Directed Independent Study

UNF Cyber Team Readiness and Process Analysis

Independent study project | 2025 | Jacksonville, FL

Overview

In this directed independent study, I analyzed UNF Cyber Team performance to identify practical ways to improve preparation, execution, and outcomes in collegiate cybersecurity competitions. Working independently with weekly faculty guidance from Professor J. Scott Kelly, I examined the team's current processes, documented training and workflow gaps, and translated those findings into actionable recommendations.

Why It Matters

Cybersecurity competition teams often depend heavily on informal knowledge transfer, a small number of highly prepared members, and limited structured practice time. That makes performance inconsistent and makes it difficult to retain what the team learns from one season to the next.

I wanted to examine those issues as system and process problems rather than treating them only as outcomes of individual effort. This project matters because it focuses on how preparation is organized, how readiness is assessed, how work is coordinated during competition, and how operational knowledge is retained across seasons. Those factors affect both immediate competition performance and the long-term health of the program.

My Role

I independently carried out this directed independent study, including the research, analysis, writing, and development of the project deliverables. I met with my faculty advisor weekly to provide progress updates and receive feedback, but I was responsible for the study work itself.

Research and Analysis Approach

The project was structured around a current-state and future-state analysis.

The first phase examined how the team currently prepares, practices, and operates during competitions. This included identifying recurring weaknesses in readiness, workflow discipline, simulation frequency, and knowledge continuity.

The second phase translated those findings into a future-state model with concrete recommendations for improving readiness, leadership continuity, training realism, and operational structure. These recommendations were developed with practical constraints in mind and were aimed at improvements that could be made realistically within the team environment.

The third phase, which is still in progress, extends the study into curriculum design by outlining a possible penetration testing course and evaluating what should be added, changed, or removed relative to existing coursework.

Deliverables

Deliverable 1: Current-State Analysis

The first deliverable focused on documenting how the team currently prepares for competitions and how it functions during them. This phase established the baseline for the project by identifying recurring issues in training frequency, mock competition exposure, readiness depth, workflow consistency, and operational execution under pressure.

Deliverable 2: Future-State Model and Recommendations

The second deliverable built on the first by proposing a stronger operating model for the team. It focused on long-term continuity, improved readiness standards, better workflow structure during competition, clearer role expectations, more realistic simulation-based practice, and stronger documentation and change-control discipline.

Deliverable 3: Penetration Testing Course Outline (In Progress)

This deliverable is focused on developing a class outline that examines what should be added, changed, or removed relative to current coursework and syllabus structure.

Key Findings

The first phase of the study showed that preparation was limited in both frequency and depth, with readiness concentrated in a relatively small portion of the team. It also identified weak points in competition workflow, including coordination, response and recovery practice, change tracking, prioritization under pressure, and broader operational consistency across members.

A broader issue was continuity. Important experience and working knowledge were not always retained effectively across semesters, which made it harder for the team to build on prior lessons instead of relearning them each cycle.

Taken together, these findings suggested that stronger performance would require more than additional effort. It would require clearer structure, more deliberate training design, and better knowledge retention across the organization.

Proposed Improvements

The future-state model recommends a more continuous and structured approach to team development.

Key areas of improvement include:

• stronger year-round continuity rather than seasonal reset behavior
• more realistic and more frequent simulation-based practice
• clearer operational roles during competition
• better readiness expectations and checkpoints
• stronger documentation and change-control discipline
• improved handling of injects, prioritization, and coordination under pressure
• more deliberate leadership and governance structure to support long-term stability

These recommendations were designed to be practical and to improve how the team trains and operates without relying on unrealistic assumptions.

Current Status

Deliverables 1 and 2 are complete. Deliverable 3 is still in progress and will be added after the course-outline portion has been reviewed and finalized.

At this stage, the project includes a completed current-state analysis and a developed future-state recommendation model, with the final deliverable extending that work into curriculum planning.

Artifacts and Supporting Material

This page will later include supporting artifacts from the completed deliverables, such as charts, process diagrams, selected findings, recommendation summaries, and other materials that help show how the analysis was performed and how the proposed model was developed.

Related Experience

This study connects closely to my work in cybersecurity competitions, process analysis, and technical team improvement. It also reflects a broader interest in designing systems that are not only technically capable, but also sustainable, documented, and resilient over time.

View UNF Cyber Security Team Experience