NAVY CYBER DEFENSE OPERATIONS COMMAND

NAVY
CYBER
DEFENSE
OPERATIONS
COMMAND
A guide for writing your NCDOC
adventure. Developed by
current teammates with future
teammates in mind.
NEW TEAMMATE
HANDBOOK

“We are here to
make a dent in the
universe.”
Steve Jobs

Table of Contents
Welcome..............................................................................................1
About This Handbook ........................................................................2
We Are A learning Organization .........................................................3
NCDOC Waypoints ............................................................................5
Our Continued Evolution ...................................................................7
Culture Shaping Initiatives ...............................................................10
Hiring ................................................................................................14
Roles and Responsibilities ..............................................................15
Allowed To List .................................................................................16
Reflections .......................................................................................17
Make Your “Dent” ............................................................................19
Next Steps .......................................................................................20
“To be somebody or to do
something. In life, there is often a
roll call. That’s when you will have
to make a decision. To be or to
do. Which will you choose?”
- John Boyd

Welcome
Welcome to the Navy’s only Defensive Cyberspace Operations
(DCO) Task Force and Cyber Security Service provider
where our task is to enable global power projection through
proactive network defense. Meeting this mission requires
us to be especially deliberate about who we bring onto our
team and how we engage as a team. We are so pleased that
you are now a part of us regardless of how you got here. As
demonstrated by this handbook, we make an overt effort
to shape our command culture and are visibly committed
to entrepreneurship, creativity, continual improvement,
accountability and shared ownership at all levels.
We value passionate people, like yourself, because together
we create a workplace environment that attracts and develops
teammates who are committed to realizing our collective
potential and inspiring others to do the same. This handbook
is an encapsulation of our overall principles and values. As we
continue to grow, these principles and values will serve as the
connective tissue that binds us together.
Here at NCDOC, there are numerous teams within our team.
Each interdependent team enables the others to execute our
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shared mission. Per our vision, we aspire to becoming a distributed
team of cyber defenders; integrated through understanding,
synchronized in action. We need your active involvement to get us
there. YOU are important to us and we asked you to join our team
for a reason. We value your ideas, talent and passion as they are
what will enable us to collectively navigate a future others have yet
to imagine.
We also want NCDOC to be important to you, both professionally
and personally. If this is just a job or you see your teammates as
mere co-workers, we are going to need more from you. Simply put,
we cannot exceed our high expectations unless you are “all in”.
We are all committed to you and need you to be visibly committed
to us. The mutual support and respect we feel for each other helps
make this a great team.
We hope that while you are here helping us to write the next chapter
in our adventure, you feel welcomed, valued, and supported, and
you are proud to be a part of the NCDOC team. If we navigate this
journey properly, you will outgrow us and the NCDOC of tomorrow
will be even more amazing than we are today.

About This Handbook
This handbook will give you a fundamental understanding of
who we are and what we stand for as a Navy command. We
see ourselves as an integrated team of cyber defenders. Our
mission requires a culture unique in and of itself. Therefore,
our culture is one that embraces the entrepreneurial spirit and
experiential diversity. We leverage critical thought and creative
problem solving from all levels of our team to successfully
complete our mission as the Navy’s only DCO Task Force and
Cyber Security Service Provider.
This is not a book that tells you the step-by-step processes of
a specific mission, department, or check-in procedures. Don’t
worry, you will be provided with that important information
separately. Instead, this handbook provides you with a
first-glimpse of who we are and how we came to be, what we
do, why we do it, and how we enable you to do what you are
meant to do during your tenure here. Take the points of this
handbook and use them to shape your NCDOC experience.
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We believe you will find tremendous opportunities to grow and
contribute. After all, if you are not doing both, why would you
even be here? We simply hope to set the stage in a way that
will inspire you to be the best teammate you can be and better
enable you to inspire others to be the cyber defenders our Navy
and our nation need us to be.

