NSTAC/NCOIC/CSIS/NDIA/Markle/RAND/IAC/CIO Council Tyrannical Overlords

[Anti_Illuminati]

http://www.ncs.gov/nstac/may2000/nsatc_subcomit_may2002.html


NSTAC XXIII Meeting - May 2000

Industry Executive Subcommittee Report to the President's NSTAC.
Remarks of Guy Copeland, Industry Executive Subcommittee Working Group Chairman, the President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), before the NSTAC Business Session, Colorado Springs, Colorado May 16, 2000.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman [Van B. Honeycutt] and good morning ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to brief you on the work of your Industry Executive Subcommittee from this past NSTAC cycle. We have been busy this past year. Major key issue areas continued from previous cycles representing an important and significant work in progress level of effort.

During this presentation, I’d like to present a high-level overview of our activities since the last NSTAC XXII meeting and highlight the recommendations to the President in the reports you recently approved. I will also note some of the issues and activities that continue to call for NSTAC attention and participation.

Before addressing these key issues and activities, I’d like to acknowledge the contributions of the IES members and their industry and government colleagues this past cycle. In addition to the IES members shown on this slide [slide not available], there are many other contributors to our work from both the public and private sectors.

Each report to NSTAC XXIII contains a complete list of the members and participants who contributed to the work this cycle. We couldn’t have completed this work without their commitments and contributions. Perhaps just as important to the success of your NSTAC, as are the formal reports, is the participation of your Industry Executive Subcommittee and other representatives in various forums NSTAC is addressing.

The nature and extent of IES work has changed dramatically in the last few cycles. We have continued our longstanding partnerships with key organizations, including the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications [NCC] and the Network Security Information Exchange(s) [NSIEs].

In addition, NSTAC member representatives have responded to an unprecedented number of Government requests to participate and share information with such important fora as the Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security, a cross-sector coordinating effort for which Mr. Richard Clarke of the National Security Council and Mr. John Tritak of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office deserve credit.

Also, the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office itself. The President’s Council on Year 2000 convergence, the National Infrastructure Protection Center led by Mr. Mike Vatis, the Education and Awareness Committee so ably chaired by the Department of Commerce. The efforts of the three Information and Communication Sector Coordinators, the Information Technology Association of America [ITAA], the United States Telecom Association [USTA], and the Telecommunications Industry Association [TIA].

The Cyber-Citizen Partnership Initiative with the Department of Justice which has Attorney General Janet Reno’s personal attention started in NSTAC sponsored by Government and industry donations and managed now by the Information Technology Association of America. The partnership has early initiatives aimed at cyber ethics education for young people, an information security resources directory, and a Government-industry exchange program.

The Security, Privacy and Infrastructure Committee of the Federal Chief Information Officer Council, co-chaired by Mr. Fernando Burbano of the Department of State, Mr. John Gilligan of the Department of Energy, and Mr. Roger Baker of the Department of Commerce, and numerous other industry and Government organized fora and initiatives such as the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Reliability and Interoperability Council and the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service User Council, and most recently, the United States Space Command.

In response to the dramatic changes expected of the IES, we held a facilitative brainstorming and team building session in Denver, Colorado in August of 1999. Mr. John Lofstedt, the IES representative from US WEST, volunteered to lead the team effort. Dr. Anthony Ypsaro of Meridian Associates in Denver ably met the challenge of facilitating our rather eclectic group.

At the off-site meeting we affirmed this vision and focused on prioritizing the work this cycle so we could continue to provide the President advice on National Security and Emergency Preparedness issues or NS/EP issues surrounding the telecommunications and related information systems marketplace today.

After the off-site, Dr. Ypsaro, supported by the Office of the Manager of the National Communications System continued to help as our conscience and guide. I’d like to thank the companies and the representatives that made a special effort to contribute to improving the IES and prioritizing our focus.

Based on our off-site meeting and follow-on discussions, we focused on the following key issue areas this past cycle: Network security, the impact of network convergence on NS/EP, globalization and Information Sharing for critical infrastructure protection initiatives. A common thread ties each of these issues together. They each pose numerous challenges to industry and Government decision-makers as they adapt to rapid changes in networks, technologies, globalization and the role of e-commerce. The NSTAC reports address those challenges particularly as they pertain to NS/EP communications and related information systems.

