For Want of a Nail
Government and business IT's most important new challenge couldn't be more clear
by Justin Kestelyn
Stovepiped information systems are the bane of businesses worldwide. But until the Sept. 11th
terrorist attacks, nobody could have called them a threat to U.S. national security.
Last Feb. 26, a panel of federal agency CIOs and representatives from enterprise software
companies and integrators did exactly that in testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement. This testimony, some of which I will synopsize here, is
fascinating for its success in linking a rather mundane IT problem (from a technology perspective,
anyway) to a great human tragedy. It is also interesting for its eloquent articulation of challenges
that are universal across government agencies and private companies alike.
According to a briefing memorandum, the purpose of the hearing, which carried the serpentine
title "Helping Federal Agencies Meet Their Homeland Security Missions: How Private Sector Solutions
Can Be Applied to Public Sector Problems," was to "assess the status of the programmatic challenges,
management issues, and technology acquisitions faced by agencies" as they fight terrorism. The memo
observes: "In this war, our enemies are hiding in open and available information across a spectrum
of databases and through stovepipes of knowledge."
Choice Testimony
Although some of this testimony merits a healthy dose of salt — several of the companies involved
could benefit directly from an all-out federal government assault on information
compartmentalization — their analyses have a sound foundation. Here are some highlights (full text
is available online at
www.house.gov/reform/
tapps/hearings.htm):
- In the most dramatic testimony, Siebel Systems Inc. chairman and CEO Tom Siebel proposed that
had "information coordination" technology been properly in place before Sept. 11, "there may have
been a different outcome." Siebel presented a timeline of real events pertaining to the preattack
activities of the hijackers that, had they been aggregated in a network-based case record, could
have helped agencies identify and prevent the threat involved. Instead, these events were each
recorded in isolation by mutually exclusive information systems.
- Anne Altman, managing director for IBM's federal business, suggested a parallel between the
government's plight and corporate development at her company. According to Altman, until IBM rebuilt
its global IT infrastructure in the mid-1990s, "there was no point of integration that brought
[IBM's] vast resources together on the customer's behalf." Furthermore, she registered concern that
"some agencies are placing a strong emphasis on short term, niche solutions and exotic technologies"
rather than open standards and software — the latter being the "only way" to make heterogeneous
systems connect and integrate, "period."
- Stephen Rohleder, Accenture managing partner for the U.S. government market, made a proposal
that CIOs everywhere should heed: the establishment of a Homeland Security program management office
that would align policy objectives with technology initiatives, define communications infrastructure
among all stakeholders, and ensure proper organizational design and the presence of optimal skill
sets. According to Rohleder, the challenges are as much institutional as technological.
- Patrick Schambach of the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose three-headed
title — associate undersecretary, CIO, and CTO — suggests a worrisome lack of resources (and lack of
sleep), encapsulated hours of testimony with the statement: "Even when there is a recognized value
in sharing, the simple fact is that many of our systems do not talk to one another." His answer for
TSA would be a scalable, extensible enterprise portal application with CRM capabilities that marries
"business processes and security operations with technology resources." Who says the government
doesn't get it?
Open Up
The challenge before the government is a great case study that we have the privilege of watching
unfold in full public view. The stakes are much higher than yours, but the game is the same: Open
those stovepipes, or suffer the consequences.
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