31 January 2002

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Release Number 01-18
Jan. 25, 2002
For information, contact Joan Mears at 301-227-2057

Know the Earth . . . Show the Way

NIMA STATEMENT OF STRATEGIC INTENT

JANUARY 2002

National Imagery and Mapping Agency

Our Mission:

Our Vision: Know the Earth� Show the Way

We provide Geospatial Intelligence in all its forms, and from whatever source� imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial data and information� to ensure the knowledge foundation for planning, decision, and action.

We provide easy access to Geospatial Intelligence databases for all stakeholders.

We create tailored, customer-specific Geospatial Intelligence, analytic services, and solutions.

Our Core Values:

In NIMA, we are committed to�

Customers� both as a National Intelligence and a Combat Support Agency.

People� their personal integrity, professionalism, growth, leadership, and accountability.

Culture� our diversity, teamwork, creativity, risk-taking, and mutual trust and respect.

�Excellence in all we do.

A Message from the Director:

I am gratified to present the 2002 National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) Statement of Strategic Intent. It supplants and supersedes the previous NIMA Strategic Plan. This document communicates NIMA's strategic direction to our stakeholders, i. e., our customers� those whom we serve in our crucial roles as both a National Intelligence and a Combat Support Agency; our workforce� both government and contractor; our mission partners� both domestic and foreign; our industry, academic, and non-profit collaborators; our oversight authorities both in the executive and the legislative branches; and, most importantly, the citizens of the United States� our ultimate stockholders.

This Statement of Strategic Intent represents the capstone and sets the basic direction for a series of ensuing documents that build to the tenets articulated here. This includes the Program Objectives Memorandum and the Intelligence Program Objectives Memorandum; a Corporate Business Plan for the Agency at large; and then an implementation plan for each of our Key Components. Each of these builds on and reinforces this Statement of Strategic Intent, and collectively provides increasing levels of detail. We are harmonizing this series of documents to reflect a unity of purpose, a singleness in direction, and internal coherence and consistency.

Those whom we serve� the White House, Congress, policy community, military commanders, law enforcement officials, and civil leaders� require reliable information with a geospatial foundation as the common denominator. This information must be timely, accurate, current, detailed, easily accessible, and, in relative terms, affordable.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, have profoundly changed the United States and our perception of what we now soberly understand is our "national security." Our immediate responses to this crisis have served to accelerate the profound changes already underway in the Agency� as articulately and authoritatively expressed in the NIMA Commission Report. We can now "see" with ever-clearer precision the vectors we must pursue� and now recognize that we must do so ever more aggressively.

NIMA and its superb team of government and contractor people are uniquely postured to foster integration of intelligence because the data bases for which we serve as steward provide the visualization and analytical framework to enable informed, timely decision-making. For NIMA, this means capitalizing on ALL forms of what we have traditionally categorized as imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial data and information, which we now call Geospatial Intelligence. This new term signals our new vision: Know the Earth... Show the Way. This portends a change to the name of our agency, to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA).

The National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSGI) is the integration of technology, policies, capabilities, and doctrine necessary to conduct Geospatial Intelligence in a multi-intelligence environment.

Our central, underlying organizing principle� prompted by the 9/ 11 crisis, and rapidly implemented early in its midst� is designed to foster this transformation. It acknowledges our three major mission imperatives, which we must execute simultaneously:

(1) First and foremost, we MUST NOW (and always) respond to analysis and production demands� in what we recognize is a perpetual state of crisis.

(2) We MUST champion and complete a complex set of major investments, to move us to the NEXT level of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSGI).

(3) We MUST forge the AFTER-NEXT environment by constantly driving future technical trends and applying them to operational needs, inserting technology rapidly, and providing relevant Geospatial Intelligence, services, and solutions.

This organizing principle� based on the temporal dimensions of "NOW," "NEXT," AND "AFTER-NEXT"� has been intentionally instituted to facilitate our transformation. It is simple, timeless, and agile, and it governs our organizational structure, program and financial approach, the conduct of our mission, and how we manage our workforce. It applies to NIMA as a corporate enterprise and the broader National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSGI) it leads as Functional Manager.

