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Agile for the Public Sector Is Closer Than You Think

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By EDWARD TUORINSKY // JANUARY 31, 2020

As counter-intuitive as it seems, methodical planning, standardized

processes and procedures and relentless communication are key to
achieving agility.
AGILE

Last fall, Gartner published a list of technologies that could address the challenges public-
sector chief information oUcers will face in the upcoming year to help prioritize their
technology investments. Agile by design was highlighted as a key practice, citing the need to
create, “a nimble and responsive environment.” Despite this future-focused call to action,
we’re already closer than anyone imagines. As counter-intuitive as it seems, methodical
planning, standardized processes and procedures and relentless communication are key to
achieving agility. And by this measurement, many public-sector organizations are well on
their way.

The Brst question that comes to mind after reading the Gartner report is, “Why does
government need to be agile?” The answer, in a word, is eUciency. Shrinking budgets and a
reduced workforce coupled with demands to better serve “customers” requires a new
approach.

The next question is, “What does agile look like?” There’s a lot written about agile processes
but we like to think of agile as more of a philosophy, so organizations can be open to multiple
methodologies that embrace agile values, including incremental, feedback-driven changes.
Agile by design allows public sector organizations to implement large-scale programs of all
types to continually meet current needs and adapt to changes in the environment from new
technologies to new political priorities.
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There are 12 principles behind the agile philosophy but there are four that are key for public-
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sector organizations. Agile government organizations:

1.) Embrace change.

2.) Operate on short timetables.
3.) Evaluate and adjust.
4.) Work together, talk together.

A key tenant of agile is change. Namely welcoming change, at any stage, and being eexible
enough to adjust. In agile project management, work is evaluated often and adjustments are
made based on new input and feedback. This can be rough on organizations that have
created detailed plans spanning Bve or even 10 years, and those that focus on delivering a
“Bnal” version.

For public-sector organizations, agile timelines are shockingly different. Small things happen
quickly and multiple streams of work happen simultaneously. Project schedules are built with
sprints—intense, dedicated work to accomplish one speciBc milestone—and daily check-ups
to make sure everyone stays on track. For organizations used to long-term planning, there’s a
tendency to try to break down old processes into smaller tasks and plan them out
sequentially, hurrying timelines. This is not the same as being agile.

Agile project management depends on keeping everyone on track, so 15-minute stand-up

meetings, frequent updates, shared task lists, feedback and daily assignments are all part of
the plan. This hyper-focus on communication means all stakeholders know where things
stand all the time.

How can government organizations, hemmed in by rules, regulations and policies, ever
become agile? They can leverage that structure to make agile operational changes, as they
work on a cultural shift towards greater eexibility, innovation and learning through trial and
error.

Familiar methodologies, from CMMI to ITIL to Lean Six Sigma, and federal and industry
privacy and cybersecurity standards, offer employees a set of shared, standard terminology
for better communication, metrics to assess progress, oversight capabilities, an emphasis on
quality, and an iterative mindset where results are used to make adjustments. For
organizations already using these methodologies, agile is simply the next step in more
modern operations.

All organizations are subject to evolving technological change as well as those changes
driven by regulation, policy and customer demand. With an agile by design mindset, public
sector can more easily adapt to inevitable changes with eUciency and speed.

Edward Tuorinsky is a principal at DTS.

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Two Satellites Just Avoided a Head-On Smash. How Close Did They
Come to Disaster?

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By GREGORY COHEN // The Conversation // JANUARY 31, 2020

All we could do was watch whatever unfolded above us.

NASA SPACE

It appears we have missed another close call between two satellites – but how close did we
really come to a catastrophic event in space?

It all began with a series of tweets from LeoLabs, a company that uses radar to track
satellites and debris in space. It predicted that two obsolete satellites orbiting Earth had a 1
in 100 chance of an almost direct head-on collision at 9:39 a.m. AEST on 30 January, with
potentially devastating consequences.

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LeoLabs estimated that the satellites could pass within 15-30m of one another. Neither
satellite could be controlled or moved. All we could do was watch whatever unfolded above
us.

