The U.S. Navy Submarine Hydrodynamics/Hydroacoustic community: a case study in strategic planning for a decentralized, multi-organizational, military community

Abstract

The United States Navy Submarine Hydrodynamic/Hydroacoustic community is a decentralized, multiorganizational, geographically distributed enterprise. Strategic planning and management, whether formal or ad hoc, is necessary for effective functioning of any organization. However, formal strategic planning is particularly difficult in multi-organizational, geographically diverse enterprises. Enterprise-wide performance measurement and a shared understanding of enterprise performance is necessary to devise compelling and effective strategies. During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy submarine force had a clear mission and compelling goals, with resulting clarity on performance metrics. The Submarine Hydrodynamic/Hydroacoustic workforce was focused on helping the submarine force achieve these goals. In the post-Cold War era, the submarine force mission in the integrated battle space is less defined. The percentage of the military budget that can be spent on discretionary spending is decreasing. The Submarine Hydrodynamics/Hydroacoustic community has been directly impacted by the recent lack of focus and budget reductions. The purpose of this thesis is to research the past processes used to perform strategic planning for the Submarine Hydrodynamic/Hydroacoustic community, identify current strategic issues for the community, and document strategic lessons learned that can be identified through the evaluation of product successes and failures.