This cycle, the IES began the study of the focus of Government efforts to enhance the security of the Nation’s telecommunications and information technology systems that support NS/EP activities. The IES reviewed how resources are currently allocated among four basic components of network security -- prevention, detection, response and mitigation.

The question that we sought to answer was, "Could shifting the focus among the four components increase the overall level of network security, and if so, what would the optimal focus be? The research showed that the amount and focus of network security resources varies significantly by organization, both in Government and industry, and are dictated by the unique circumstances of each network.

Subsequently, we concluded it is essential that each organization develop its own optimal focus of network security efforts based on its mission and the criticality of each network within the organization. Toward that end, it is crucial that network security be considered an integral part of the enterprise architecture and in all stages of the system’s life cycle.

In addition, the report emphasizes the importance of formal training as a critical component of network security. The lack of trained professionals significantly impedes an organization’s security policy and renders it vulnerable in the security planning and implementation process.

And finally, while security policy is not one of the four components, it clearly emerged from our research as a critical factor in how organization’s focused their network security efforts. Each entity we interacted with indicated that security policies were not generally flexible enough to cope with changing architectural definitions of security, the dependence on commercial off-the-shelf products, and growing threat profiles.

At NSTAC XXII, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Honorable John Hamre, discussed the need for open dialog between industry and government in the current era of dynamic, technological change. Dr. Hamre requested the NSTAC’s assistance to tackle the much deeper and more complicated problem, which is how to embed security in depth in the infrastructure.

We subsequently began to scope this issue to determine how to respond to Dr. Hamre’s request. The scoping effort concluded that NSTAC can help in two distinct ways. First, promote the Federal Government’s efforts to work with industry to accomplish their mission of incorporating electronic commerce into their operations and individual support and participate in existing, successful industry and government fora such as the Information Assurance Technical Framework Forum.

Also, in the area of network convergence as a follow-on to the NSTAC 22 Internet Report, we reviewed the implications of network convergence on existing NS/EP priority services and examined the evolving capabilities in the Next Generation Network.

For the purposes of this report, we defined "network convergence" as the process currently underway during which traditional circuit-switched networks and Internet protocol or IP-based data networks co-exist and inter-operate. This process is expected to continue until IP-based networks subsume circuit-switched networks. In particular, we found that network convergence will have a significant impact on NS/EP and NS/EP services such as the Telecommunications Service Priority or TSP program and the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service or GETS.

To adequately plan for network convergence the report recommends that the President direct the appropriate Departments and Agencies in coordination with industry, to determine as soon as practicable, precise functional NS/EP requirements for convergence and the Next Generation Network and ensure that relevant NS/EP functional requirements are conveyed to standard bodies and service providers during quality of service standards development and implementation.

Because of the impact of the changing telecommunications environment on NS/EP communications the IES devoted a significant amount of resources to issues surrounding globalization. Since the last NSTAC meeting, we concentrated our globalization efforts on NS/EP issues related to foreign ownership of critical communications systems, technology export policies, and the Global Information Infrastructure or GII in 2010.

We examined the implications of foreign ownership of critical U.S. public communications facilities on NS/EP services. We concluded that the current regulatory structure effectively accommodates increasing levels of foreign ownership of U.S. telecommunications facilities and the provisioning of services by foreign companies while allowing the federal government to retain the authority to prevent any compromise of national security interests.

We also reviewed technology export policies dealing with transfer of strong encryption products, satellite technology and high performance computers. We compiled information about key technology export issue areas and tracked the implementation of new export policies and regulations. Additionally, we investigated the development of guidelines to assist companies in understanding government approval of technology sales. We concluded that because technology progresses faster than policy can keep up with it, government and industry should continue to reevaluate the limits placed on the export of technologies.

And finally, we postulated the nature of the GII in 2010 and assessed the implications for NS/EP communications. Our effort focused on the emerging wireline, wireless, and satellite-based technologies expected in 2010. We concluded that in 2010 NS/EP communications will be facilitated by new technologies and improved network features.

