Vision for the Enterprise CTO: Lessons from DNI Vision 2015

This note provides two lessons and a comment for enterprise chief technology officers that comes out of a new vision document from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

The DNI, Mike McConnell, just released Vision 2015, a vision for a globally networked and integrated intelligence enterprise.   This vision is for far more than just IT, but it has lessons for all enterprise technologists.

This document lays out a compelling, motivating vision for the future of one of the largest enterprises on the planet, the US Intelligence Community. Currently this enterprise is guided by a Director who exercises authority over its 17 major components and several smaller organs.  But those many parts also have other chains of command and frankly the enterprise is not optimized for mission success.   I’ve now read a vision, however, that I know will change the future.

This is not just an IT vision, which might be ignored by parts of the enterprise.  It is an enterprise vision. So, the first lesson I believe this vision has for enterprise CTOs:  life can be so much simpler if your boss releases a compelling, motivating vision for the entire enterprise.

The IT guys in the intelligence community clearly had input to this document.  Some smart techies wrote large sections of this, I can tell.  Here are a few paras from the vision:

QUOTE:

The end state will be seamless access to all intelligence information, tools and processes across multiple agencies and databases. Our information architecture will have to undergo a fundamental shift: from the multiple hub-and-spoke model of information collection, analysis, and dissemination based on specific discipline to a unified architecture designed around a common “cloud” (i.e., a distributed peering network) containing our information. This information infrastructure will allow authorized end-users to discover, access, and exploit data through a range of services, from federated query to integrated analytic tool suites.

Currently, each intelligence agency operates and maintains its own network and information infrastructure: power, cooling, circuits, switches, routers, databases, information management systems, data centers, security and enterprise systems management tools. By 2015, we will migrate to a common “cloud” based on a single backbone network and clusters of computers in scalable, distributed centers where data is stored, processed, and managed. The shared data centers will be unique facilities designed and located for access to communication and power supplies. The Intelligence Enterprise will benefit greatly from a more robust, secure, and effective means to organize, update and retrieve all of the information it collects. The centers will also allow experience and technologies employed across the Community to be leveraged, focusing scarce technical resources and reducing costs.

Over the last 20 years, the Intelligence Community has been challenged to keep pace with rapidly evolving information technology. Although a less-than-agile acquisition and procurement system has been part of the problem, the Intelligence Community is also undermined by its basic approach. If we are to maintain a technology edge, we must adopt an enterprise wide, service-oriented architecture that is interoperable with systems in other federal departments, and can share information with non-traditional partners. A service-oriented architecture provides a proven means to adapt new technologies while responding to changing user needs. By creating “software as a service,” this architecture reduces system complexity and deployment risks through a shared development style, uniform standards, and common interfaces. These services will enable a user-defined analytic environment through the use of composite applications – discrete services that can be pulled from a central library and dropped into a user-defined workspace.

The range of Enterprise-wide services that should be deployed by 2015 include communication services (e.g., common e-mail, directories, calendaring, and collaboration); data services (e.g., federated queries and searches, tagging, entity extraction, and storage); security services (e.g., single sign-on, access control, monitoring, and auditing); and analytic services (e.g.,portals, data mining, visualization, and modeling and simulation tools).

UNQUOTE

Something this vision does very very well is capture the IT components of the vision, which is very empowering for enterprise technologists. This points to what I believe is the second big lesson for enterprise technologists: CTOs should ensure their vision for the future makes it into the bosses vision.

And a closing thought:  To me the IT components of this vision were a very familiar read.  It is the same vision that was successfully accomplished under the leadership of Mike Pflueger and Mark Greer when they transformed the DIA and DoDIIS enterprise from 2004 to 2007 (I was honored to have been their student and their CTO).   They lead a team of us at DoDIIS HQ and throughout the global enterprise to consolidate the efforts of 11 major enterprises (and several smaller ones) into one strong globally networked intelligence enterprise.   In my entire career they are the only two people I met who I’ve seen accomplish this type of effort in government.

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