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The MORS 89th Symposium is next week and CANA is contributing to the community by sharing our unique analytics applications. We will lead two special sessions, present two technical briefs, and provide an esports demonstration. The events summary below lists the topics and times you can interact with CANA. List of Events Improving AI/ML Department of Defense Ethical Testing - WG 35 AI and Autonomous Systems - Tuesday, June 22 - 3 pm - 3:30 pm ET The testing of ethical principles for Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) models that may learn with the addition of new data sources outside the traditional DoD Test and Evaluation (T&E) cycle requires a new process. This presentation proposes a T&E rubric to improve the Department of Defense ML/AI model test effectiveness for acquisition program managers and each program’s Chief Developmental Tester. We evaluate 144 research papers in a DoD testing context categorized by three broad ML classes based on data type (e.g., supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning); makes recommendations on what properties to test for (e.g., correctness, relevance, robustness, efficiency, fairness, interpretability), provides an idealized workflow of how to conduct testing and presents an idealized way to look at where to conduct ML component testing (e.g., data processes, frameworks, and coded algorithms). Applicable T&E methodologies, use, and policy changes are also recommended. The proposed T&E rubric is intended to support Defense Department acquisition policy in DoD 5000.02 and uses the Defense Innovation Board AI Principles: Recommendations on the Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence by the Department of Defense February 2020 AI Ethics Principles for DoD. This research was funded by the STAT Center of Excellence (COE). Logistics Community of Practice Special Session - Tuesday, June 22 - 4 pm - 5 pm ET The MORS Logistics Community of Practice is completing our third year. We focus on bringing together an eclectic group of logistics professionals across the National Security Community to discuss the hottest issues, review potential and applied solutions, and network whenever possible. This special session focuses on our 2020-2021 year in review along with discussions of where we want to take the Log COP for the 2021-2022 year. We will spend some time introducing participants and talking through current challenges. Logistics is very broad and touches many professions. Come join us for a candid talk, to meet others in the community, and to hear about where we are headed. Women In MORS Community of Practice Special Session - Tuesday, June 22 - 4 pm - 5 pm ET According to research studies, critical career-enhancing opportunities are shared unevenly by people in positions of power and influence, often without realizing that certain groups are disproportionately excluded. Hard work and technical skill are the foundation of career progress, but without some access to formal and informal networking opportunities, that progress can be stalled. Are you often the only woman at the table in your meetings or do you have few women in your organization? The Women In MORS Community of Practice invites you to a Special Session for their June COP Meeting featuring a panel presentation on effective networking strategies. The panel will feature a number of senior leaders in the national security arena including CANA's President, Rob Cranston! eSports Data Analysis Modeling - Rainbow Six Siege eSports Tournament - Wednesday, June 23 - 4 pm - 5 pm ET CANA eSports held a Rainbow Six Siege tournament in April 2021. The event's goal was to collect data on team tactics, determine critical skill sets, and team makeup using the data that is provided through First Person Shooters (FPS) games such as Rainbow Six Siege. This demo will review the mechanics of holding an eSports tournament event, using the event as an experiment to collect data, and the post-tournament data analysis results. An overview of the game and actual game play video is provided for context. The Distribution Network Model - Friday, June 25 - 10:30 am - 11:00 am ET The 38th Commandant’s Planning Guidance describes new naval operating concepts that present the Marine Corps with new logistics challenges: “Rather than heavily investing in expensive and exquisite capabilities that regional aggressors have optimized their forces to target, naval forces will persist forward with many smaller, low signature, affordable platforms that can economically host a dense array of lethal and non-lethal payloads.” The Marine Corps requires new logistics operating concepts to include supplying many mobile austere bases distributed over thousands of miles. The new logistics paradigm creates a network of supply and demand nodes, serviced by a wide variety of transportation types, that confounds more linear and traditional military force closure modeling approaches. The Marine Corps seeks to determine cargo and equipment prepositioning and numbers, types, and locations of traditional and non-traditional logistics enablers that are optimized to be most responsive while minimizing investment. The Distribution Network Model can determine the most responsive and lowest cost afloat and ashore tailoring plan for inventory and transportation enablers and inform investment decisions to allow selection of the most effective affordable platforms to support Marine Corps future operating concepts. In addition to these events, CANA will also have a booth if you want to learn more about what we are up to at CANA. Feel free to stop by and see what interesting analytical projects we are working on. We hope everyone attending the 89th MORS Symposium has a great time and we look forward to seeing you next week. Walt DeGrange is the Director of Analytics Capabilities. You can contact him at wdegrange@canallc.com.