Our hallmark theme is transformation. The first three strategic goals address our three major mission imperatives of NOW, NEXT, and AFTER-NEXT. Our fourth goal recognizes the central importance of our people to achieve this transformation.

(4) We MUST align our human resource plans, policies, and services with our Strategic Intent and Core Values, in recognition that all we do is completely dependent on our most important resource, our people� government and contractor. The remaining six strategic goals are:

(5) Continue the transformation of our business model by using best practices to enhance our position as the premier Geospatial Intelligence provider.

(6) Lead the NSGI as Functional Manager.

(7) Capitalize on all forms of traditional or non-traditional data� to include National Technical Means, airborne, civil, and commercial sources.

(8) Champion multi-intelligence collaboration.

(9) Rely on our partners� both domestic and foreign� to help conduct our mission.

(10) Transform our infrastructure.

Geospatial Intelligence is the analysis and visual representation of security-related activities on the Earth.

These ten Strategic Goals, then, constitute the major tenets of our Vision to "Know the Earth� Show the Way."

Our future programming documents will drive this significant transformation. Our Corporate Business Plan contains the implementation details to attain our Strategic Intent. Annually, we will update this Plan to reflect our progress. It charts our near-term actions, contains resource information, and details expected outcomes. Performance metrics allow us to communicate our successes and progress to our stakeholders.

The Statement of Strategic Intent goals focus on the heart of our customers' needs� timely, relevant, accurate, predictive, and actionable Geospatial Intelligence. It charts the course for information and decision superiority. The Nation depends on us for it. Customers demand it of us. Our tradition of excellence assures it.

JAMES R. CLAPPER, JR
Lieutenant General, USAF (Ret.)
Director

Goal 1: First and foremost, we MUST NOW (and always) respond to analysis and production demands� in what we recognize is a perpetual state of crisis.

NIMA's customers encompass a widening array of decision-makers and operational forces. Their interests include protecting national security, combating the threat of terrorism, implementing national policy, responding to natural disasters, and countering illegal drug trafficking. To be successful, they require Geospatial Intelligence, tailored to meet highly specific needs, delivered faster and cheaper, in an easily understood format.

We will meet these needs by continually adapting our selves, our analysis and production, our business practices, and our technology to support information and decision superiority. NIMA's global foundation databases, Earth-referenced and time-stamped, support information and decision superiority through an evolving state of national security. They include, as well, land-based, aeronautical, and hydrographic navigation information.

We will:

Customize Geospatial Intelligence for each customer. NIMA analysts will use insightful collection strategies employing advanced sensors to respond to the complex intelligence issues facing the nation. By combining an understanding of global issues with in-depth knowledge of customer missions, NIMA's analysts will use innovative methods to correlate information to produce tailored Geospatial Intelligence that exceeds customer expectations. NIMA's Geospatial Intelligence permits the visualization of intelligence information in a geospatial and temporal context to provide the knowledge foundation for planning, decision, and action. Other intelligence information will be overlaid on this picture of the mission space. The resulting synergy allows for more robust analysis to meet our customers' needs for timely, relevant, accurate, predictive, and actionable intelligence information.

Manage this data-rich environment. NIMA will create a digital information network, populate NIMA databases, and exploit all available Earth-derived, space-based, and airborne data, including "exotic" forms of spectral imagery. These databases will incorporate appropriate standards to ensure data interoperability. Moreover, NIMA will certify the lineage, integrity, and quality of the information and facilitate direct customer access. The information will be easily shared through a common, digital, geospatially referenced framework and analyzed by highly trained and motivated professionals. Through this common framework, NIMA will provide customers the advantage of information dominance and superiority across the full spectrum of national security operations.

Goal 2: We MUST champion and complete a complex set of major investments, to move us to the NEXT level of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSGI). To provide the knowledge foundation for planning, decision, and action, NIMA will define, implement, and manage an overarching NSGI architecture and will appropriately invest in its cutting-edge systems and analytical tools. As part of our transformation we must enhance and promote collaboration with our partners and customers via information interoperability in an all-digital environment. To do this, we will use the best acquisition, management, and systems engineering processes. We will leverage technology and deliver solutions that enhance information and decision superiority.

