Transformation Framework: Application - Technology Accelerators

Technology is inherent to the performance of the IC and, with or without disciplined people, thought, and action, will remain a central means by which it delivers products and services to our customer base. Nevertheless, the IC should take still greater care to ensure the technology we invest in directly aligns to and accelerates our HC. To the extent particular technology platforms or tools do not inherently benefit the HC we should seek only parity or, perhaps, not pursue competence at all it that area. Still other areas may emerge that are inherently important to the HC but are underdeveloped. In that case the IC would need to invest heavily to build a technology accelerator.

With this in mind, we should highlight a few areas representing apt technology accelerators. One example is the host of national ‘non-air-breathing’ (e.g. satellites) and theater ‘air-breathing’ (e.g. unmanned aerial vehicle) collection platforms. Each of these fundamentally increase the scope of the IC’s ability to discover the composition, disposition, and intent of foreign threats. That is, in the context of our draft HC and enterprise intelligence process, each collection platform accelerates collection, processing, and dissemination, directly increasing the clarity of the issues it is able to collect upon. It is worth noting that neither of these technology families were created by a single dramatic technological event. Rather, they represent continuously improved sophistication and effectiveness in providing products and services to key customers. Similarly, the disciplined people, thought, and action that complement the technological capability of this constellation are more important than the technology itself. In short, these platforms accelerate an already disciplined set of people and processes, creating wider and deeper clarity for policymakers, customers, and consumers.

A second example is Analytical Transformation (AT). AT is an ongoing effort led by the ODNI and executed by a number of agencies acting as Executive Agents for particular programs or capabilities. Not all AT efforts are technology-related. However, those that are include A-Space, Intelligence Community Data Layer (ICDL), Catalyst, and Library of National Intelligence (LNI). The maturity and capability of each platform is still maturing. That being said, each is roughly defined by the following descriptions. A-Space represents a central online collaboration space where analysts across the community can form, debate, and finish arguments that pertain to intelligence issues. ICDL represents a single, or perhaps federated, repository for all intelligence data in the IC. Catalyst, which is in earlier still architecture and design phases, represents a series of precise searches which locate, disambiguate, correlate, and present data to an analyst on a particular issue. Finally, LNI represents a central authoritative community record of all disseminated intelligence products or documents.

The collective capability of AT technology platforms represents one of the few accelerators outside the collection domain. More specifically, AT was initiated as a strategic program specifically for its direct alignment to the IC’s would-be HC. The value proposition of the four combined technologies is in increasing the speed and quality of intelligence analysis by making all intelligence data available to analysts (ICDL), dramatically reducing the time required to gather and present data to analysts (Catalyst), providing a single effective means of collaborating, debating, structuring argumentation, developing analytical judgments (A-Space), and cataloging all formally-disseminated products (LNI). As such, AT technology platforms align to a would-be HC because they inherently increase the speed, depth, and accuracy (performance) of the analysis (product, service) that creates issue clarity (output) for policymakers (customer base).

Two other notes are instructive about AT, indicating ways in which AT platforms were selected and are being executed. First, the majority of discussions pertaining to A-Space and related platforms do not pertain to particular technology tools per se. Certainly detailed discussions take place regarding the relative merit of a general capability (e.g. RSS feeds, chat) a particular software application (e.g. Share Point), or emerging capability like ‘web 2.0’ phenomenon. However, these discussions are increasingly placed in full context of, and normally follow, understanding of the intelligence analysis process and what performance output must be generated for a customer. That is, the point of AT is not the set of technology tools associated with it. Rather, it is the ability of the set of people, process, and technology to enable fundamentally higher performance than current methods.

The second observation is less positive, but has been realized and is also being addressed by ODNI government representatives, staff support, and contractors. In the fervor of post-9/11 congressional attention, the turnover of a first-generation DNI, and a spirit of urgency and optimism, AT technology platforms were initiated without a clear and fully developed architecture and program design. As such, the would-be architectural approach that ensures the people, process, technology, and infrastructure being suffered a somewhat fitful start. Realizing this as a key lesson in a relatively low cost, high impact area, ODNI government and contractor staff are working diligently to develop a disciplined business and technology design and architecture before building more than an Initial Operating Capability. Here, the key lesson for transformation appears to be that there are consequences for not taking a disciplined approach before execution. This tends to be a pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later proposition. Similarly, it takes a good deal of moral courage, managerial experience, and business and technical acumen for government officials to assure executives and, at times, congressional overseers, that a slower, prudent approach is wise. Often both can be more zealous for results and progress than performance.