The GII will provide increased global availability of broadband communications with satellite communications and wireless technologies bringing NS/EP communications to less accessible geographic regions. However, despite the technology forecast for 2010 there is no guarantee that all central communications capabilities will be ubiquitously available.

Therefore, the report recommends that the President:

    * Direct the appropriate Departments and Agencies to conduct exercises focused on NS/EP operations that can be expected to take place to ensure that required high capacity, broadband access to the GII is available.
    * Ensure that NS/EP requirements such as interoperability, security and mobility are identified and considered in standards and technical specifications as the GII evolves to 2010 and identify any specialized services that must be developed to satisfy NS/EP requirements not satisfied by commercial systems, and regarding the foreign ownership issue
    * Ensure that the review process for commercial arrangements involving foreign ownership remains adequate to protect NS/EP concerns as the environment evolves and becomes more complex.

And finally, the IES focused on the role of Information Sharing for Critical Infrastructure Protection. As the telecommunications and related information systems environment continues to evolve at a rapid pace, Information Sharing between effective parties will be the key component that will help to ensure that NS/EP requirements are understood and accommodated in new types of networks and that assets are protected adequately.

This is especially true for critical infrastructure protection efforts. Information Sharing is a critical component of the evolving partnership between industry and government to protect our nation's most critical assets and is embodied in Presidential Decision Directive 63. PDD 63 charges Government and recommends industry address the significant challenges posed by threats to our nation's most critical infrastructures.

The NSTAC and its member companies acting individually, but informed by NSTAC activities, have played integral roles in this partnership and other outreach efforts such as the federal government CIO council and the President's Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security.

Throughout the NSTAC XXIII cycle we regularly met government leaders responsible for PDD 63 implementation to provide industry analyses and offer feedback from the planning process and the early drafts of the National Information Systems Protection Plan. PDD 63 suggested industry establish its own Information Sharing capabilities known as Information Sharing and Analysis Centers or ISACs.

Last year NSTAC endorsed the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications or NCC as an ISAC for the telecommunications sector. The NCC, which was established in 1984 as a result of an NSTAC recommendation, operates as an industry-Government coordinating facility for NS/EP communications under all circumstances. In our work with officials responsible for PDD 63 implementation, we shared lessons learned from the NCC's 16 years of experience and offer it as a unique model of industry and Government partnership.

As of March 1st, 2000 the NCC formerly incorporated the ISAC function into its operating capability and is recognized as one of the first two functioning ISACs. We also assisted in the establishment of operational Information Sharing efforts between industry and Government and, in particular, preparations for the transition to the Year 2000. We found that significant operational and legal impediments exist that threaten to impede the Information Sharing process.

Most notably, industry must be assured that sensitive and proprietary information and voluntarily shared with government is protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Additional concerns relate to liability, antitrust, security, regulation and privacy issues. Each of these concerns may require legislation to protect industry similar to the limited protection passed to limit liability for Y2K Information Sharing activities.

Therefore, the report recommends that the President support the development of legislation that would protect critical infrastructure protection information voluntarily shared by industry. In particular, from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and consideration of other pertinent barriers to sharing to limit liability for such sharing.

Based on our work this cycle, the following issues were identified for consideration in our work plan for next cycle. These include:

    * Continuing to work with key Government leaders responsible for implementing PDD 63 related activities and sharing the NCC as a model for other sector ISACs.
    * Continuing our study of network security efforts by Government and industry, and finally,
    * Examining the potential NS/EP implications of possible security and reliability vulnerabilities of the Next Generation Network.

We look forward to incorporating additional items for consideration based on your discussions at this afternoon's at this afternoon's Executive Session. In a successful partnership as embodied in the NSTAC, there are more outstanding contributors than can be acknowledged here today. However, I would be remiss if I did not repeat that the extent of IES involvement with other organizations has increased tremendously in the last few cycles.

More organizations are engaging us in exchanges of value to industry and government. Our ability to support this increased demand is dependent first and foremost on the willingness of the NSTAC principals to commit the necessary resources. It is equally dependent on the willingness of many Government organizations to provide professional participation.