We Are A Learning Organization
We are a Naval command and we benefit from hundreds
of years of Navy traditions. Yet, as technology continues to
advance rapidly, the world around us evolves at an ever-
quickening pace. We know that in order to remain relevant
in our mission area, we must deliberately exhibit learning
organization behavior.
A learning organization is a team that:
• Has a shared vision
• Learns as a team
• Values personal mastery
• Thinks holistically
As you read our mission, vision, values on the next page,
please keep the tenants of a learning organization in mind
and visualize ways in which you might be able to help ensure
we exhibit more learning organization behavior. Take notes
throughout the onboarding process so you can let us know
how we can make things even better for future teammates.
3
You will be asked to share your thoughts via your 100 Day
Assessment of our team. Our goal is continual improvement and
we have found that the newest members of our team are uniquely
equipped to look at life at NCDOC through a clear lens. We need
to benefit from your perspective.
“We are what we repeatedly
do. Excellence, then, is not an
act but a habit.”
- Aristotle

NCDOC Waypoints
A traditional Command Assessment Team is by definition
reactive in nature. In keeping with our proclivity for
proactiveness, we enjoy the power of our Culture Club.
This team doesn’t only assess Command climate, it shapes
Command culture, blending the best of our longstanding
traditions with new non- traditional practices.
In an effort to help navigate our ongoing adventure, the Culture
Club developed these “Waypoints” that help guide what we do
and how we do it – the NCDOC Way…
Value Time and Create Opportunity, Meaning, and Purpose
Time is our most precious asset. We respect the time of each
teammate and ensure we spend it creating opportunities, doing
meaningful work and ensuring our actions are purposeful.
Focus on Outcomes: Strive for Significance
Busyness is not a virtue. Our value is measured by the
outcomes we deliver. Outcomes that if truly significant, will not
5
be fully appreciated for years to come.
Take Responsibility: Embrace Accountability
We take great pride in our craft. We hold ourselves to high
standards and care enough about our teammates to let them
know when they might be falling short. We appreciate it when
others care enough to do the same for us, for it is the only way
we will realize our potential as individuals and as a team.
Willing to Rock the Boat, Creating a Wake as We Forge the
Future
Some tell seniors what we think they want to hear; we tell all
teammates what they need to hear, especially our seniors. We
despise business as usual, question the status quo and are
committed to designing our future.
As a Global Task Force, We Empathize in a 360o Array
A true team has a deep understanding of our partners, our
community, and even our adversaries. We make a point to see life
through the eyes of all before taking responsible action.

NCDOC Waypoints
Innovate: Take Responsible Risks
We value curiosity and foster creativity. We are not afraid to fail
and we see risk as not something to minimize but something to
leverage responsibly.
Stay Focused, Remain Creative, and Deliver Value
Life at NCDOC is dynamic and there are times when we may
get distracted. Keep us focused on our priorities. Help to
ensure creativity is a constant and make sure the value we
deliver is visible.
6
“Creativity is thinking up new
things. Innovation is
doing new things.”
- Theodore Levitt

Our Continued Evolution
1995 2000 2006 2013-14 2017
1999 2003 2007 2015
Every organization has a story. Some allow others to write
it for them, we prefer to do the writing ourselves. Though
NCDOC was formally established on 29 January 2006, our
true beginning started a decade beforehand. Below are some
significant milestone in our ongoing evolution:
Fleet Information Warfare Center
(FIWC) established the Navy’s
Computer Incident Response
Team (NAVCIRT) division.
NAVCIRT become a
24 / 7 operation.
NAVCIRT becomes
NCDOC.
Operation ROLLING TIDE
served as our 1st major
operation specifically to
counter cyber activity
directed against Navy
networks and C2 capabilities.
Integrate Navy Red Team and
552 CPT into our Command
and TF.
We developed
PROMETHEUS as our
data storage and analytics
infrastructure.
Operation
QUIET STORM /
TITAN RAIN.
NCDOC’s 1st operation,
BUCKSHOT YANKEE
under the newly formed
U.S. Cyber Command.
Operation ATLAS KRYPTON marks
the 1st tactical use of an assigned
Cyber Protection Team (CPT) for a
cyber operation.
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8
Sailors and
Civilians of
the Year /
Hall of Fame
Sailors of the Year
2005
As our command began
expanding to include more
civilians, we began including
Civilians of the Year.
After a Decade of
Defense we inducted
Cyber Warriors into our
Hall of Fame to formally
acknowledge those
who have contributed
to the ongoing legacy
of TF1020 and NCDOC
in areas of: Excellence
in Cyberspace Defense,
and Cyber Security
Innovation.
CTN1 Arnel Oribello
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
CTA1 Kristen Dickinson
IT1 Kenyell Brown
CTN1 Christopher Crabtree
YN2 Victoria Scott
CTR1 Matthew Stone
CTN2 Mark Montgomery
IT1 Kelley Skees
IT2 Brian Virgili
IT3 Crisogono Zavalapena
IT1 Kelley Skees
CTN2 Joshua Wyatt
IT3 Jamie DeLong
CTN1 Clifford Stout
IT2 Narcisco Cruz
ITSN Justin Johnson
IT1 Damien Williams
CTN2 Heather Hulquist
CTN2 Simone Seay
CTN1 Melissa Wong
CTN2 Alex Ogaldes
IT1 Ryan Hill
IT2 Nicole Bastian
IT3 Matthew Nelson
IT1 William Luke
CTN2 Danielle Mullaney
IT2 Luke Richardson
Civilians of the Year
Hall of Fame
Mr. Anthony Brown
Mr. Neil Lumagui
Ms. Tammy Fletcher
Ms. Karen Williams
Mr. Mike Luther
Mr. Daniel Jones Mr. Jim Granger
Mr. Jason Tant
Mr. Brian Harris
Ms. Gabriela Steinlicht
Mr. Shayne Covert
CTN1 Jeffrey “Lefty”
Letzerich