By Jack Murray, CANA Intern, George Mason University CANA esports R6 Showdown Takeaways CANA hosted its inaugural open-player esports tournament this past April. It was a fast-paced, gripping event, and we gained some fantastic insights into this growing field. The initiating spark to host an esports event grew out of our interest in supporting the esports industry through the use of data analytics. Personally, I have been involved with video games for almost the entirety of my life, and I saw firsthand how quickly esports was growing. I started as a CANA intern during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw most traditional sports put on hold or canceled completely. This led to esports being one of the only sports entertainment options available to anyone and everyone. The easy accessibility, low cost, and variety of esports are contributing factors to its exponential growth. The pandemic may have inflated the true numbers, but esports was already on a path for this type of growth, it was just a matter of time and acceptance by the world. Although esports was expanding, it was still a new and young industry with so much untapped potential. As we looked into how CANA’s analytics could support this industry, we discovered the wide variety of video games that are played at the level of ‘esports’ all have different data to be explored. With the entire industry being a virtual environment, it breeds an abundance of data. There are some data analytics companies that are realizing this as well, but there is so much untapped data remaining. We also reached out and connected with two esports industry leaders, Rebecca Longawa and Wim Stocks. Rebecca is the founder of Happy Warrior, an esports consultant firm, and Wim just recently retired from being the General Manager and CEO of World Gaming & Collegiate Starleague and is now the Head of Partnerships and Commercial at Belong Gaming & Vindex. The three areas we were particularly interested in were: esports recruitment analytics, promoting diversity in gaming through analytics, and being an analytics provider for an esports league. As hosts of the event, we could collect a controlled data sample to conduct a variety of analyses. We selected the game Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege for its military-style, tactical gameplay. Our tournament included a mix of high school students, college students, and members of the US Army as part of a semi-pro team called US Army Esports. Some teams were semi-professional teams that had coaches, and others were just friends getting together to join in on the fun. Some were using our tournament as practice for real Rainbow Six League play. This provided us with a truly diverse group of gamers that were a mix of amateur and organized, highly skilled competitors. The event was a three-day tournament from 23 through 25 April 2021. In the best of 3 final series, Psych Ward won 2-0 against US Army Esports; the second game went to the last round of overtime to decide. It was a nail-biter, but Psych Ward won both games and the tournament! Great job, Psych Ward! Overall, the tournament ran smoothly, and we had a great time as hosts. Although we prepared for this tournament for about three months, there were several operational aspects we could have better anticipated. As every first event will have a learning curve, we recognized a few key takeaways. The first is to create alternative bracket systems in case of cancellations and no-shows. On game day, three of our eight teams dropped out. This dismantled our bracket system and required a solution on the spot. We solved the problem by adding a one-time losers bracket for the quarter-final losers. There is no way to be 100% positive each team is going to show up for every game, and we need to be better prepared for that. The second takeaway is to allow substitute roster spots at the time of registration. Life gets in the way sometimes, and it can affect players’ availability to play at the set times. We manually added substitute players, which led to much more work than necessary. The third is that we needed more people on the control end of the tournament. As one of the commentators, I was also the main player support person in the discord chat. Any player could reach out to me individually, or I would be the one in our discord server responsible for responding to them. This would have been better managed with an additional person. We also would have benefitted from having someone to put out social media posts during each match because game details in real-time is exactly what social media users are looking for. It would have helped build awareness of our event and drawn a larger audience if we had someone posting in real-time. CANA’s overall intent in hosting this tournament was to further explore analytics in esports. In that respect, it was an extremely beneficial experience. The most crucial takeaway is that there is a lot more data waiting to be discovered. We ran this particular tournament for one specific game, Rainbow Six Siege, and we also used a data application called R6 Analyst to get the most detailed information on the gameplay. The R6 application gave us a great deal of data to work with for each individual's gameplay statistics. This type of information can provide potential training points to players; inform spectators, scouts, coaches, and sponsors; and support industry game analysis and more, in a growing billion-plus dollar industry. Even with the large amount of data collected from this application, we quickly noticed there were many other aspects of the game that could have been collected. This validated the endless analytical aspects of this one particular game - and it is likely to be the same for all the other video games. At the moment, we feel esports data analytics has only scratched the surface of what information might be collected, and this tournament proved that. The other major takeaway is that the esports industry and community is extremely supportive. We received many suggestions and comments from our competitors and other esports industry leaders on how to make improvements going forward. Everyone wants esports to succeed, so they are always trying to help out. They are looking out for the best interest of esports as a whole, and that mindset is vital to the success of any industry. Lastly, esports and analyzing esports is a blast! This industry is so young, new, and exciting, and we are enjoying every moment of it. We are really looking forward to being a catalyst in furthering the success of esports through the use of data analytics. If you would like to learn more or get involved with future CANA Esports events you can reach out to us at esports@canallc.com or join our Discord at CANA_eSports (discord.com) #esports #esportsanalytics #rainbowsixsiege #CANAesports

To Camp Schreiber's 2021 College Graduates...The CANA Foundation wishes a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to Davion and Josh who both recently graduated from college! Now that you have completed your time within the Camp Schreiber program, the CANA family wishes you the very best in the next chapter of your lives. We know you will do amazing things! Davion Josh CANA Foundation, the internal charitable arm of CANA Advisors, was founded in 2017 with a mission to “give back to the communities we live and work in.” Camp Schreiber was one of the first initiatives that CANA Foundation undertook by providing financial support for Camp Schreiber’s tutoring program as well as mentorship to several of the young boys in the Camp Schreiber program. It is wonderful to see the success Davion and Josh have had academically as a direct result of the educational support Camp Schreiber provided them since middle school. In an age of quick hits and instant gratification, Camp Schreiber stands out as a beacon of hope and long-term commitment to the deserving young men in Wilmington, NC accepted into their program. Designed around a ten-year promise made to each of the boys, to support them from middle school through college graduation, Camp Schreiber is fully committed to the young men selected to participate and invest in the students, their families, and their education. CANA Advisors is proud to have been a supporter of these future leaders in their communities! #campschreiber #futureleaders https://www.instagram.com/camp.schreiber/ https://www.facebook.com/Camp-Schreiber-Foundation-469115433296867/ Kenny McRostie Kenny is the Senior Operations Manager at CANA Advisors and the CANA Foundation Manager and lives in Wilmington, NC. kmcrostie@canallc.com CANA Advisors is a veteran-owned, woman-owned, equal opportunity company based out of Gainesville, Virginia in the United States of America. © 2021 CANA LLC.

A Remembrance and Reflection on Memorial Day. As we wake up today to spend time with our families and friends and enjoy the day together, we have to take the time to remember what Memorial Day is really about. According to History.com, the definition of Memorial Day is, “an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.” Now, everyone has a different way of celebrating this holiday, and Memorial Day also has a different meaning for every person. We asked our team, What does Memorial Day mean to you? Here is what Memorial Day means to some within Team CANA: “Remembering and Honoring those who have given all in defense of this country. I usually visit a Veterans Cemetery with a group and plant flags in remembrance. I have too many friends who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I try to call their widows or relatives and just let them know I am still thinking about them.” “I reflect on the first time I walked the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC - it truly was quieter there, I swear I heard nothing - no vehicles, no voices, no birds. Just hushed quiet. I touched many of the names, not knowing any of them, but realizing as I ran my hand over the names that these were people who died in service to our nation. I cried a bit, and it was still quiet. I don't ever want to forget nor be grateful for their ultimate sacrifice, whether or not I agree with the reasons for our country engaging in the war or the conflict.” “More often than not, we have joined our friends in a Ride to Remember. They lost their eldest son in the war in Iraq and we all have lost a number of friends who gave their all.” “A reminder that the freedom of today rode on the backs of those before us.” “I admit it's not much, but it is near where I live so try and get over to Grandview Cemetery and take a drive through it to look at all the flags people post there to honor the fallen buried there and elsewhere. Just to give a silent thanks to the some I knew and many I did not. We will go throughout this holiday weekend catching up with people around us, and we remember it as a day of community and relaxation. But we ask that you think of this day as a time not only to remember but also to reflect on why we have a Memorial Day, why we get together with our family and friends, and ask yourself and your loved ones, What does memorial day mean to you? CANA Advisors is a veteran-owned, woman-owned, equal opportunity company based out of Gainesville, Virginia in the United States of America.

