WASHINGTON: The defense official in charge of the Pentagon’s IT agency says his department wants help from industry to solve a handful of broad problems on everything from licensing deals to modernizing command and control systems.
The Defense Information Systems Agency recently changed its organizational design, moving from two main centers to four so the agency can “really get after the problems and the challenges ahead of us,” Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, director of DISA, said today at an AFCEA DISA luncheon.
Each center is focused on a specific priority outlined in DISA’s strategic plan: command and control, readiness and innovation, leveraging data as a center of gravity, harmonizing the user experience with cybersecurity and optimizing the workforce.
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DISA has also developed an internal action plan aligned to each strategic priority within its plan to “operationalize the lines of effort” going forward, according to Chris Barnhurst, DISA’s executive deputy director.
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And it needs help from those outside the government to deal with issues associated with each. Barnhurst said the agency is holding engagements with industry to support its priorities, starting last week with an engagement focused on C2. Another area on Skinner’s mind: licensing.
“We have too many different problem sets, too many different licenses and from a Department of Defense standpoint, we’re looking for best value when it comes to enterprise licenses, not 10 different bets and values within the same product that are actually different,” Skinner said. “And based on who you talk to, who you’re dealing with, you have a different price model and a different price point.”
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From a cloud standpoint, Skinner said industry can help ensure it’s providing the best value from a hybrid cloud approach through the next five to 10 years. Industry can also help DISA support command and control modernization and optimize its current systems as they’re being modernized through risk calculations.
Skinner hopes industry can lend a hand when it comes to its risk management framework so that DISA can leverage technology to “better understand on a day-to-day, second-to-second, minute-to-minute standpoint.”
“How do we truly get to a continuous ATO [authority to operate], continuous monitoring and making this less about an academic and administrative understanding and more about true operational readiness and operational risk?” Skinner said. “We don’t want to be risk averse, but also we don’t want to be risk reckless.”