Lieutenant General [David J.] Kelley [Manager, NCS] can be proud of the support his organization has provided. His new Deputy Manager, Diane McCoy, her excellent professional staff and the contract support provided to them by Booz-Allen and Hamilton to perform outstandingly in a variety of ways. Without their assistance we could not have the successful partnership that NSTAC represents.

Before I conclude, I would like to thank each of the Chairs and Vice Chairs who led our task force and group efforts. I would now like to return the microphone to the Chairman who will moderate any questions the NSTAC principals may have for us. Thank you.

Published for internal information use by the National Communications System. Parenthetical entries are speaker/author notes; bracketed entries are editorial notes. This material is in the public domain and may be reprinted without permission.

[Anti_Illuminati]

Vision for a Net Centric Aviation Ecosystem

NCOIC™ Aviation IPT

October, 2008
1.0

Public Distribution Authorized
NCOIC-AviationIPT-Comparison-May2008


Vision for a Net Centric Aviation Ecosystem   

Aviation IPT, NCOIC       July 2008

https://www.ncoic.org/apps/group_public/download.php/10904/Vision_for_a_Net_Centric_Aviation_Ecosystem_CRs%20included.doc

Abstract
This document represents the company-neutral industry consensus view of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium ™ (NCOIC) of the elements to be considered in transformational programs leading to a netcentric aviation ecosystem. The term, “ecosystem,” as characterized for netcentric aviation, will be defined in the body of this paper. The document defines six areas of benefit to be derived from a transition of the current global aviation ecosystem to one built upon the principles of netcentricity. This document represents a vision of anticipated benefits of a netcentric aviation ecosystem, with the expectation that methods and tools to accomplish these tasks will be reflected in future work of NCOIC and other organizations.


Introduction

The effectiveness of the Aviation Ecosystem can best be judged by the quality of service it provides to consumer. Each consumer has a set of expectations regarding the type and quality of service they require or expect. Business travelers desire predictability of travel, particularly minimal delays and cancellations, while recreational travelers desire greater choice and lower costs. The capabilities enabled by a network-centric ecosystem are sufficiently broad and adaptable that the increased networking effect will provide more timely and relevant information for participants to make better decisions. As the market requirements evolve, and expectations for service change, the network-centric ecosystem will be able to evolve and adapt to these new requirements.  In addition to the aviation ecosystem providers, the traditional triad of Flight Deck, Air Traffic Service Providers, and Airline Operations Centers, as shown in Figure 1, aviation stakeholders also include the external consumers/users such as:  

Business and pleasure commercial airline travelers
Business and pleasure private aircraft travelers
Cargo shippers
Commercial space travelers
Departments or Ministries of Defense
Disaster management and emergency response authorities
General Aviation and recreational users
Government authorities
Operators of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Scientific users
Security Personnel


Figure 1. Enhanced Situational Awareness, Coordination, and
Information Distribution
(Courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center Virtual Airspace Modeling and Simulation Project)


Another important measure of the effectiveness of the Aviation Ecosystem is the extent to which it impacts the larger community, through phenomenon such as energy consumption, noise and emission pollution or safety risk.  A shift of the Aviation Ecosystem toward net centricity will provide benefits to these constituents and environmental situations through improvements in the areas of Capacity, Safety, Efficiency, Agility, Security and Sustainability.  

We use the term "Ecosystem" in relation to net-enabled systems (including personnel, platforms, equipment, hardware & software, and system-of-systems) to also describe the environment in which the systems reside, and the interaction between the systems and their environment.

When describing the ecosystem, we will examine the technology and the physical environment, as well as the institutions, people and processes that work with the technologies, as well as the social and cultural environment that promotes or constrains the use of technology.

When we speak of an ecosystem, we use the analogy of a biological system to recognize the interaction of technology, institutions, people, processes, and culture in the design, operation, and use of net-enabled systems.

The nature of such interaction in an ecosystem can be cooperative to achieve common goals, can be competitive for access to (or control of) scarce resources, can be relatively static or evolutionary or incremental or even revolutionary over time, or any dynamic combination of the above.

This initial version of our vision for Net Centric aviation is intentionally focused on benefits to consumers/users within the ecosystem. Later iterations will address the benefits to providers of air navigation and other services, and include additional complexities.


