Situation
NOAA Fisheries' Office of Science and Technology (OST) and Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) are designed to function as an integrated engine — OST providing scientific expertise, OCIO providing the technology infrastructure, together delivering solutions to the fisheries scientists, marine ecologists, and enforcement officers who depend on them. The stakes had never been higher: climate change was accelerating the pace at which marine ecosystems were changing, AI and machine learning were transforming what was possible in fisheries science, and a $3.3 billion Inflation Reduction Act investment had raised expectations and shortened the clock on modernization.
Complication
In practice, OST and OCIO gave users conflicting platform advice, took too long to align, defaulted to familiar contractors over better alternatives, and resisted emerging tools like AI and machine learning. Scientists with PhD-honed DIY instincts had simply stopped asking for help and started building their own workarounds. As one staff member described it: "It sometimes feels like we're bobbing along in our own individual life rafts, when we should be sailing together in the same boat." The IRA investment made the dysfunction impossible to ignore: here was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize, and the two offices that were supposed to deliver it couldn't agree on how to work together.
What They Tried — and Why It Wasn't Enough
Howell and Majower had attempted bilateral leadership meetings, internal working groups, and direct conversations about alignment. The problem was structural: the two offices had different cultures, different incentive systems, and a long institutional history of operating independently. Every attempt at coordination ran into the same friction — the people who needed to change their behavior weren't the ones setting the agenda, and the scientists whose frustration was driving the urgency were not in the room when integration was being discussed.
Question
OST and OCIO were supposed to function as an integrated engine, but years of cultural separation, misaligned incentives, and failed coordination attempts had left scientists building their own workarounds rather than asking for help. The challenge was to finally close that gap in a way that stuck — not by issuing new directives from the top, but by getting the right people working the problem together for the first time.
Answer
MMG convened 31 participants over three days in Silver Spring, Maryland in March 2024: 12 from OST, 6 from OCIO, 6 scientists from the regional fisheries science centers whose frustration was driving the urgency, and 7 NOAA Fisheries partners including representatives from NESDIS and OAR. Six interconnected topics — Change Management, Future Mindset, Leadership, Unified Operating Model, User Focus, and Workforce and Partnerships — ensured that the recommendations would form a coherent transformation system, not a list of unrelated fixes.
Output
OST and OCIO leadership left with 92% of participants supporting the recommendations, and three things that years of internal effort had failed to produce:
- Clarity on why previous attempts had stalled — a shared, candid diagnosis of the cultural, structural, and workforce barriers preventing OST and OCIO from functioning as a unified operation, surfaced by the people living the problem rather than commissioned from an outside consultant.
- A confident action plan — 18 integrated commitments spanning change management strategies; a shared vision and North Star; leadership accountability structures and a guiding coalition; a redesigned operating model; user-centric service principles; and a workforce and partnership strategy to build the skills and contractor relationships the vision requires.
- A coalition ready to act — 31 participants from OST, OCIO, the regional science centers, and partner offices who had stress-tested the strategy together and left with shared ownership of its execution, with a follow-on session committed to assign owners, timelines, and roadblock analysis to each recommendation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why couldn't bilateral leadership meetings and internal working groups solve this?
Because the problem wasn't a lack of communication at the top — it was a structural misalignment between two offices with different cultures, different incentive systems, and a long institutional history of operating independently. Every coordination attempt ran into the same friction: the people setting the agenda were the same senior leaders whose relationship was already the problem, and the scientists whose frustration was driving the urgency were never in the room. A process that kept the same people talking in the same configuration was never going to produce a different result.
What does 92% participant support actually mean in practice?
It means that 29 of 31 participants — across OST, OCIO, the regional science centers, and partner offices — endorsed the 18 commitments they had built together. That's not a survey score; it's a signal of shared ownership. When the people who have to execute a strategy have publicly committed to it in front of their peers, the implementation dynamic is fundamentally different from a plan handed down from leadership. The 92% figure is the output of a process designed to surface disagreement and work through it — not paper over it.
How do you get two offices with a history of conflict to build a strategy together in three days?
By designing the engagement so that both offices are working on shared problems rather than negotiating positions. MMG structured the session across six interconnected topics — change management, future mindset, leadership, unified operating model, user focus, and workforce and partnerships — so that the conversation was always about what the integrated system needed, not about which office was right. The scientists from the regional centers whose frustration was driving the urgency were also in the room, which kept the conversation grounded in operational reality rather than institutional politics.
What kind of follow-on support does an engagement like this require?
The workshop produces a strategy with shared ownership — not an implementation plan with assigned owners and timelines. A follow-on session to assign owners, analyze roadblocks, and build out the execution roadmap is a natural next step, and it was part of what OST and OCIO committed to as part of this engagement. MMG can facilitate that session or advise on the design. The more important variable is whether the senior leadership team treats the commitments as real obligations or lets the momentum dissipate.