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23 March 2006

The billion dollar question

Last week, an article in the New York Times reported on the newest developments in a decade-long struggle to modernize the F.B.I. computer system (“Cost Concerns for F.B.I. Computer Overhaul", March 14, 2006). Citing a Justice Department report, it says that the overhaul will likely cost “another half-billion dollars to complete". The same amount has already been spent: After the report by the 9/11 commission revealed that the antiquated computer system might have played a part in the intelligence gaps before 9/11, the F.B.I. reacted by devoting $535 million to its Trilogy Program, a network “designed to provide all FBI offices with better organization, access and analysis of information" (F.B.I. press release). So far, the results have been less than satisfactory: Its core component, a case management system (known as Virtual Case File system), collapsed under technical difficulties and was abandoned by the F.B.I. after it had spent $170 million on it. And a few days ago, an audit by the GAO revealed that the F.B.I. and its contractors spent more than $17 million on “questionable payments" (Washington Post, March 18, 2006). Now, the F.B.I. plans to spend $425 million on a new case management system, partly with the same contractors, named Sentinel.

What puzzled me was a statement by the inspector general’s office of the Justice Department quoted in the Times saying that they were unsure whether the new system, “even if successful, would allow the bureau to share information adequately with other intelligence and law enforcement agencies". The lack of information sharing was one of the main issues pointed out by the 9/11 commission, and yet, after investing a billion dollars, information sharing is not built into the system. It seems to me that the project would benefit enormously from the insights organizational researchers have into information networks. For example, my research shows that large IT projects that start off with an exploration of informational needs are more successful in the “exploitation", or implementation phase. Rather than focusing solely on network technology, the F.B.I. should devote some resources to finding out who needs to talk to whom. Have researchers conduct interviews, run focus groups, maybe even do an ethnography to identify the information network, then build the computer network to support it.

Posted by Maria Binz-Scharf at March 23, 2006 8:28 PM

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