Capacity

Capacity in the current global airspace is constrained by a number of factors, including:
•   the current need for defined air navigation lanes, governed by terrestrial navigation equipment
•   the parceling of airspace into restricted use such as military and government Special Use Airspace
•   the restriction of most high speed aviation traffic to high altitudes
•   restrictions due to terrain and obstacles
•   restrictions on airspace use based on regulations by governments.

Although many of these problems appear to be intrinsic to global aviation, the reality is that some of these factors can be mitigated, and other symptoms of over-crowding caused by these factors can be mitigated through application of network centric operations.

A net centric aviation ecosystem provides for flexibility to quickly introduce new elements into the tool suite of the modern Air Traffic Manager.  Today’s air traffic automation systems are not adept at quickly incorporating such Decision Support Tools (DST).  It is this flexibility of design and operation that is one of the greatest benefits of net-centricity.  This flexibility, combined with data availability to authorized, non-traditional users, will allow for a new generation of never-before- conceived DST’s to be introduced into the Capacity discussion.

Key to DSTs is timely accurate and relevant information. A net centric ecosystem is focused on enabling relevant information sharing, which supports the various roles of the aviation system participants, thus improving the ability of all participants to increase the effectiveness of air traffic management decisions. Information sharing requires robust, flexible information access and technical update capability across organizations and systems which support coordinated air traffic management operations.

The high-altitude airway structure for jet aircraft is crowded today, but ground- and air-based automation tools could allow for reduced spacing, or routine direct routing, thereby making more airspace available for increased traffic.  Using net enabled DSTs, which improve speed and flexibility to schedule and release restricted airspace, would allow auxiliary corridors to be used by flights in times of over-crowding, as was done during the holiday period of 2007 in the Eastern United States.

The airspace around congested airports requires operations to be sustained at maximum capacity during many hours of the day. Avoiding disruptions is top priority for schedule maintenance.  Netcentric operations provides seamless information sharing to facilitate continuous operations between surface, oceanic, terminal, enroute, and strategic flow management domains, while taking into account the composite effect of air- and landside constraints.  An additional concern is the throughput of individual congested airports in low visibility (i.e. IMC) conditions.  The ability to rapidly federate multiple sensors in order to improve operations under severe circumstances, or unplanned situations, represents another key attribute of a net-centric aviation eco-system.

Safety

Safety is the most important requirement for an Aviation Ecosystem.  An ecosystem that is not safe for passengers, operators and the surrounding public is unacceptable regardless of other factors.  Safety is a measurable aspect of an Aviation Ecosystem, and reasonable increases in levels of safety will be expected year after year.  

Safety must be maintained while the Agility and Capacity of the Aviation Ecosystem is increased to support economic growth.  It is often assumed that increasing aviation Agility or Capacity decreases Safety. It is expected that evolving to a net centric ecosystem may change the interdependency between the underlying factors that currently result in an opposing relationship between Safety and Capacity, thereby allowing Agility and Capacity to increase while maintaining, or increasing, Safety.  

The netcentric principle of “the right information delivered to the right people at the right time” provides for the overall Capacity of the Aviation Ecosystem to be increased safely.  Decision makers will have more timely, and better, information about the changes that may be required to achieve desired effects.  The changes may be implemented more rapidly, as standards will have been normalized and architectures will be designed to support change.  

Net Enabled Weather, Comprehensive, Integrated Surveillance, 4D Trajectories and Destination-based Routing can increase capacity and help aircraft avoid each other and aviod dangerous conditions.  Overall safety can also be increased for traffic flying across national or agency maintained airspace boundaries through integration of systems and standards.

Efficiency
Efficiency is an important characteristic of the global air transport system, and is the result of the people, processes, systems, and economics that constitute it.
In order to improve Efficiency, all the systems of the Aviation Ecosystems need to be considered. Only through a net enabled view it can be assured that all system- and sub-system interdependencies are treated according to the Efficiency performance requirements which have been established.