We are grateful to those who came before us, those who boldly
developed capabilities that many did not know we needed, and
those who worked so hard creating the wake that we currently
enjoy riding.
The Navy is built upon strong traditions. As important as it
is to celebrate our history and acknowledge the significant
progress made over the years, it is equally important to
chart our future and create new traditions as we do our part
ensuring this mission area evolves at a pace consistent with the
ever-changing world around us.
Cyber missions will continue growing in importance. The future
of NCDOC will certainly continue playing a critical role in the
defense of Navy networks.
9
“If your actions inspire others to dream
more, learn more, do more and become
more, you are a leader.”
- John Quincy Adams

Culture Shaping Initiatives
We chose you to join our team and we want to help you grow
into an even better team player. We know that you are at your
best when you bring your whole self to work each day and we
are committed to giving you every reason to do just that. We
want you be be excited when your alarm goes off, signaling
another opportunity for you to bring your best to our team.
Therefore, we are deliberate in creating opportunities for you
to grow, to discover new interests and to pursue your passion
for learning throughout your tenure here. Here are just a few
opportunities:
Makerspace
We have our very own playground! Our Makerspace is where
you can develop, prototype and test your brilliant ideas. This
space will be equipped with “toys” (i.e. tools like 3D printing,
raspberry pi, etc.) and provide all with the opportunity to play
– another demonstration of our commitment to creativity and
critical thought.
10
Thinkshop
The Thinkshop is a 2-day course taught by our own facilitators
who are passionate about helping other teammates think more
critically, creatively solve problems, develop collaborative
environments, and shift paradigms of thought. You will find that
we will help you unlearn things you may have been taught at
other organizations and throughout your Navy indoctrination.
We believe part of our mission is helping leaders and teams
learn to challenge norms, learn faster, and improve daily. This
course is designed to do just that. In fact, this course was
incubated in our very own Makerspace and continues to be
delivered across the Fleet.

Innovation Cross-Functional Team (ICFT)
Our ICFT is made up of SMEs from across
the command who connect idea champions
with the right resources and coach you as you
pitch your idea to executive leadership. We
believe that anyone who has an idea and is
passionate enough to do the work necessary
to develop and test it should be heard at all
levels. We are committed to making good
ideas happen!
Success is born through iteration,
experimentation, and learning from things that
don’t work out quite as envisioned.
We create a safe environment where you are
encouraged to do all of that. Bring us your
ideas to innovation and we may fail fast so
that we can improve them and try again! You
are a valued and supported Idea Champion!
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Leadership
Agility
Every single member of our team improvises their way
through each day. Sure, some rules and guidelines are clearly
articulated, but most of what we do and say each day is
improvised because no two situations or interactions are exactly
the same. What if we could design training that could help us
communicate more effectively as teammates, creatively solve
more problems, and collaborate within and across teams in new
and exciting ways? We can… and we did!
Leadership Agility is a 3-hour team building course based on the
principles of improvisational theater, or improv. This interactive
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and exciting class is taught by a team of comedic actors and
is designed to train each attendee in 3 principle areas: always
making your partner look good; starting each sentence with,
“Yes, and...;” and listening—really listening—before reacting.
Leadership Agility helps remove “No” and “No, but...” from our
vocabulary, break down barriers, and reduces fears related to
public speaking and failure. Indeed, traits of a good improviser
are traits of a good human and teammate. So, be prepared to
unleash your inner improviser through this unique opportunity.
Rolling on the floor, being silly, and laughing until you cry is
encouraged!