We will:

Migrate to an all-digital environment. NSGI will migrate to an all-digital environment to enable collaboration among geographically dispersed users from various intelligence disciplines. We will lead this transformation by developing, implementing, and enhancing systems, tools, and business processes. This transformation will include seamless libraries, collaborative exploitation, automated generation of information, a robust communications infrastructure, and community collection and information management in a multi-intelligence environment that supports the complete intelligence cycle.

Ensure NSGI information interoperability in a collaborative, multi-source environment. Interoperability is central to information and decision superiority and collaboration. Defining, implementing, and managing the NSGI architecture is the first step toward shaping a multi-intelligence architecture. NIMA will lead the Community in defining the interfaces and standards to speed discovery, retrieval, and exploitation of information. Standards, adopted in concert with the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, will leverage industry standards and be universally applicable. Community adherence to the NSGI architecture and data standards will revolutionize collaborative business practices in a common, multi-intelligence environment.

Improve acquisition, contract management, and systems engineering processes. Transition to an all-digital, interoperable environment requires smart, disciplined acquisition processes that balance efficiency, effectiveness, innovation, and affordability. NIMA will advance existing capabilities and will address systems and capability shortfalls by hiring skilled personnel, investing sufficient resources, institutionalizing best business practices, and committing to process improvement. By improving our acquisition, contract management, and systems engineering processes, NIMA will attract industry leaders as partners.

Goal 3: We MUST forge the AFTER-NEXT environment by constantly driving future technical trends and applying them to operational needs, inserting technology rapidly, and providing relevant Geospatial Intelligence, services, and solutions.

NIMA must invent the future, not react to it. For NIMA to remain relevant to future customer needs, we must map out a successful path that culminates in long-term solutions to worldwide issues while also providing strategic direction for an unknown, evolving future threat environment. We must forecast changes to the operating environment, determine future requirements, and realign investments to guarantee transformation. NIMA will interact with its customers to understand their future needs, work with cutting-edge technology of commercial industry, and incorporate the best in business transformation, to be the world's leader in Geospatial Intelligence.

We will:

Build and maintain the Geospatial Intelligence technology edge. NIMA will grow its Research and Development (R& D) investments to ensure we capitalize on breakthrough and enabling technologies. NIMA will focus its basic, applied, and advanced technology developments against the operational needs of its Geospatial Intelligence customers, always striving to insert "leap ahead" technologies into the NSGI. We will strive to direct 7 percent of our total budget to R& D.

Champion transformation in the Intelligence Community. NIMA will maintain and expand its unmatched Geospatial Intelligence planning, programming, and architecture analysis capability. We will form strategic partnerships with our Intelligence Community counterparts that lead to the design of integrated, national and commercial space-based and airborne imagery architectures. We will provide the planning and intellectual leadership needed to drive multi-discipline concepts, architectures, and program acquisition.

Goal 4: We MUST align our human resource plans, policies, and services with our Strategic Intent and Core Values, in recognition that all that we do is completely dependent on our most important resource, our people� government and contractor.

NIMA's employees are the foundation of our success. We will continue to evaluate program effectiveness, benchmark against best practices, and implement new services to align our human capital program with our Strategic Intent and Core Values. We will invest appropriately to ensure that our employees remain the key to high performance and mission achievement.

We will: Recruit, develop, train, and retain a diverse government workforce with the knowledge and skills to meet current and future mission requirements. Our recruiting program will showcase NIMA as a workplace of choice to attract highly qualified, diverse candidates for all NIMA positions. Our compensation and retention strategies will recognize excellence and reinforce a high-performance culture. We will invest in our workforce by providing open opportunities for training, education, and professional development.

