DoD photo by Master Sgt. Ken Hammond, U.S. Air Force (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons
DoD’s JIE Obstructed by Service Incompatibilities
The Department of Defense’s effort to transform its service-centric IT systems into an integrated enterprise network may struggle to take form until underlying challenges are addressed.
The Department of Defense’s effort to transform its service-centric IT systems into an integrated enterprise network, the Joint Information Environment, may struggle to take form until underlying challenges are addressed. A new Government Business Council and Verizon survey study found that senior DoD employees are not convinced of the JIE’s basic value, identify significant structural hurdles to implementation, and doubt it will be implemented before its stated deadline.
Less than half of the survey’s 305 respondents agree that the JIE’s fundamental concept of integrating disparate, service-specific systems will increase mission effectiveness.
Senior DoD employees reveal that the most significant hurdles to implementation concern incompatibilities among the service branches and out-of-date modes of thinking.
Given their misgivings, it is then perhaps unsurprising that senior DoD employees seriously doubt that the JIE will be implemented by its deadline. More than three quarters (77%) are slightly or not at all confident it will be completed by its FY 2018 deadline.
Though respondents do pick out certain benefits of the JIE elsewhere in the GBC survey, the survey’s overall verdict for the JIE is anything but positive. The lack of understanding of the value the JIE offers is particularly concerning because the JIE is seen by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey and other top Pentagon leaders as one of the key first steps towards Joint Force 2020. Joint Force 2020 is the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s vision for a more unified military structure that emphasizes “globally integrated operations” and adaptability in the face of uncertainty and complexity as paramount. The JIE is designed to be a foundational enabler of this agile joint force.
Convincing senior DoD employees of the value of the JIE is therefore not just important for developing more streamlined IT networks, it could be integral to realizing the Pentagon’s strategic vision for the future of the military.
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