DCO Tube
We are committed to leading well beyond our command
and creating partnerships with DCO teammates across the
Fleet. One of many ways we do this is through our DCO
Tube initiative. In the spirit of YouTube and Khan Academy,
we continue to develop videos that afford teammates
the opportunity to learn at their leisure and outside of the
classroom environment. We remain committed to using 21st
century practices to both strengthen and grow capability
across our team. We invite you to benefit from our existing
library and ask that you consider contributing to the cause by
adding a video of your own.
Fun is a Visible Priority
It should be obvious by now that we believe that fun at work is
a priority. In addition to the opportunities previously mentioned
and getting to use industry leading tools and technologies
on a daily basis, we also play games that help us study for
qualifications and learn about our capabilities, as well as
engage in “fun days” that help support charities and have
game tournaments.
13
“Great spirits have always
encountered violent
opposition from mediocre
minds.”
- Albert Einstein

Hiring
We make a deliberate effort to give passionate, creative team
players reason to join our team. And we leverage a 360 degree
hiring panel to ensure we select new teammates. That’s
right, we have juniors, peers, and seniors inform our decision
whether or not to make you part of our team. We don’t hire
new employees, we welcome new teammates. So please
know, we chose you and will look to you to help us recruit,
select, and retain true team players. We know all too well that
poor hiring decisions can undo many things and we aren’t
willing to accept risk in that department. We firmly believe you
are a good fit for us and are confident that our team is a good
fit for you.
Advertising
Although we cannot change the USAJOBS process of applying
for a government civilian position, we leverage social media
sites to advertise opportunities and allow the outside world
to occasionally benefit from a glimpse inside ours. We value
experiential and thought diversity and do our best to connect
with people who value the same. We have found it best to
communicate opportunity through a variance of channels
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beyond the traditional. We look forward to learning how you
found out about us and what gave you reason to want to join
our team.
Interview Panel
If you are a government civilian, your hiring panel was made up
of: A direct supervisor, a peer, a subordinate (if applicable), and
a member of our ICFT or Culture Club team. In our interviews,
we are looking for highly collaborative people who are skilled
in all things that are integral to high-bandwidth collaboration –
deconstructing problems while simultaneously being inventive,
iterative, creative, and bold.
We also look for people stronger than ourselves. We don’t hire
those who are simply useful, we hire those who are even more
capable than the incumbent so that we raise the bar of our
entire team with each new addition.
That is the value you bring to our team, and we will support you
in meeting your full potential.

Roles & Responsibilities
We all have our official job titles/billets that state our specific
duties and responsibilities. However, we also expect to wear
different hats and play various roles throughout the day,
depending on what we are doing at the time. In addition to
what your billet or position description specifies, we expect
you to:
Be a Critical Thinker – think critically about current
processes or programs; think of how we can make them
better.
Be a Creative Innovator – think creatively about how to
advance our technical capabilities and the talents of our
teammates.
Be a Problem Solver – identify problems and create
solutions.
Be a Culture Shaper – proactively shape the command
culture into a place that excites us about coming to work
every day.
15
Be “T-shaped” – be “highly skilled” at a broad set of valuable
things (horizontal top), and also an “expert” or among the best
in your field within your discipline (the vertical leg).
Be an Influential Leader – inspire others to reach their potential
and personally influence priorities not directly within your
control.
Be an Effective Communicator – present ideas, intentions,
expectations and challenges in a way that enhances shared
awareness and synchronize action.
Be a Doer!