"Leadership is not about the next election, it's about the next generation" -Simon Sinek. We all know this to be true: it is the next generation that will drive technology, demand innovation, and find solutions. At CANA, we see it as our responsibility to help pass the torch from one generation to the next through mentorship, training, and professional support. Our CANA Futures Program is the culmination of several years of effort and tinkering, finding the right mix of community outreach, deciding what knowledge to impart, and making it all come together. CANA’s goal is to continue its deep support of veterans hiring programs while also embracing universities’ student up-and-comers. We very specifically want to encourage diversity in this program, seeking out opportunities to work with people from different walks of life, different experiences, and different talents. This past year found us kicking off an official program in the midst of some trying months. Many outside agency programs came to a standstill as they tried to navigate restrictions. We found our years of virtual work came in handy, as we had something to offer that didn’t need much adaptation to the times. It also gave us the opportunity to dive deep into special aspects of our program with fewer outside competing interests. Our Veterans Program is the most established element of the CANA Futures Program. We have engaged with the Hiring Our Heroes and SkillBridge Programs for a number of years, actively seeking to bring in transitioning veterans and/or their spouses into CANA as Fellows for up to 12 weeks at a time. These programs provide CANA with a limitless and diverse pool of talent. Applicants are eager, versatile, and more than capable of juggling their military transitions with civilian career exploration. Engagement with college students and graduates has matured this year into a cohesive, fully articulated Corporate Internship Program. We are actively recruiting for college students, freshman through senior, as well as young adults exploring the professional community. Part of this effort includes participating in outreach efforts such as resume reviews, virtual lectures, and Q&A sessions with college Career Services. CANA has also created both paid and unpaid internships of varying lengths, to include collaboration with universities for internship credits. We are thrilled that of our most recent interns, one is graduating in May 2021 with a degree in Sports Management from Loyola University, and the other is starting a George Mason University practicum to earn credits with us over the summer. In their time with CANA, these two individuals will be able to see the culmination of a remarkable project they were involved in from every aspect of development, research, execution, and analysis. Our CANA interns helped to plan, market, and run the first-ever CANA eSports Tournament in April 2021. Independent, virtual teams signed up to compete in a live, multi-round, elimination tournament of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. On top of their many other responsibilities, the interns performed as tournament hosts, sharing the game action with competitors and spectators. Afterwards, they are assisting CANA in its deep analysis of the collected data, building insights into esports analytics. We are excited to see how projects like this increase the interns’ professional scope. We think the CANA Futures Program is a great opportunity - for us as a company as well as for the young men and women who join us. To them, technologies and processes have always evolved and advanced at an exceptional rate; it is their normal, even if it feels new to many of us. There is an inherent belief that innovation is a given. This is a mindset we intend to embrace - there is always a better way to do things, and we can do it. If you’d like to learn more about the CANA Futures Program, please reach out to Cherish Joostberns, CANA Resource Lead, at cjoostberns@canallc.com.

A lot of changes are taking place as we move out of spring and head into summer. School may be ending, certain travel restrictions may be lifted, and perhaps we will find the warmer weather will allow for more in person connecting. One thing we know for sure - people are revving up for summer sports and esports! As we profile in this newsletter, with the large help of our successful internship program, CANA Advisors delved into the rapidly growing esports community by launching its CANA esports intelligence analytics and by hosting an inaugural esports tournament. Whether you are into traditional sports or the esports community, we hope these articles get you revved up for Summer. Also, check out our upcoming events at the end of the newsletter where our team presents on esports, and we participate in various conferences on technologies and innovation strategies. So, game on and have a great gaming summer! ~ Team CANA eSports CANA Futures Program By Cherish Joostberns "Leadership is not about the next election, it's about the next generation" -Simon Sinek. We all know this to be true: it is the next generation that will drive technology, demand innovation, and find solutions. At CANA, we see it as our responsibility to help pass the torch from one generation to the next through mentorship, training, and professional support. Our CANA Futures Program is the culmination of several years of effort and tinkering, finding the right mix of community outreach, deciding what knowledge to impart, and making it all come together. CANA’s goal is to continue its deep support of veterans hiring programs while also to embrace universities’ student up-and-comers. We very specifically want to encourage diversity in this program, seeking out opportunities to work with people from different walks of life, different experiences, and different talents. This past year found us kicking off an official program in the midst of some trying months. Many outside agency programs came to a standstill as they tried to navigate restrictions. We found our years of virtual work came in handy, as we had something to offer that didn’t need much adaptation to the times. It also gave us the opportunity to dive deep into special aspects of our program with fewer outside competing interests. Our Veterans Program is the most established element of the CANA Futures Program. We have engaged with the Hiring Our Heroes and SkillBridge Programs for a number of years, actively seeking to bring in transitioning veterans and/or their spouses into CANA as Fellows for up to 12 weeks at a time. These programs provide CANA with a limitless and diverse pool of talent. Applicants are eager, versatile, and more than capable of juggling their military transitions with civilian career exploration. Engagement with college students and graduates has matured this year into a cohesive, fully articulated Corporate Internship Program. We are actively recruiting for college students, freshman through senior, as well as young adults exploring the professional community. Part of this effort includes participating in outreach efforts such as resume reviews, virtual lectures, and