| Dan
Porter, is Chief Information Office at the U.S. Department of
Navy.
WTOP:
Transforming government is a big challenge. Agencies have
a good handle on getting themselves online. What are the management
challenges now?
PORTER:
Transformation, as you know, is a big agenda item, not only
for the public sector, but the private sector CIO as well.
It's really at the heart of the President's management agenda
for the public sector. And it really is synonymous with process
reengineering; seeking to redefine how goods and
services are delivered with emphatically better results in
terms of quality, timeliness and cost. ransformation really
is about personal change and adapting. And for CIOs, large-scale
change-management strategies are what it's all about. And
that is always the hardest part.
WTOP:
What do you mean by large scale?
PORTER:
One of the things that we've been able to do [in terms of]
large-scale change-management strategies [is that] we have
recently established an electronic business operations office
located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. We're really excited
about the potential of that office to help us with our change
management strategy. It's an innovation center - the only
one I know of within the federal government - conceived as
a catalyst and amplifier for accelerating our programs across
the board. Enabling us to move ideas from the design desk
to the desktop quickly.
WTOP:
That sounds like private sector stuff. What specifically is
going on
up there?
PORTER:
The scope of the effort is really intentionally broad. It
assists Navy and Marine Corps local commands across a wide
variety of war fighting, war fighting support and routine
day-to-day business functions and activities. But the unifying
theme is moving the Department from paper to plastic, as we
like to say. Eliminating steps, removing forms and paper work,
and replacing them with Web enabled, self-service transactions
often using Smart Card technology. Hence our reference to
"plastic". In fact I just hosted a visit to the
innovation center with our Undersecretary of the Navy, Susan
Livingston, and Mark Forman, associate director for IT at
OMB.
WTOP:
And what was their reaction?
PORTER:
I think they were both really excited by both the potential
and the reality of what's actually been happening up there.
They've got three groups. One is a consulting group which
is constantly researching best practices and innovation, maintaining
a catalog of relevant government and industry initiatives
so that we can benefit from the inventiveness of others and
prevent duplication. We've got a demonstration team up there
which is kind of a road team. They visit our local commands
across the country. Within a period of weeks, they help the
local command build a live Web demonstration with the look
and feel meant to whet the appetite of their leadership and
demonstrate sort of the art of the impossible. And finally,
we have a pilot project group which funds and oversees initiatives
that are conceived, proposed and conducted by the local commands.
But it's all about "kick-start innovation." The
idea with these things is what we call "hundred day wonders".
Basically, everything done on very aggressive schedules on
Internet time. Last year we did eight projects all done within
a three to six month venue. This year, we're planning to do
25 more.
WTOP:
What kind of talent did you seed this innovation center with?
Is it
some of the younger IT talent?
PORTER:
As a matter of fact, it is. We found a group of youngsters
that was very adept at the Web and Web services and Web strategies.
We sent them to Cambridge, to MIT to really get up to speed
on the things that are going on there in the media lab and
at some of the surrounding private sector companies, so they
would have a skill set that was very much in demand. They
could then apply that skill set in helping some of our local
commands. One of the fun pilots that we just finished - and
I think that really typifies the vision and potential for
this kind of a concept - is something that was done at the
Naval Medical Center in San Diego. It's called "medical
appointments on the Web". It was proposed to streamline
the back-office process of scheduling specialist appointments
as a follow-up to general practitioner referral. Based on
successful completion and deployment, the collection of the
Army, Navy and Air Force Surgeon Generals have selected this
effort for follow-on funding and plan to implement it across
all of the Department of Defense, avoiding almost $18 million
in costs associated with the competing proposal. So it's that
kind of an aggressive and exciting pilot that we've got underway.
We have them underway in maintenance, supply and personnel
support, engineering and training.
WTOP:
Where did you find the funding for this innovation center?
Obviously you had to work on this back time.
PORTER:
Actually, it was conceived of about two years ago. Our CFO,
the Assistant Secretary for Financial Management, was really
excited, as well as the Secretary, who actually is the chartering
authority for this particular office. That's why it's got
such a broad charter across the Navy and Marine Corps. We
put some seed money in the first year just to get it rolling.
This year is really the first year it's been operating. So
it's really just this fiscal year.
WTOP:
Are there other pilot programs?
