Describes the methodology of RAND’s Portfolio-Analysis Tool for Missile Defense (PAT-MD), developed to facilitate high-level discussion of program tradeoffs and adjustments in the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). PAT-MD provides five scoring and aggregation methods for obtaining summary portfolio-style characterizations of alternative investment options. It also enables “zooming” to higher levels of detail to understand the basis of characterizations and how they would change if assumptions or priorities were changed. The report also serves as a user’s guide to PAT-MD.