Allowed To List
Many employees provide a set of rules meant to guide how they want
their employees to behave. Many of these rules tell us what NOT to do.
We, too, offer our own set of rules, but ours is an “Allowed To” list which
is meant to help lower the center of gravity of our team in every respect,
primarily when it comes to decision-making.
You are allowed to:
1. Make the decision you know to be right
2. Start something that needs to be started to help advance the cause
3. Participate and take a seat at the table while in a meeting
(don’t stand in the back of the room)
4. Ask for help whenever you want or need it
5. Mentor others whenever you can (even if they don’t ask for it)
6. Acknowledge your teammates for making a difference
7. Take time off to do something that inspires, excites and energizes you
As teammates, we are all expected to follow these rules and we are
expected to hold each other accountable to them. After all, if we didn’t
follow the rules… there would be mad chaos!
16
“Many of life’s failures are people
who did not realize how close
they were to success when they
gave up.”
- Thomas Edison

Reflections
As a learning organization, we need to know how we are
doing so that we may learn how to improve and be better.
We have our traditional evaluations, mid/annual performance
reviews, and rating exams. We also have a 360° Feedback
program.
360° Feedback
We all know about that office “suck-up” who seems to
act one way to the boss, yet, very differently towards their
peers, or even more different to their subordinates. The
360° program is an assessment from someone your senior,
junior, and peer groups in order to get a 360° perspective of
your development as a teammate and a leader on our team.
Remember your hiring panel? It’s a similar concept.
To be a leader here at NCDOC, you don’t have to be in
a position of authority. Simply choose to be a person of
influence and lead others on our team. The purpose of this
assessment is to gain a better understanding of how you
are developing based on inputs from a cross-section of your
teammates. It also affords us the opportunity to tailor our
investment in you and help you to grow as a teammate.
17
“The difficulty lies not so much
in developing new ideas
as in escaping from old ones”
- John Maynard Keyes

Continual Feedback
We thrive on continual feedback. We don’t need to wait until
mid-year or annual evaluations/surveys. We encourage you to
provide feedback throughout the year, no matter how long or
short your tenure is with us.
There are multiple ways we can receive that feedback: the
100-day Onboarding Survey, suggestion boxes, and Command
Quarters. Additionally, leverage the various associations
throughout the Command such as Junior Sailor Association,
First Class Petty Officers Association, Chief Petty Officer
Association, Wardroom and NCDOC’s Civilian Association.
Each and all of these mechanisms will get your concerns to the
appropriate team or to leadership.
We May Not Always Get It Right
We recognize that we may not always get it right. Heck, we
may even be downright wrong! But we seek every opportunity
to learn from our mistakes and identify ways to improve. We
also recognize that the philosophy and methods outlined in this
handbook may not match perfectly with how things are going
day to day. But we are confident that even when problems
persist, we will root them out…with your help!
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Make Your “Dent”
As you get acclimated to our team, you will notice that there
are teams within our team that exhibit the values expressed
in this handbook to varying degrees. If you find yourself on
a team that isn’t quite meeting these goals, be an agent of
change. Help influence the team and bring them around. It
is only when teammates like yourself stand up, are visibly
engaged and commit to the process of improvement that we
will realize our potential as a team.
If we execute our responsibilities properly, NCDOC will be a
very different organization a few years from now because of
YOU. We cannot wait to see where you will take us and what
kind of future you choose to build during your tenure with us.
We are great, YOU will make us even better!
We do our best to be successful in meeting our vision,
completing our mission and exhibiting learning organization
behavior. We will also do our part to enable you to be
successful as you attempt to make your dent. Consider
using the following questions as a means of measuring your
progress. We hope that at the end of the day, you are able to
answer “Yes” to each of them.

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Next Steps
Bring this handbook with you and be prepared to talk with
your sponsor, chain of command, and/or any member of the
NCDOC Team. More specific tools to facilitate your integration
within our team will be provided upon your arrival.
We look forward to welcoming you in person.
Notes:

This is a product of the NCDOC Culture of Learning Initiatives
and the 2017 Thinkshop Series.
All copyright images in this handbook are by Gapingvoid
www.gapingvoid.com
NCDOC
112 Lakeview Parkway, Suffolk, VA 23435
Watch Floor: 757-203-0911
www.navycyberwarriors.com
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