels (TRLs) and budget activities. Therefore, the committee determined that the Army’s actions more accurately represent “coordination” instead of “collaboration,” and it is the latter that the committee finds to be an essential attribute at both the individual and organizational levels, to prevent technology surprise.

In the committee’s view, the organization will not achieve a collaborative culture if the new and existing individuals are not already recruited, trained, and practice that trait. During its data-gathering sessions, the committee reviewed more than 30 USA Jobs postings for related S&T vacancy announcements, most within the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM). Fewer than 10 percent listed collaboration as a desired skill, and none of them listed the need for collaboration as part of their job duties. Therefore, the committee recommends that the Army recruit and train both S&T management and its workforce with an increased focus on collaboration, particularly across budget activities and TRLs, for early-career employees, and it provides some examples from industry that could apply.

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¹ In the Department of War, the “ilities” are the operational and support requirements a program must address (e.g., availability, lethality, mobility, agility, maintainability, vulnerability, reliability, and logistics supportability).

This third and final part of the ERP analysis concludes with a “path to resilience.” One way to do that is to adapt a well-known Army concept of a rehearsal. Rehearsals can reveal gaps in plans or processes, opportunities for better collaboration and communication, and the impacts of resourcing constraints. Practicing the organizational response to a technology surprise conditions leaders and scientists to be flexible and adaptive, thus reducing the “shock” of the event and the subsequent delays in a response. The committee concluded that trained, practiced, and collaborative individuals are a prerequisite for a collaborative and resilient S&T enterprise.

The committee’s intent is not to present the already well-known value of a resilient enterprise, rather it is intended to show a path to achieving it. It begins with on-boarding new personnel and involving them in cross-organizational S&T work as early as possible. It includes a wide range of stakeholders incorporated into horizon-scanning efforts and a coordinated approach to capturing those ideas to feed creative research. And if surprise befalls us despite our best efforts to prevent it, that same collaborative culture will be able to adapt quickly and develop countermeasures to minimize its adverse effects.

This version of the document is approved for public release.