Q&A sessions with college Career Services. CANA has also created both paid and unpaid internships of varying lengths, to include collaboration with universities for internship credits. We are thrilled that of our most recent interns, one is graduating in May 2021 with a degree in Sports Management from Loyola University, and the other is starting a George Mason University practicum to earn credits with us over the summer. In their time with CANA, these two individuals will be able to see the culmination of a remarkable project they were involved in from every aspect of development, research, execution, and analysis. Our CANA interns helped to plan, market, and run the first-ever CANA eSports Tournament in April 2021. Independent, virtual teams signed up to compete in a live, multi-round, elimination tournament of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. On top of their many other responsibilities, the interns performed as tournament hosts, sharing the game action with competitors and spectators. Afterwards, they are assisting CANA in its deep analysis of the collected data, building insights into esports analytics. We are excited to see how projects like this increase the interns’ professional scope. We think the CANA Futures Program is a great opportunity - for us as a company as well as for the young men and women who join us. To them, technologies and processes have always evolved and advanced at an exceptional rate; it is their normal, even if it feels new to many of us. There is an inherent belief that innovation is a given. This is a mindset we intend to embrace - there is always a better way to do things, and we can do it. If you’d like to learn more about the CANA Futures Program, please reach out to Cherish Joostberns, CANA Resource Lead, at cjoostberns@canallc.com. TEAM CANA MEMBER SHOWCASE Jack Murray & Thomas Murphy | Sports Analytics Interns Jack Murray Sports Analytics Intern Jack is currently a Junior at George Mason University, studying Sports Management. He has had a passion for sports, specifically hockey, throughout his entire life. Jack played hockey for 14 years and was also a youth hockey referee. Throughout school, I always knew I wanted to make a difference in the sporting world, and CANA has given me the opportunity to do so. When I was brought into CANA last May, I was tasked with finding areas in the sports analytics market that we could support. One unique area of interest to me was esports analytics. Last year the COVID-19 pandemic put a lot of sports on hold. At one point esports was the only sport still being played, and because of this, its popularity grew exponentially. Due to its completely virtual environment, there is a plethora of data that has yet to be explored. What I hope to be a part of, here at CANA, is helping people understand the data in the world of esports. Whether that is recruitment analytics, promoting diversity in gaming, or being an analytics provider of an esports league, I think we can be a catalyst in furthering the success of esports through data analytics. Thomas Scully Sports Analytics Intern Thomas Scully is a recent graduate of Loyola University, Chicago, with a degree in Sports Management and a minor in Marketing. Thomas has had a passion for sports since he was a child, watching SportsCenter in the mornings before school, and reading the sports sections of all the newspapers. I craved every last bit of information I could get my hands on regarding the world of sports. I played basketball for about 15 years, and later on as a teenager, became a coach as well, teaching young kids the basics of the game. Since I began at Loyola, I have been blessed with many opportunities to learn about the sporting world from a business perspective and gained a wealth of knowledge from various activities such as hackathons and Loyola’s first esport tournament in the Fall of 2019. When I came to CANA in December of 2020, I knew I had an opportunity to learn more about a different aspect of the sporting world and how it operates in real time. Being involved with analytics, especially esport analytics, has been fascinating to dive into, as it truly is the way of the future, with more and more people becoming acclimated to an all-virtual climate of competition and recreation. Digging into the analytics of esports could not be a more important task for someone so intrigued about sports. This is because esports is still a relatively untapped industry, with so many different unexplored avenues to travel on. However we use these analytics we draw from esports, whether it’s identifying patterns in a Rainbow Six Siege match or defining metrics for potential esports collegiate/professional recruitment, we are going to make the most of it and embed CANA and its services into the world of esports. CANA’s Inaugural Esports Tournament Lessons Learned from the R6 Showdown By Jack Murray, CANA Intern, George Mason University CANA esports R6 Showdown Takeaways CANA hosted its inaugural open player esports tournament this past April. It was a fast-paced, gripping event, and we gained some fantastic insights into this growing field. The initiating spark to host an esports event grew out of our interest in supporting the esports industry through the use of data analytics. Personally, I have been involved with video games for almost the entirety of my life, and I saw first hand how quickly esports were growing. I started as a CANA intern during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw most traditional sports put on hold or cancelled completely. This led to esports being one of the only sports entertainment options available to anyone and everyone. The easy accessibility, low cost, and variety of esports are contributing factors to its exponential growth. The pandemic may have inflated the true numbers, but esports was already on a path for this type of growth, it was just a matter of time and acceptance by the world. Although esports was expanding, it was still a new and young industry with so much untapped potential. As we looked into how CANA’s analytics could support this industry, we discovered the wide variety of video games that are played at the level of ‘esports’ all have different data to be explored. With the entire industry being a virtual environment, it breeds an abundance of data. There are some data analytics companies that are realizing this as well, but there is so much untapped data remaining. We also reached out and connected with two esports industry leaders, Rebecca Longawa and Wim Stocks. Rebecca is the founder of Happy Warrior, an esports consultant firm, and Wim just recently retired from being the General Manager and CEO of World Gaming & Collegiate Starleague, and is now the Head of Partnerships and Commercial at Belong Gaming & Vindex. The three areas we were particularly interested in were: esports recruitment analytics, promoting diversity in gaming through analytics, and being an analytics provider for an esports league. As hosts of the event, we could collect a controlled data sample to conduct a variety of analyses. We selected the game Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege for its military-style, tactical gameplay. Our tournament included a mix of high school students, college students, and members of the US Army as part of a semi-pro team called US Army Esports. Some teams were semi-professional teams that had coaches, and others were just friends getting together to join in on the fun. Some were using our tournament as practice for real Rainbow Six League play. This provided us with a truly diverse group of gamers that were a mix of amateur and organized, highly skilled competitors. The event was a three day tournament from 23 through 25 April, 2021. In the best of 3 final series, Psych Ward won 2-0 against US Army Esports; the second game went to the last round of overtime to decide. It was a nail-biter, but Psych Ward won both games and the tournament! Great job, Psych Ward! Overall, the tournament ran smoothly, and we had a great time as hosts. Although we prepared for this tournament for about three months, there were several operational aspects we could have better anticipated. As every first event will have a learning curve, we recognized a few key takeaways. The first is to create alternative bracket systems in case of cancellations and no-shows. On game day, three of our eight teams dropped out. This dismantled our bracket system and required a solution on the spot. We solved the problem by adding a one-time losers bracket for the quarter-final losers. There is no way to be 100% positive each team is going to show up for every game, and we need to be better prepared for that. The second takeaway is to allow substitute roster spots at the time of registration. Life gets in the way sometimes, and it can affect players’ availability to play at the set times. We manually added substitute players, which led to much more work than necessary. The third is that we needed more people on the control end of the tournament. As one of the commentators, I was also the main player support person in the discord chat. Any player could reach out to me individually, or I would be the one in our discord server responsible for responding to them. This would have been better managed with an additional person. We also would have benefitted from having someone to put out social media posts during each match because game details in real-time is exactly what social media users are looking for. It would have helped build awareness of our event and drawn a larger audience if we had someone posting in real-time. CANA’s overall intent in hosting this tournament was to further explore analytics in esports. In that respect, it was an extremely beneficial experience. The most crucial takeaway is that there is a lot more data waiting to be discovered. We ran this particular tournament for one specific game, Rainbow Six Siege, and we also used a data application called R6 Analyst to get the most detailed information on the gameplay. The R6 application gave us a great deal of data to work with for each individual's gameplay statistics. This type of information can provide potential training points to players; inform spectators, scouts, coaches, and sponsors; and support industry game analysis and more, in a growing billion-plus dollar industry. Even with the large amount of data collected from this application, we quickly noticed there were many other aspects of the game that could have been collected. This validated the endless analytical aspects of this one particular game - and it is likely to be the same for all the other video games. At the moment, we feel esports data analytics has only scratched the surface of what information might be collected, and this tournament proved that. The other major takeaway is that the esports industry and community is extremely supportive. We received many suggestions and comments from our competitors and other esports industry leaders on how to make improvements going forward. Everyone wants esports to succeed, so they are always trying to help out. They are looking out for the best interest of esports as a whole, and that mindset is vital to the success of any industry. Lastly, esports and analyzing esports is a blast! This industry is so young, new, and exciting, and we are enjoying every moment of it. We are really looking forward to being a catalyst in furthering the success of esports through the use of data analytics. If you would like to learn more, or get involved with future CANA Esports events you can reach out to us at esports@canallc.com or join our Discord at CANA_eSports (discord.com) #esports #esportsanalytics #rainbowsixsiege #CANAesports CANA EVENTS AND HAPPENINGS MORS 89th Symposium: Analytics to Enhance Decision Making (21-25 June 2021) Join Team CANA as we attend the 89th MORS Symposium being held June 21-25, 2021. The focus for this symposium will be Analytics to Enhance Decision Making. The MORS Symposium is a signature event attended annually by over 1,000 Operation Research professionals. The Women In MORS Community of Practice will be hosting an interactive, virtual discussion during the upcoming 89th MORS Symposium. A diverse group of industry and military leaders will explore the topic of Effective Networking Strategies during a special hosted panel on June 22, 2021, at 4:00 pm EST. Registration information can be found here (89th Symposium (mors.org). Checkout our CANA Connection Podcast ALL THINGS ESPORTS with Happy Warrior, Rebecca Longawa In this episode of the CANA Connection Podcast, join our host, Rob Cranston, and CANA Sports Analytics Intern, Jack Murray, as they talk with the Happy Warrior and gaming industry leader Rebecca Longawa about esports, its growth in the past year, its marketing, how the traditional sporting industry is getting involved, women in gaming, and the future of the esports industry in general. Podcast | cana (canallc.com) SAVE THE DATES for these upcoming Electric Mobility and Unmanned Logistics events at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar on June 23rd and 24th, 2021. Join Team CANA as we go on site at MCAS Miramar in California, for these two epic events hosted by SoCal Tech Bridge and NavalX Next Strategy: Day One is Electric and Unmanned Logistics Demonstration Day and is a follow-up to 2020’s two-day Future Unmanned Logistics Systems (ULS) Energy Logistics Enabling Deployed Operations (FUELED Ops) virtual event. Experience how commercial unmanned platforms and supporting technologies are shaping the future of logistics operations!! For more information or to register for the event visit canallc.com/eul-demoday. Day Two is the first Electric Mobility Symposium. Government and industry leaders will communicate how electric mobility technology can and will be used on military bases, in the field, and into the future. Be a part of this exciting technology launch. For more information or to register for the Electric Mobility Symposium please visit canallc.com/electric-mobility Privacy Statement | Subscribe | Unsubscribe CANA Advisors 7371 Atlas Walk Way Gainesville, Virginia 20155 Telephone (703) 317-7378 Facsimile (571) 248-2563 The CANA Connection Newsletter Copyright ©2021 CANA LLC.

