NOAA FY08 Observing Systems Investment Analysis

In 2002 NOAA started working to integrate their observing systems. For an agency as large and diverse as NOAA, this was a monumental task. Once the systems were identified and catalogued, a process or methodology had to be put into place in order to have a logical way to make investment decisions within the new Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution System (PPBES). The purpose of the FY08 Investment Analysis (IA) is to develop recommendations forwarded to NOAA leadership on a NOAA-wide portfolio of observing system investments for the FY08 budget cycle. An optimal portfolio is defined as the combination of observing system investments that provides the greatest value within a given budget, recognizing legal and other constraints. The intent is to develop a repeatable process to support NOAA's PPBES cycle for FY08 and beyond. The observing systems portfolio model is based on a hierarchical mission goal-to-requirements model, or value tree. Elements from NOAA's structure, strategic plan, and program documentation were used to build a tree that represents how NOAA is organized to obtain and use environmental observations to achieve its mission.

In future work, the investment analysis should be extended beyond observing systems to include data management (broadly defined) and environmental modeling. The proposed expansion would address limitations identified in the FY08 data collection and would make the investment analysis more broadly applicable to architectural analysis of alternatives.