PORTER:
Again, we just finished eight in this last fiscal year. We
just initiated 14 more this year. One of them is RF tags.
A big issue inside the maintenance community is that very
expensive gearboxes or engines are placed inside of containers.
Sometimes the seals on those containers don't match up quite
properly. Humidity can creep in there and can actually do
a lot of damage to some of these very sophisticated and expensive
components. One of the things that they've established is
containers that report on their own condition. They use RF
technology and can actually communicate with individuals over
their PDAs and actually tell the maintenance specialist exactly
how it's doing. We've got other ones in helping people move.
Obviously, relocation is a big thing in the Department. We've
been able to take arranging household goods shipments and
move that to the Web.
WTOP:
As I said, it sounds a lot like private sector. Is this kind
of Internet time work and development inside the government
widely known in the IT community?
PORTER:
I don't think it's as widely known as it should be. One of
the things that Mark Forman was pretty excited about was one
of the elements of our consulting group. Something we put
together up there called a "clearinghouse for ideas".
So ideas that are generated inside the Department can be tracked
and monitored, and basically we can connect and share both
inside the Department and outside. We've also begun to collect
ideas that are in areas that the Navy is interested in that
are actually happening in the private sector. I think that's
the kind of capability that will make this more widely known
than it is today. And of course, the opportunity to talk on
the air with you about it.
WTOP:
Things like this RF technology that you mentioned; is this
basically
taking off the shelf products and finding a way to use them
for your specific
needs?
PORTER:
I think that's one of the things that we've tried to make
a core competency. I think in the past, we've tried to invent
these things ourselves. Hence, they've had very long timelines.
Very long maturation processes and testing processes. And
either the technology moves on, or management loses interest
because the problem it wanted to solve is behind us and we
have new problems that we're faced with. So that's the idea
behind "a hundred days". Somebody's identified there's
a problem. We're going to validate that it really is a problem.
We're going to put in place a discipline about how we think
about our portfolio and problem solving and what the priorities
are. And then go solve the problem. So generally, that requires
that you use off the shelf kinds of technologies and it makes
the task much more one of integration than it is one of invention.
WTOP:
What are your other priorities?
PORTER:
First and foremost, as you know, we [recently] contracted
for the $6.9 billion Navy/Marine Corps Intranet. It is under
way in terms of testing. We had rolled out about 50 thousand
seats through this first year and a half. They have been going
through a rigorous test period which is coming to culmination
in the next month or so. We'll be reporting that out to the
office of the Secretary of Defense and to OMB. So, first and
foremost is completing the test program so that we can continue
to order and roll out additional seats. Beyond that, web-ification
of our application and data bases so that we can effectively
use that Intranet. Reduction of some of our legacy application
and database holdings. Particularly the ones that are not
authoritative or are redundant in some way. Knowledge management
and sharing, and collaboration and wireless technology. How
to effectively use wireless and ensure that it's safe and
secure when we do make it integral to our business process.
WTOP:
Just to refresh peoples' memories. That Intranet thing is
$6.9 billion
because we're talking about a lot more than just linking a
few cubicles. Your Intranet will affect people on ships and
around the world.
PORTER:
It was really one of the few that I know of in the public
sector where we dealt with really, truly creating an enterprise
architecture. So it's six network operations centers, which
are distributed across the country. It's all of the wide-area
transport that moves all of the databases around from all
of our server farms. It's 500,000 desktops and all the computer
hardware and software associated with those desktops. An integral,
very sophisticated, security architecture to protect our intellectual
capital as it moves across the entire organization. And then,
of course, the connection to two other initiatives. Our initiatives
where outside of the continental United States we are also
expanding that Wide Area Network connection. And another initiative
where we are afloat; improving the capability and capacity
of all of our ships at sea.
WTOP:
Again, you're at 50 thousand our of how many?
PORTER:
50 thousand out of just shy of 500,000. So about a tenth of
the population is going through the test.
WTOP:
Anything you want to add?
PORTER:
I wanted to focus mostly on the idea of transformation
and
transformation of a portfolio. And one with the Department
of Navy is an
enterprise of size and scope that really does put a lot of
demands on trying
to transform that portfolio. But we think that with our culture
of
creativity, we've made some pretty good strides in that direction.
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