The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. government, the FBI, was forced

Question

The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. government, the FBI, was forced to scrap its $170 million virtual case file (VCF) management system. Official reports blamed numerous delays, cost overruns, and incompatible software. But a deeper examination of the cause of this failure uncovered issues of control, culture, and incompatible organizational systems. Among its many duties, the FBI is charged with the responsibility to fight crime and terrorism. To do so requires a large number of agents located within the Unites States and around the world. That means agents must be able to share information among themselves within the bureau, and with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. But sharing information has never been standard operating procedure for this agency. According to one source, “agents are accustomed to holding information close to their bulletproof vests and scorn the idea of sharing information.” This turned out to be a real problem in an investigation of DarkMarket, an Internet forum that connected buyers and sellers so that they could exchange stolen information such as bank details and credit card numbers. When both the FBI and Secret Service agents were investigating each other as criminals, it took their British colleagues, who knew the secrets of both agencies, to avert a crisis. Enter the FBI’s efforts to modernize its infrastructure, codenamed “Trilogy.” The efforts included providing agents with 30,000 desktop PCs, high-bandwidth networks to connect FBI locations around the world, and the VCF project to facilitate sharing of case information worldwide. The FBI Director explained to Congress that VCF would provide “an electronic means for agents to globally send field notes, documents, pieces of intelligence and other evidence so they could hopefully act faster on leads.” It was designed to replace a paper-intensive process with an electronic, Web-based process. With such a reasonable goal, why didn’t it work? The CIO of the FBI offered one explanation. He claimed that the FBI needed to change its culture. “If the Bureau is ever going to get the high-tech analysis and surveillance tools it needs to. . . fight terrorism, we must move from a decentralized amalgam of 56 field offices. . . to a seamlessly integrated global intelligence operation capable of sharing information and preventing crimes in real-time.” He added that they were also very distrustful of the technology, as well as others not only in other organizations, but also within the FBI. A former project manager at the FBI further explained, “They work under the idea that everything needs to be kept secret. But everything doesn’t have to be kept secret. To do this right, you have to share information.” The VCF system has been shut down, but the CIO is working on a new approach. He is busy trying to win buy-in from agents in the field so that the next case management system will work. In addition, he is working to establish a portfolio management plan that will cover all of the FBI’s IT projects, even those begun in decentralized offices. His team has been designing an enterprise architecture that will lay out standards for a bureau wide information system. The Director of the FBI has helped too. He reorganized the governance of IT, taking IT budget control away from the districts and giving total IT budget authority to the CIO. The FBI is building a new case management system called Sentinel in four phases. The first two phases have been deployed and, according to the Federal IT dashboard, the project is on schedule and on budget. The new system, according to the CIO, will include workflow, document management, record management, audit trails, access control, and single sign-on. It will provide enhanced information sharing, search, and analysis capabilities to FBI agents and also facilitate information sharing with members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities. To manage the expectations of the agents, the CIO plans to communicate often and significantly increase the training program for the new system. The CIO commented, “We want to automate those things that are the most manually cumbersome for the agents so they can see that technology can actually enhance their productivity. That is how to change their attitudes.”

PLEASE WRITE SUMMARY AND ANSWER ALL 4 QUESTIONS:

1.What do you think were the real reasons why the VCF system failed?

2.What were points of alignment and misalignment between the information system strategy and the FBI organization?

3.What do you think of the CIOs finalk comment about how to change attitudes? Do you think it will work? Why or Why not?

4.If you were the CIO, what would you do to help the FBI modernize and make better use of this information technology?

Explanation / Answer

Summary

The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. government, the FBI, was forced to scrap its $170 million virtual case file (VCF) management system. Cause of this failure was numerous delays, cost overruns, and incompatible software, uncovered issues of control, culture, and incompatible organizational systems. Among their many duties , FBI is charged with the responsibility to fight crime and terrorism. To do so they need many agents around the world. Also FBI agents are working with other agencies and they are sharing information. This leads to lose of information and both the FBI and Secret Service agents were investigating each other as criminals.

This leads to modernise the infrastructure , code named "Trilogy" and provide agents worldwide 30000desktop PC's and high band width network connections in FBI locations.

The VCF system has been shut down, but the CIO is working on a new approach. He is busy trying to win buy-in from agents in the field. His team has been designing an enterprise architecture that will lay out standards for a bureau wide information system. The Director of the FBI has helped too. He reorganized the governance of IT, taking IT budget control away from the districts and giving total IT budget authority to the CIO. The FBI is building a new case management system called Sentinel in four phases. The first two phases have been deployed on scheduled and budget. The new system will include workflow, document management, record management, audit trails, access control, and single sign-on. New system will provide enhanced information sharing, search, and analysis capabilities to FBI agents and also facilitate information sharing with members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities. Also CIO is planning to provide training to all. CIO is expecting that reduce manual work of the agents and they see that technology can actually enhance their productivity.

1.What do you think were the real reasons why the VCF system failed?

Incompatible organizational systems and incompatible software are the first reason, These cause uncovered issues of control and the loss of information like such as bank details and credit card numbers etc.

Another reason is agents must be able to share information among themselves within the bureau, and with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. If there is loss of information, When both the FBI and Secret Service agents were investigating each other as criminals. This may lead them to work properly cause for numerous delay.

cost overruns is the other issue , since it need a high budget to run FBI with agents all over the world

2. What were points of alignment and misalignment between the information system strategy and the FBI organization?

The alignment I can see is, FBI is working with other agencies and share information each other. SO they can get a good result against to fight crime and terrorism.

But incompatible organizational systems and incompatible software are the misalignments which lead to uncovered issues of control and the loss of information.

3.What do you think of the CIOs final comment about how to change attitudes? Do you think it will work? Why or Why not?

That is a good approach. CIO is working on a new approach. He is busy trying to win buy-in from agents in the field so that the next case management system will work. In addition, he is working to establish a portfolio management plan that will cover all of the FBI’s IT projects. He want to automate things that are the most manually heavy for the agents.so agents can see that technology can actually enhance their productivity.

4.If you were the CIO, what would you do to help the FBI modernize and make better use of this information technology?

Try to improve the system by providing a more compatible software that will share information properly and track them. Information will be secured. So loss of information will be in control. This leads to increase the confidence of the agents and uncovered issue of control. Also will the try to reduce the over head of the agents. Also provide training to all about the new system.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.