Integrate contractors as part of the team. Contractors provide additional depth, breadth, and flexibility to NIMA. They offer a pool of readily available expertise to satisfy both short-and long-term customer demands. We will integrate contractors as fully as possible with our government team. We will seek the best, most cost-effective contracting methods to fill scientific, technical, and administrative gaps. Empower and motivate the workforce, ensuring accountability and fairness for all employees. NIMA will enhance employees' leadership and business acumen,

instilling authority to use those skills and accountability for their proper use. We will promote a culture of professional integrity, risk taking, continuous learning, candid communication, maximum workforce participation, and equal access to the systems and processes that contribute to employee competitiveness. We will offer an exciting and challenging work environment in service to our Nation as a means to motivate our workforce.

Develop future leaders. We will prepare a leadership team for NIMA's future. Our leadership developmental program encompasses all levels of the workforce who demonstrate excellence and commitment to NIMA's vision.

Goal 5: Continue the transformation of our business model by using best practices to enhance our position as the premier Geospatial Intelligence provider. NIMA will revolutionize our corporate services, business practices, and technology to remain the world leader in Geospatial Intelligence. We will: Enhance corporate services to anticipate changing business needs. NIMA will anticipate future corporate needs in the changing business environment. We will adopt innovative business strategies and practices to optimize corporate services. We will systematically measure progress toward our Strategic Intent.

Adapt the best practices of electronic commerce. We will use a web-based business model and web-enabled technology to provide customers, stakeholders, and employees direct access to our data, information, analysis, tools, and services.

Leverage technology so access to Geospatial Intelligence is seamless and application independent. By providing robust exploitation tools and seamless digital libraries, NIMA will empower its customers to electronically "self-serve," to custom-tailor products, and to "value-add" by overlaying intelligence information from multiple sources on our geospatial framework. The electronic interface will also serve as a receptor to gather information, conduct analysis, and proactively anticipate customers' needs.

Goal 6: Lead the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSGI) as Functional Manager. NIMA leads the NSGI community by overseeing the development and implementation of Geospatial Intelligence programs. NIMA will improve performance, assure interoperability, enhance quality, and ensure the reliability of NSGI information, products, and services. NIMA will lead this effort through collaboration and strong management, with a policy of "open covenants, openly made."

We will:

Identify and advocate NSGI Community requirements. Working with our NSGI partners, NIMA will forecast changes to the operating environment, determine future needs and requirements, establish the plans to align investments, and present compelling evidence to oversight organizations to champion NSGI requirements. NIMA will work through community fora to perform annual NSGI program assessments.

Establish, maintain, communicate, and enforce NSGI doctrine, policies, and guidance. NIMA will develop the necessary doctrine, policies, and guidance to enhance interoperability within an all-digital environment. Doctrine, policy, and guidance will ensure the use of compatible systems, tools, and business processes that enhance collaboration at multiple security levels. NIMA will work through community fora to assure understanding of and compliance with NSGI doctrine, policies, and guidance.

Develop and deliver Geospatial Intelligence training. NIMA will develop and deliver training for NIMA employees and our global customers in the Geospatial Intelligence discipline. Curricula will emphasize essential skills and integrated training programs at the intermediate and advanced levels. NIMA will work through community fora to establish training standards and curricula.

Implement innovative operational concepts and continuous business process improvement within the NSGI community. NIMA relentlessly pursues improvement in NSGI capabilities through the identification of best business practices and the creation of cutting-edge operational concepts. We will integrate these concepts and business practices with those of our mission partners, the Intelligence Community, and our military and civil customers.

Goal 7: Capitalize on all forms of traditional or non-traditional data� to include National Technical Means, airborne, civil, and commercial sources. Twenty-first century technology is dramatically increasing data sources available to NIMA. In addition to the traditional sources, new civil and commercial space-based and airborne systems are rapidly maturing, with next-generation systems under development. New sensor types are reaching across the electromagnetic spectrum to provide new, non-traditional data sources. Collection volumes from new platforms and sensors are growing and will continue to grow dramatically in the future. NIMA must exploit these new sources to produce and deliver information that is both timely and relevant to our customers' needs.

We will:

Develop capabilities to acquire, store, and use data. NIMA will lead efforts to harness the explosion of data and information by providing systems and tools which enable the sorting and fusing of relevant elements to answer intelligence and operational questions. Increased storage within an integrated, geospatially referenced information library will be required along with increased communications bandwidth to cope with increased data types and volumes.