Efficiency of the Aviation Ecosystem is an integral part of the ICAO Key Performance Areas, in which their targets are formulated. Global homogeneous and non-discriminatory air traffic flows are improved as Efficiency improves. Design targets for an Aviation Ecosystem exhibiting Efficiency include the on-time departure and arrival punctuality, flight duration efficiency or gate-to-gate fuel efficiency. Net enabled collaborative decision making by all stakeholders, including airports, is the key for an efficient air transport management. Collaborative decision making is, and will be, a key capability for the current and for the future Aviation Ecosystem.

Net centricity supports higher efficiency by providing this collaborative decision making capability to all stakeholders. This will be enabled through the ease and timely access to the information required to plan, operate, and maintain the Aviation Ecosystem. A net centric Aviation Ecosystem will enable the efficient use of resources and – through interoperability and a service-oriented design – will make the Aviation Ecosystem of the future more flexible, robust, safe, secure and cost-efficient.

Security

Security can be enhanced in a net centric environment by matching the right information to the right information assurance controls.  National Security, Border Security and Public Safety and Security, via a common airspace operating picture, can have the information required to make faster decisions from information on current weather conditions, location of aircraft, locations of threats and status of resources.  In order to realize these business benefits, Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Non-repudiation and Authentication must become more robust than in current operations.

Information System Security protects the systems that make up the Aviation Ecosystem, as well as the information contained in those systems, from a wide variety of threats. Information System Security must be considered in conjunction with information sharing to provide precision and protection to information consumers in a networked environment.  Security protects the aviation critical- infrastructure and enables commerce in a global aviation community. Security and information sharing are critical to the success of NextGen and SESAR. Security key design features are:

•   Confidentiality:  the assurance that aviation information is not disclosed to unauthorized persons, processes, or devices. It includes both the protection of operational aviation information and the Information Assurance of password or configuration files.  
•   Integrity: assures that aviation information is not modified by unauthorized parties or through unauthorized processes Integrity supports the assurance that aviation information is not accidentally or maliciously manipulated, altered, or corrupted. Integrity also means that there detection occurs when information has been altered, and identifies the alteration source.
•   Availability:  assures timely, reliable access to aviation data and information systems by authorized users. Availability controls protect against degraded capabilities and denial of service conditions. A key tenant of NextGen is to provide the most current information to decision makers, requiring highly available systems.
•   Non-repudiation: assurance that the data sender is provided with proof of delivery, and the recipient is provided with proof of the sender’s identity, assuring that sender and receiver processing of the data.
•   Authentication: assurance of the identity of message senders and receivers. Authentication supports the validation of messages and information system requests.

The net centric security capability protects, detects, and responds to cyber attacks against the aviation system information technology (IT) assets.   Protection is provided by stopping cyber attacks that originate from outside the aviation system, and by guarding critical interior aviation systems from insider attacks, accidental or malicious.  Protection is achieved by authenticating critical data sources, providing information integrity, and ensuring confidentiality when needed.  The net centric security detection capability continuously monitors aviation IT for symptoms of malware and anomalous behavior and alerts network security operations personnel when a cyber incident is detected.  The net centric cyber incident response capability provides both a real-time response for cyber attack situations and planned preventative measures to proactively and automatically scan and patch IT vulnerabilities before they become a problem.  Net centric security will enable the aviation system to function while under the constant threat of cyber attack and even during an actual cyber attack, relying on the holistic net centric approach of protection, detection, and response.

Effective national security, border security and public safety and security require a netcentric Aviation Ecosystem.  In a netcentric Aviation Ecosystem, these forces have the information they need to develop a common operating picture across agencies and national borders.  

Agility

Agility is the ability to quickly respond to changing conditions or unexpected events.  Agility is particularly important to an Aviation Ecosystem as a critical capability enabling adaptation to changing world economies and unexpected events.  Agility in the Aviation Ecosystem is inherently challenging due to the broad range of partners involved across public and private sectors, and international boundaries.  Collaboration and coordination are the hallmarks of network centric operations, and the netcentric aviation ecosystem requires the capacity to support dynamic changes in coordinated operations. In addition, the highest levels of safety must be maintained during any changes to the ecosystem.  