The Big Data Cup was an open-source hockey analytics contest, set up by stathletes.com, for students and professionals. There were two sets of data available to analyze, scouting data from the men’s Canadian junior hockey league and a Women’s Olympic hockey data set. I was part of the CANA team put on this task, along with CANA’s Walt DeGrange, Lucia Darrow, and Thomas Scully. This contest was the first time that I had participated in an analytics project, and it was extremely interesting and educational. We set up a hackathon to work on the majority of the contest all in one day. A hackathon is a scheduled workshop where a larger number of people get together to collaborate on a specific project. Before the hackathon, we were tasked with going over the data set and understanding the meaning of each row and column. During the hackathon, we established what research question we wanted to explore, and how we wanted to think outside of the box. We knew that everyone was going to want to analyze something involving goals for or goals against, but that is one of the most analyzed aspects of hockey already. We decided to take a deeper dive into the passing strategies of each team, and how they changed due to events in the games. Passing strategy dictates the flow of a hockey game, a major factor in influencing in-game strategic coaching decisions. North-South and East-West passing, referring to the direction of the pass, are two key strategies considered in this analysis. In this report, we explore the question: which passing strategy did teams employ under different game scenarios? Using the Women’s Olympic hockey data set provided, we set out to uncover insights regarding the usage of the two strategies. In this analysis, we explore the relationship between score difference and passing strategy through visualization, clustering, and in-depth game analysis. Exhibit A. A Sample of the Game Visualization and Analysis This analysis took a bit longer than expected, leading to two hackathon sessions. In the first one, we spent a good amount of time developing the algorithm to properly identify which passes were considered North-South and East-West. While the second hackathon was mainly focused on creating the visualizations for our analysis. The results of this analysis showed us many things. The first being that teams who are losing games usually become more aggressive with their passing strategy, North-South passing. It also provided key areas where passing the puck was most successful and most intercepted, giving coaches a sense of where to and where not to pass on the ice. However, it was what our visuals did not show us that helped our analysis the most (see above Exhibit A). The empty areas, on the ice, in our visuals were where passes were rarely even attempted, which led us to believe that is where the opposing team was set up. What this does is help coaches create a defensive strategy to counter the passing strategy used by each team or to deploy an offensive passing strategy that will be the most effective. Again, it would all depend on the team that you are facing because even though there are similar patterns made by every team, each team has their own strategy and set plays that you have to account for. Overall this was an extremely fun event to be a part of, especially for someone who has a strong passion for hockey and is new to programming and analytics! By: Jack Murray, Sports Analytics Intern Jack is an intern with CANA Advisors. To learn more about CANA’s internship program, please contact Ms. Cherish Joosteberns at cjoostberns@canallc.com.

Two recent articles have been published on the subject of military readiness, and specifically, how it ought to be quantitatively assessed. Both pieces referenced Richard Betts’ 1995 book, Military Readiness: Concepts, Choices, Consequences, and engage on Betts’ three critical readiness questions: what should we be ready for, when is it that we need to be ready, and what needs to be ready? In Redefine Readiness or Lose, published on the website, War On The Rocks, Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David H. Berger, and Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., address these questions and demand an analytical framework capable of answering them. An idea getting their attention is the use of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and probability to predict the changes in future military capabilities from current readiness decisions. In other words, is it possible to predict now how the resources requested, utilized, and allocated now will affect military readiness far into the future? By coincidence, the Military Operations Research (MOR) Journal, a peer-reviewed academic journal, concurrently published Military Readiness Modeling: Changing the Question from 'Ready or Not?' to 'How Ready for What’? The article, written by CANA Advisors’ Connor McLemore, and co-authors Shaun Doheney, Sam Savage, and Philip Fahringer, paraphrase Betts’ trio of questions as: how ready for what? The authors describe how a better data framework can lead to better military readiness metrics, which could then lead to better readiness and cost tradeoff discussions. Their proposed data framework, if implemented, would go a long way towards helping the military readiness system to answer the two service chiefs’ questions. In their words, [a] data framework that uses stochastic scenario libraries would allow the military to characterize its probability of being ready for foreseeable missions across all its organizational levels while allowing for mathematically sound aggregation of the readiness of its units. This comprehensive approach would benefit from a stochastic representation of readiness that allows lower-level readiness reports to be rolled up into higher-level reports across unit types and military branches. Such an approach allows planners, commanders, and decision makers to speak the same language to communicate, ‘How ready are units for what?’ (McLemore et al., 2021, p. 23) Their analytic approach does not remove subjectivity from the readiness calculations of “boots-on-the-ground” commanders. However, the authors argue that this subjectivity based on a structured, auditable approach towards explicitly acknowledged uncertainty is likely to outrun subjectivity alone. They provide a tool that could be extremely valuable to military commanders and planners, greatly expanding their available knowledge of present and future military capability. The authors’ approach also shows potential to conserve enormous amounts of valuable military resources including time, money, manpower, and material. CANA believes this is exciting content, and we know it will continue to generate meaningful discussion. We are pleased to provide a link to both timely articles here Redefine Readiness or Lose and here Military Readiness Modeling: Changing the Question from 'Ready or Not?' to 'How Ready for What’? and encourage your feedback and continued conversation. Can the future be foretold? We also have a PDF available here for you to view the Military Readiness Modeling: Changing the Question from 'Ready or Not?' to 'How Ready for What’? article. Article by CANA Resource Lead, Cherish Joostberns , and Principal Operations Research Analyst, Connor McLemore.

Wrapping up Women's History Month, we have reflected on the female analyst, scientist, researcher, filmmaker, leader, author, and so many more innovative roles that women have taken to call their own... These women didn’t just make history, they paved the way for the future. How can we use the tools these women have provided us? How do we continue to celebrate women all year long? We have some ideas: 1. Educate ourselves Going forward from Women’s History Month, we have to continue to educate ourselves on the women who have paved the way... No matter what industry you are in, there were so many women who fought for your place to be there. A great place to start is to read up on the history of women’s rights and how they have evolved. You can see a full timeline here: https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/womens-history-us-timeline 2. Get involved with your local women's group We all need our gal pals, that's what makes us stronger! When we come together, we can accomplish anything. There are so many women in your local area you can connect with and build a community. Many will have the same interests as you. Meetup.com has a locator to show you where there is a women’s group nearby: https://www.meetup.com/topics/womens-empowerment/ 3. Support women-owned businesses From the beginning of time, women have been creating and producing things we need for our everyday lives. The best thing you can do is support women-owned businesses. You can find a women-owned business for all your needs at:https://www.womenownedlogo.com/buy-women-owned-directory 4. Mentor the next generation of women The most important thing we can do as women is open the door for the women and girls after us. When we leave this world, we want to make sure the next generation keeps building on all the hard work that has been done before. The next generation of girls needs guidance and that is why it’s key for us to be there. Your input is valuable. You can join a mentoring program to help mentor young girls in your local community, or throughout the world. Some great programs include: https://www.womantowomanmentoring.org/ https://www.iambeautiful.org/hope-mentoring-program/ https://www.suwn.org/ https://girlsinc.org/girls-inc-mentors-support-girls-every-day/ 5. Keep being the best woman you can be Women face a lot of adversity, and you are stronger than you think. But, every step is a milestone to becoming a better woman. Keep going forward and keep building upward, for the future is full of women like you. The most important lesson we can learn from Women’s History Month is how we can support and respect all women. From the scientist to the filmmaker, we are all paving a way in this world. We are here to show the next female generation how much their part matters, and how it will continue to make history. Let us continue to honor the past so we can make a better future. Kassie McRostie is the Digital Media Coordinator at CANA Advisors. If you would like to get in touch with Kassie, you can reach her at kassmcrostie@canallc.com or on Linkedin. CANA Advisors is a veteran-owned, woman-owned, equal opportunity company based out of Gainesville, Virginia in the United States of America.