Train NSGI analysts to use these new data sets. Our knowledge-based work force will be equipped with new skill sets and automated tools that will enable them to work collaboratively in groups that bring together expertise from multiple agencies. We will modernize analyst training and curricula across the NSGI community to ensure customers can effectively interoperate using these new data sources.

Goal 8: Champion multi-intelligence collaboration. Customers have high expectations from the Intelligence Community for timely, relevant, accurate, predictive and actionable intelligence. These expectations cannot be satisfied from stove-piped solutions. NIMA, working with the Community, will foster the integration of multiple intelligence disciplines into a coherent, multi-intelligence architecture.

We will: Develop new tools, tradecraft, and methodologies for the analytic environment of the future. NIMA is committed to modernizing the tools, tradecraft, and analytic methodologies of Geospatial Intelligence. This is imperative, given the volume of data provided by new collection systems, the surge in demand, and the shrinkage of customer timelines. New business practices will be analytically based and will take advantage of emerging technology and strategic partnerships.

Invest resources aggressively in research and development (R& D) to develop multi-intelligence solutions. NIMA will focus its R& D efforts on high-payoff, unique technologies and processes to achieve the goals of a multi-intelligence environment. Align the acquisition program. NIMA will align its acquisition and systems engineering programs with those of its mission partners to build an overarching, multi-intelligence architecture that supports information interoperability in a collaborative environment. As a first step, NIMA will strive to establish a joint requirements and tasking initiative with the National Security Agency's Cryptologic Mission Management initiative.

Goal 9: Rely on our partners� both domestic and foreign� to help conduct our mission. NIMA will leverage our programs with those of other U. S. Government agencies, international partners, commercial industry, the not-for-profit sector, and academia to provide the world's best Geospatial Intelligence to our customers.

We will:

Expand partnerships with agencies, contractors, academia, not-for-profit organizations, and foreign nations. We will leverage partnerships to develop an integrated, interoperable, multi-intelligence architecture that accommodates new types of multi-media, multi-spectral, and multi-source information. We will search for the best data sources, tools, and analytical expertise to support our expanding customer base. We will aggressively pursue collaborative production as an effective way to populate the global Geospatial Intelligence databases.

Look first to the commercial sector for new sources, value-added data, information services, and infrastructure support. Where it makes good business sense, we will outsource current intelligence production and mission support services. We will incorporate greater use of commercial imagery as a primary source of Geospatial Intelligence.

Goal 10: Transform our infrastructure. NIMA will equip our workforce with safe and modern workspaces, secure connectivity, and responsive services. Our information, systems, and networks will be secure, reliable, and capable of supporting worldwide users without disruption of service.

We will:

Ensure secure connectivity that fosters access to all relevant sources of information. NIMA will use risk management and effective information security tools to promote secure access to our information at all classification levels. We will take advantage of modern voice, video, and desktop sharing tools to greatly improve collaboration, productivity, and synergy in the new security environment.

Modernize and expand the NIMA Enterprise Networks and Systems. To ensure mission success, we will modernize and expand our networks and systems to create a digital infrastructure that speeds information throughout NIMA and to our customers. NIMA will create robust networks, databases, and systems that use commercial components supplemented with unique capabilities where needed. New network and system monitoring tools will reduce maintenance and downtime.

Enhance continuity of operations. NIMA will invest in redundant capabilities in our physical and digital infrastructure to operate, survive, and recover from any disruption of service. We will deploy people and design facilities, infrastructure, systems, and services to guarantee the availability of Geospatial Intelligence.

Modernize and consolidate our facilities to ensure security and promote productivity. A modern, technologically savvy workforce requires a secure, 21 st century workplace. NIMA is committed to consolidating our operations, closing excess facilities, and reducing operating costs.

Plan and occupy a NIMA East consolidated campus on a protected site. NIMA will develop plans for the consolidation of all Eastern operations into a single campus on a secure reservation. It will be attack-hardened to preclude a single point of failure.