In an Aviation Ecosystem that is agile, decision makers have the right information at the right time.  They have the ability to consult with appropriate experts and collaborate with a broad range of stake holders.  Once decisions are made, the information must be distributed, and in many cases, action coordinated by multiple organizations.  Decisions and resulting actions must be assessed and revised in real time as events unfold.  

Examples of unexpected events that require Aviation Ecosystem agility are:
•   Natural Disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico or the 2005 Banda Aceh Tsunami in the Indian Ocean
•   Security events, such as the 2001 World Trade Centers attacks
•   Economic changes such as the rapid rise in fuel costs, or labor unrest
•   A pandemic requiring sever restrictions on travel, such as the SARS epidemic in Asia.
•   A future announcement of a widespread safety defect in a common airframe   
•   Airport response to unexpected changes in demand and capacity.

The JPDO Net Enabled Operations (NEO) Spiral 1 Demonstration is a case study of the effectiveness of net centricity in creating an agile Aviation Ecosystem.  The NEO demo assumes that all necessary information and tools are available to decision makers at the right time, regardless of the source agency or company.  The demonstration explores how the Aviation Ecosystem can respond to unexpected events, such as a hurricane.  The demonstration clearly shows how decisions can be made more accurately, actions executed more quickly and with better coordination.  The result is that consumers dependent on aviation receive better more effective service.  This often means an outcome that saves additional lives, relieves more suffering or reduces economic loss.  

Sustainability (Environmental concerns)

Environmental sustainability is becoming an increasing factor in the economic equation of the aviation industry, with fuel as the airline industry’s largest cost.  US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that aviation currently accounts for less than 1 percent of local air pollution nationwide and about 2.7 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (US GAO Report Aviation and the Environment, May 2008), but these are expected to grow as air traffic increases.  The environmental and economic impacts can be offset through more efficient air traffic management technologies and procedures, and more fuel-efficient and quieter aircraft engines.

The implementation of technologies such as satellite-based navigation and collaborative decision making through net enabled information exchange can reduce the carbon and noise footprint of the Aviation Ecosystem. For the airline industry, a network centric approach to flight planning and execution will enable carriers to differentiate themselves, and compete for not only lower fares, but lower emissions.  An example of this can be found in the industries' acceptance for the need of noise reduction.  A net centric approach can benefit the aviation industry in a number of ways, including:

•   A more coordinated approach to engine start and gate release, achieved by synchronizing gate handling and tarmac control, reducing engine run time
•   Considering emission standards, along with safety in making congestion control decisions on whether to hold, and at what altitudes
•   Enabling advanced arrivals, through mixed use airspace, allowing aircraft to remain at cruise altitudes longer as they approach the destination airport, use lower power levels, and therefore reduce emissions and noise during landings  
•   Direct routes enable flights to calculate the most fuel efficient route and coordinate with other traffic to optimize airspace while in transit
•   Dynamic Special Use Airspace collaboration between civilian ATM, airlines, and military operations, enable more efficient use of airspace, reduce delays, and generate fuel savings.

These environmental concerns will require operational trade-offs to ensure an optimum balance between the social and economic benefits and environmental effects realized. A growing environmental awareness and improving collaborative work among all stakeholders and countries is a prerequisite to meet this global challenge.  


Business Benefit Interdependencies:

The interdependencies within the ecosystem are complex, and at times difficult to identify or control. The business benefits derived from employing the principles of net centric operations in global aviation are interdependent, but not locked into a fixed relationship of traditional trade-offs.  A shift in paradigm towards net centricity provides for gain in some benefits without loss of benefit in other areas, including:  

•   Affordability vs. Capacity: Often, additional infrastructure is needed to increase capacity, which in turn, has a negative impact on affordability
•   Financial Cost-effectiveness vs. Efficiency, Agility and Predictability: the need to reduce the cost of providing ATM capacity may have to be balanced against the need to limit the cost of delay due to capacity shortages      
•   Efficiency vs. Environment: Aircraft will need to adjust thrust levels to meet required time-of-arrival in order to optimize system efficiency, and therefore will increase gaseous emissions
•   Capacity vs. Efficiency: the objective of providing flight trajectories closer to preferred user Business Trajectories may have to be balanced against the objective of increasing overall system capacity.

