This report details the first phase of work undertaken to redesign the Defense Organizational Climate Survey (DEOCS). The DEOCS is a congressionally-mandated unit-level climate survey that provides commanders with unit-specific information on critical personnel topics so that they can take immediate steps to improve their command climate. In February 2018, responsibility for the DEOCS was transferred from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) to OPA, and we were charged to “revitalize and modernize the survey.” In an October 2019 Plan of Action and Milestones delivered to the Secretary of Defense, OPA outlined three action areas that would be addressed by our redesign: a new DEOCS administration platform, redesigned DEOCS content, and a new unit commander dashboard. In this report, we describe our efforts in the first phase of this redesign and provide the rationale, research, and analysis that guided our work across these action areas.