These two examples represent apt applications of a technology accelerator. However, there are a larger number of less successful, less disciplined technology initiatives. Based on a host of anecdotal observations and nearly one hundred conversations with various defense and intelligence contractor and government personnel, the IC’s technology problems are not so much a technology selection problem as they are a manifestation of underdeveloped government human capital which appears to lack the design, implementation, and management experience to successfully implement and maintain the information technology that has become the foundation of the IC’s mission and business models. More specifically, the apparent weakness of the IC’s approach to information technology implementation, and integration of information technology at the enterprise level, indicates underlying issues related to the depth and strength of the government’s human capital. In short, there appears to be a trend of technology and technology infrastructure programs that lack a disciplined people, thought, and action. More specifically, increasing government ownership of the design, management, integration, and maintenance of technology and information technology would dramatically improved by implementing the aforementioned transformation recommendations. That being said, it would also require wholesale improvement of the skills, knowledge, training, and placement of employees and managers in the IC’s information technology domain.

Many, if not most, of the complex and sophisticated designs for technology and technology infrastructure are built by contractors supporting the IC. Unfortunately, people in a supporting role can only perform to a certain level. First, they are necessarily separated from broad and deep mission-related knowledge that would, ideally, provide the greatest context for their implementations. This knowledge and background would simply better align any contract to a service, enterprise output, and the HC. Second, corresponding government management and executives are typically unaware, untrained, and unpracticed in the business and technology frameworks that would allow them to lead and drive, not merely follow and approve contractor designs and actions. The current state of many information technology programs involves a large cadre of contractors attempting to implement a technology accelerator but without the corresponding depth, decisiveness, and involvement required from government sponsors, executives, and managers to supersede inevitable organizational uncertainty and resistance. That is by not playing, and in some cases not being able to play, a major role in designing, executing, and communicating the plan for performance-justified changes, the government often perpetuates rather than breaks through change resistance.

Similarly, it seems typically difficult to implement technology and information technology with the enterprise in mind. This appears to be the culmination of many of the elements of transformation this thesis has addressed. More specifically, absent a discipline set of executives and managers, a well-developed enterprise, business, and technical baseline, and crystalline central measure that define enterprise performance, it is difficult to build architecture and select technology tools that fundamentally improve performance. As such, contractors are commonly forced to design, develop, implement, and discover the intricacies of the government’s infrastructure simultaneously, even being urged to begin and complete development without the benefit of or requirement for them to provide their own design and plan that will drive development and implementation.

Naturally, this decreases the quality and speed of technology insertion and fundamentally increases the cost and risk of corresponding programs. In short, the lack of a corps of disciplined managers and leaders trained and practiced in the design, development, and implementation of technology and information technology, as well as the lack of a disciplined approach that leverages proven frameworks and links technology to a central enterprise or organizational outcome, systematically erodes value.

Instead of creating a Flywheel Effect a Doom Loop is more evident. Once a technology capability is (expensively and slowly) delivered it is then maintained by the same (or another) contractor. This compounds cost leaving not only the design, development, and implementation phases outside the scope of the IC’s core competent, but maintenance of information technology as well. This leaves the entire information technology life-cycle effectively outside the scope of government expertise if not control as well. This seems to be distinctly out of balance considering technology and information technology are both inherently important to the IC’s mission and because they represent such a substantial portion of the IC’s annual budget.

In summary, we merely underscore the supreme importance that disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action for transforming towards a high-performing enterprise. The symptoms we have described related to technology accelerators serve as indicators that a number of foundational capabilities that underpin the disciplined execution warrant considerable improvement. Even if this is not the case, the same transformation steps and corresponding recommendations specific to the IC would help transform and continuously improve the IC.