CANA Advisors’ Director of Programs & Project Management, Connie McKissack, has been a professional in project management for over 18 years. She has seen first-hand the evolution of the Project Management Professional (PMP), and what it contributes to the field. In Part II of our series, Connie provides her nuanced and thoughtful opinion about project management certification and offers essential exam guidance. The Importance of PMP Certification A recurring question in the project management field is whether organizations should hire only PMP-certified Project Managers. Although the credibility of focused study, training, and examination is something to be considered - and the whole industry has built itself on passing the exam - institutionally, we are not necessarily living the concepts. If an organization seeks only certified PMPs, the focus should be understanding how the Project Manager, armed with a full kit of knowledge from many different disciplines, can help extract key practices and create the most effective methods for their teams. Hiring decisions should be based on your project practice maturity, pre-existing organizational project knowledge, and the types of projects your teams execute. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Remember that pre-2021 certified Project Managers do not have to retake the exam. And, if they maintain their credentials, those PMs will never have to sit for an updated 2021 PMP exam. While holding a PMP certification adds some credibility to a candidate's resume, it may not be required since acquiring knowledge and taking a test are two different approaches and activities. If an organization can take a program and project management mentoring and coaching approach to onboarding new Project Managers, it will have provided a better foundation for actual Project Management practice. Organizations can offer constructive support by encouraging autonomy, supporting leadership training, and encouraging smart change and risk management. Essential Exam Guidance For those individuals and organizations that have decided PMP certification is requisite, we offer the following observations and guidance. Having familiarity with the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide might benefit an inexperienced individual desirous of managing projects, but the 2021 PMP exam is not based on PMBOK; it is only a reference. The 2021 PMP exam does focus on leading projects, being a servant leader, Agile-like concepts and practices, methodology choices and tailoring, and communication with stakeholders. Once registered, you have one year to take the exam. You can start by learning more about PMP on the PMI.org website.2 These authorized materials are provided after you register for the exam: 2021 PMP Examination Content Outline3 Project Management Process Groups and Knowledge Areas4 Agile Practice Guide5 Specific keys to success include PMI Authorized PMP Exam Preparation materials (focuses on five lessons): Creating a High-Performing Team Starting the Project Doing the Work Keeping the Team on Track Keeping the Business in Mind To sit for the exam you will still need the same required experience managing projects, or a specific education requirement, as well as 35 contact hours of training (Professional Development Units or PDUs). Once you pass the exam, you must renew at three-year intervals and invest time in appropriate Professional Development. You can earn PDUs in multiple ways, but organizations need to understand the real costs of PMP certification as they hire team members. Of the skills assessed in the examination, communication ability is key. It is the most important skill a project manager can possess, regardless of professional certification. Communication is absolutely critical to Project Manager roles in the virtual workspace. Project Managers who understand and can employ effective asynchronous communication techniques will lead the virtual pack. This is validated daily here at CANA Advisors, where virtual work has been the standard for over a decade. Although process has a place, capable communication tactics inside projects, and the ability to lead a team to execute and deliver, are what enables Project Managers to take their teams across the finish line. Leaders know how important it is to adapt and progress in their respective industries. We would love to hear your thoughts on PMP certification, the 2021 changes, and how it impacts you or your organization. Share with us on social media @canaadvisors, or contact Connie McKissack directly at cmckissack@canallc.com. Connie McKissack is CANA’s Director of Programs & Project Management and is responsible for driving excellence in program management practices and delivering project management activities to clients. Did you happen to catch our CANA Connection Podcast on Project Management and the New 2021 PMI Certification? In this episode, our host Rob Cranston talks with Project Managers and fellow CANA team members, Connie McKissack, Jason Fincher, and Hannah Wallace. Learn more about Program/Project Management, and the Project Management Institute's (PMI) PMP 2021 Certification. (CANA Connection Podcast Link)

Some people may remember a catchy ad from the 1980s - “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” - meant to attract a new generation to a modernized car line. Out with the old, in with the new. To borrow the phrase, this is not your father’s A.I.! Artificial Intelligence, or A.I., is no longer relegated to science fiction and film, like Hal, the domineering computer in 2001: Space Odyssey, or Robbie, the life-saving nursemaid robot in Asimov’s I, Robot. A.I. is part of our everyday lives, right now. If you've ever purchased something out of the ordinary with a credit card or bought something at an unusual time or place, you may have had your credit card shut off. In this instance, A.I. identified a pattern characteristic of fraud, something that didn’t fit with your normal behavior, and A.I. made a decision. A.I. is the brain behind the scenes in your social media. It adjusts your feeds, picks possible friends, selects ads, and more, based on what it thinks you want and how you will respond. A.I. helps shape your perceived independent, highly personal decisions. Artificial intelligence uses multiple technologies, including machine learning algorithms, and is being developed for multiple use cases, including automation, autonomy, and as an advanced analytical technique for software solutions. Computer science defines A.I. research as the study of, “intelligent agents, any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals.” A more elaborate definition characterized as A.I. is a system's ability to correctly interpret external data, learn from such data, and use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation. Looking at this overlapping Venn chart created by Nisarg Dave, first focus on the big, blue circle. That's computer science. Inside computer science, there is a circle for artificial intelligence, inside that is a circle for machine learning, and inside that, another circle for deep learning. Outside artificial intelligence, there are databases and then data mining, which crosses multiple boundaries of A.I., machine learning, deep learning, databases, and cloud computing. Data science encompasses all of those areas. And, if you are from a statistics or mathematics background, you will see both of those areas cross all of those same circles for computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. This graphical representation highlights the interconnectedness of A.I. in so much of modern technology. A.I. became a named discipline in the 1950s, although work had really begun several years prior. A.I. includes a component known as machine learning, which is the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience. It is further defined as techniques that give computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed to do so. These algorithms build mathematical models based on sample data known as training data in order to make predictions or decisions. Machine learning algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications, such as email filtering and computer vision. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that makes the computation of multi-layer neural nets feasible. When we talk about your credit card being shut off, that's an example of neural nets at work. Those determine patterns, matching your pattern of fraud, and then turning off your credit card. Machine learning is typically broken down into three sub-categories: supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning. Supervised learning algorithms find patterns in both input and output data from a training set of data, and then predict outputs from non-training data based on the learned set of patterns. In the credit card example, the algorithm can be fed input data related to credit card use behaviors and output labels related to whether the behavior resulted in fraud. In supervised learning, data is set with clearly defined outputs. The user essentially defines the patterns for that algorithm to follow. Unsupervised learning algorithms find patterns based solely on the input data. These can be used when you are not sure what to look for; the machine is identifying the patterns from the data and providing that to the user. Reinforcement learning algorithms use positive or negative rewards to achieve certain goals. Source: https://www.newtechdojo.com/list-machine-learning-algorithms/ If you are an operations research analyst most of the techniques listed in the chart above are quite familiar: decision trees, naive Bayes classification, random forest, linear regression, and logistic regression. Also, for someone with experience in statistics, many of these techniques will be familiar. Even if you have little knowledge on the subject, you are, more than likely, a frequent and dedicated recipient of these techniques and concepts. A.I. is deeply rooted in your daily life and activities, even if not so obvious as robot maids and sentient spacecraft computers. Advancements in the field are made daily, and the unimaginable now may become commonplace. Please join Renee for the next phase of this A.I. journey in the upcoming Part II, A.I. Techniques, Platforms & Requirements. Renee Carlucci is our Principal Operations Research Analyst here at CANA Advisors. You can reach her at rcarlucci@canallc.com.

As a passionate practitioner of project and program management for the past 18 years, CANA’s Director of Programs and Project Management, Connie McKissack, brings expert opinions and important perspectives to share in the project management field. In this CANA blog series, she will address questions that project-centric organizations and Project Managers are asking about new developments in project management certification and processes. Part I: The Evolution of Project Management and PMI’s Role This year marks one of the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) most extensive changes to the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam and certification. This is exciting because after many years of managing projects and supervising project professionals, we see how the 2021 PMP exam provides an enhanced toolset for both new and experienced Project Managers. Changes in the project management field are long overdue given the emergence, over two decades ago, of Agile Management practices. Since then, process-oriented project management has deteriorated, and Agile practices have come to the forefront. Notable differences in project management theory and execution have become obvious for many practitioners. For example, in the Agile environment, the Project Manager’s role is distributed between team members rather than incorporating heavy processes or following a typical project plan. Additionally, the traditional Project Manager (PMP) forces change control (typical management of scope creep) but an Agile project team needs to accept and manage it. The Agile team members embrace collaboration and communication to produce working systems. In concert with these changes, the value of Project Managers in corporate environments has decreased. This is due, in part, to the amount of process time and effort built into a typical project management role, combined with traditional project management techniques. Many readers would argue that Project Managers don’t even have a role in the Agile space! Some organizations have opted out or have developed their own project management toolkits. Traditional over-processed approaches just do not jibe with Agile-like concepts. It has been an unfortunate reality that PMI, the largest body of knowledge supporting project management, did not update its certifications and training to suit the nature of modern environments and their projects. The value of the PMP was greatly diminished. Many Project Managers who used PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) were left without real tools and practical approaches. Until this year, the PMP exam content was overburdened with business process controls that far exceeded many Project Managers’ ability to actually implement. Organizations found themselves stuffing unnecessary practices into their project life cycles, gradually eroding the perceived value of PMP-certified Project Manager support. In 2015, PMI publicly acknowledged the need to address the evolution of project management into something more attuned and responsive to the current project management environment. The 2021 PMP exam updates are a great starting point. The previous PMP exam aimed for certain types of projects while the new exam focuses on a tailoring approach based on three core domains: People, Process, and Business Environment. The exam content brings the lifecycle of projects into the full spectrum of team building and value delivery. While the process is still a big part of the new 2021 PMP, it only supports the bookends of providing servant leadership with organizational focus. This updated material provides a better foundation for managing change (or chaos) versus constraining it (scope creep); building a team and shared understanding; and the full value delivery spectrum (internal and external). The revised exam will serve Project Managers who need approaches to choosing a methodology, providing servant leadership to the project team, and helping organizations find value in projects while focusing on the change impact. The bottom line: half of the 2021 exam covers predictive project management approaches and the other half is agile or hybrid approaches. ¹ This means most of the pre-2021 PMP exam was heavy on the Process domain; but today, that domain only comprises about 50% of the new 2021 PMP exam. The new 2021 PMP forces the Project Manager to understand their leadership role within the project team and the project (change) impacts on organizations. This is a significant and long-overdue enhancement to the Project Manager’s toolkit. You can read more about why PMI made changes to the PMP on their website: https://www.project-management-prepcast.com/free/pmp-exam/articles/1086-pmp-exam-update-2019#h1-why-is-the-pmp-exam-changing-in-2021 Stay tuned for Part II of this series that discusses why PMP certification is still important and how to prepare for the new exam. Connie McKissack is CANA’s Director of Programs & Project Management and is responsible for driving excellence in program management practices and delivering project management activities to clients. cmckissack@canallc.com Did you happen to catch our CANA Connection Podcast on Project Management and the New 2021 PMI Certification? In this episode our host Rob Cranston talks with some Project Managers and fellow CANA team members Connie McKissack, Jason Fincher, and Hannah Wallace about Program/Project Management, and the Project Management Institute's (PMI) PMP 2021 Certification. (CANA Connection Podcast Link)