Factors Influencing the Adoption of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Technology by Collection Managers

Frequently, decision makers within military organizations are making high-impact determinations or judgements concerning both friendly and adversary actions without optimal solutions. A specific discipline with far reaching effects is Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) decision making, which is the basis for intelligence collection. These decisions ultimately save or cost United States soldiers their lives, and therefore, any inefficiency is unacceptable. Hence, recent focus has been put on enhancing ISR decision making and limiting the negative consequences through technology adoption. The problem studied in the qualitative case study is the gap between the existence of automated decision support aids and continued ineffective decision making that occurs due to a lack of technology adoption. Consequently, Collection Managers, the ISR decision makers, are constantly limited by time, resources, and mission and must rely on professional judgments and denigrated technological support to conduct decision making which continues to result in deaths and porous intelligence. The qualitative case study explored the gap between the existence of decision support aids and the lack of adoption. The participants were current and former US Army Collection Managers who have personally had to make ISR decisions in a demanding battlefield environment.