Organizational Excellence in the National Weather Service

The National Weather Service (NWS) created its first ever Office of Organizational Excellence (OOE) during its headquarters reorganization in 2015. This new office was charged with “leading and managing activities enabling NWS to become the agile and effective organization needed to build a Weather-Ready Nation.” As the OOE staffed up in 2016, it developed a four-pronged mission to challenge the status quo, enable change, provide strategic thinking, and create connections for the NWS. This mission motivated a series of strategic discussions initially within the NWS and eventually with the enterprise, ranging on topics from society's future demands for prediction capabilities to the roles of and support for people that comprise the NWS.

This presentation will describe (1) these early efforts to envision and realize organizational excellence in the NWS, (2) results from strategic engagements to date, and (3) future opportunities for meeting the evolving needs of the country we serve.