Collisions in space can be disastrous and can send high-speed debris in all directions. This
endangers other satellites, future launches, and especially crewed space missions.
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As a point of reference, NASA often moves the International Space Station when the risk of
collision is just 1 in 100,000. Last year the European Space Agency moved one of its
satellites when the likelihood of collision with a SpaceX satellite was estimated at 1 in
50,000. However, this increased to 1 in 1,000 when the US Air Force, which maintains perhaps
the most comprehensive catalog of satellites, provided more detailed information.

Following LeoLabs’ warning, other organizations such as the Aerospace Corporation began
to provide similarly worrying predictions. In contrast, calculations based on publicly available
data were far more optimistic. Neither the US Air Force nor NASA issued any warning.

This was notable, as the United States had a role in the launch of both satellites involved in
the near-miss. The Brst is the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), a large space telescope
weighing around a tonne and launched in 1983. It successfully completed its mission later
that year and has eoated dormant ever since.

The second satellite has a slightly more intriguing story. Known as GGSE-4, it is a formerly
secret government satellite launched in 1967. It was part of a much larger project to capture
radar emissions from the Soviet Union. This particular satellite also contained an experiment
to explore ways to stabilize satellites using gravity.

Weighing in at 83kg, it is much smaller than IRAS, but it has a very unusual and unfortunate
shape. It has an 18m protruding arm with a weight on the end, thus making it a much larger
target.

Almost 24 hours later, LeoLabs tweeted again. It downgraded the chance of a collision to 1 in
1,000, and revised the predicted passing distance between the satellites to 13-87m. Although
still closer than usual, this was a decidedly smaller risk. But less than 15 hours after that, the
company tweeted yet again, raising the probability of collision back to 1 in 100, and then to a
very alarming 1 in 20 after learning about the shape of GGSE-4.

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The good news is that the two satellites appear to have missed one another. Although there
were a handful of eyewitness accounts of the IRAS satellite appearing to pass unharmed
through the predicted point of impact, it can still take a few hours for scientists to conBrm
that a collision did not take place. LeoLabs has since conBrmed it has not detected any new
space debris.

But why did the predictions change so dramatically and so often? What happened?

Tricky Situation

The real problem is that we don’t really know precisely where these satellites are. That
requires us to be extremely conservative, especially given the cost and importance of most
active satellites, and the dramatic consequences of high-speed collisions.

The tracking of objects in space is often called Space Situational Awareness, and it is a very
diUcult task. One of the best methods is radar, which is expensive to build and operate.
Visual observation with telescopes is much cheaper but comes with other complications,
such as weather and lots of moving parts that can break down.

Another diUculty is that our models for predicting satellites’ orbits don’t work well in lower
orbits, where drag from Earth’s atmosphere can become a factor.

There is yet another problem. Whereas it is in the best interest of commercial satellites for
everyone to know exactly where they are, this is not the case for military and spy satellites.
Defense organizations do not share the full list of objects they are tracking.

This potential collision involved an ancient spy satellite from 1967. It is at least one that we
can see. Given the diUculty of just tracking the satellites that we know about, how will we
avoid satellites that are trying their hardest not to be seen?

In fact, much research has gone into building stealth satellites that are invisible from Earth.
Even commercial industry is considering making satellites that are harder to see, partly in
response to astronomers’ own concerns about objects blotting out their view of the heavens.
SpaceX is considering building “dark satellites” the reeect less light into telescopes on Earth,
which will only make them harder to track.

What should we do?

The solution starts with developing better ways to track satellites and space debris.
Removing the junk is an important next step, but we can only do that if we know exactly
where it is.

Western Sydney University is developing biology-inspired cameras that can see satellites
during the day, allowing them to work when other telescopes cannot. These sensors can also
see satellites when they move in front of bright objects like the Moon.

There is also no clear international space law or policy, but a strong need for one.
Unfortunately, such laws will be impossible to enforce if we cannot do a better job of Bguring
out what is happening in orbit around our planet.

Gregory Cohen is an associate professor at Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the
original article.

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