Conclusions

From a consumer perspective, Capacity, Safety, Efficiency, Agility, Security, and Sustainability are improved and enhanced through the adoption of a net centric aviation ecosystem.  Net centricity will provide flexibility to introduce new data and capabilities into the current structure, enabling dynamic change and improved decision making.
 
Net centric operations provide seamless information sharing between surface, terminal, enroute, and strategic flow management domains, thus improving operational throughput. Improved flexibility for better situational awareness, analysis and decision making result.  NCO further provides for "the right information delivered to the right people at the right time," maintaining the integrity, privacy and accuracy of the information.  The integration of systems and standards will increase safety for traffic across national or agency maintained airspace boundaries.
 
Security can be enhanced in a net centric environment by matching the right information to the right information assurance controls.  Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Non-repudiation and Authentication become more robust than in the current operations.
 
Agility is clearly improved in a net centric environment.  Decisions can be made more accurately and faster when the data is quickly available to the authorized user/decision maker.  Decision makers can adjust resource allocations and disseminate information/commands in response to new or different information through existing tools and data links.  Improved data flow, decision tool use, and planning in a netcentric ecosystem improve Sustainability through a more coordinated approach to resource utilization.
 
Of significant importance to the aviation ecosystem is the ability to provide improved benefits to the consumer in selected areas, without a reduction of benefits in another area. A net centric ecosystem provides for business efficiencies and interdependence without requiring costly or unsatisfying tradeoffs.  

Whereas the Consumer is the focus of this paper, future iterations will address broader aspects of the application of net centric operations to the aviation ecosystem, and will describe the utilization of NCOIC™ tools and best practices to achieve it.

[Anti_Illuminati]

http://www.ichnet.org/ITAcquisitionAdvisoryCouncilCharter.doc

Bringing Government into the 21st Century by Creating a Transparent and Effective Technology Acquisition Process
(how the feds can save $20 Billion without reducing capability)

The Obama-Biden Challenge;

“We must use all available technologies and methods to open up the federal government, creating a new level of transparency to change the way business is conducted in Washington and giving Americans the chance to participate in government deliberations and decision-making in ways that were not possible only a few years ago.” Obama-Biden Plan

Key Objective;
“Restore Honesty, Openness, and Commonsense to Contracting and Procurement: The Obama-Biden Administration will realize savings by reducing the corruption and cost overruns that have become all too routine in defense contracting. This includes launching a program of acquisition reform and management.”

“Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.”

Background: Due to an antiquated federal IT Acquisition processes, the US is losing billions each year in failed IT programs while losing its leadership position as the engine of IT innovation while impacting critical government IT capability delivery.  Furthermore, in spite of numerous laws, GAO Report, blue ribbon panels, and best efforts from our acquisition community, the Federal Government has achieved very limited progress in achieving meaningful IT Acquisition Reform as sought by the Clinger Cohen Act.  Twelve years following the signing of the CCA, program failure rates and cost overruns are still between 72 and 80% (GAO, IDG, Gartner) of the estimated $150 Billion in annual IT investments.  The cost to the tax payer is an estimated $20 Billion wasted each year that could be saved if the core root causes of these failures were to be systematically addressed and real business process re-engineering were to occur.   IT-AAC preliminary analysis derived from prior government studies and blue ribbon panels indicate that the root causes of these failures to be multi-facetted;

•   An overwhelmed Acquisition Community who does not have access to critical decision data on market capabilities or real vendor past performance
•   Antiquated Acquisition rules, policies and processes that compromise transparency and fail to comply with the Clinger Cohen Act mandates
•   The fast pace of the IT market that exacerbates current acquisition processes,  methods and oversight mechanisms
•   Duplicative IT infrastructure imbedded in each major IT program, increasing cost by 70% (Gartner) and impeding interoperability and security objectives
•   Duplicative IT research, assessments and testing of commercial solutions, putting an unnecessary burden on both agencies and solution suppliers.  NDAA directed Clearinghouse efforts to enable reuse and sharing have been beset by rice bowls and special interests.    
•   Under funded Open Architecture and Innovation Labs mechanisms needed to expose proven innovations of the market.  Outsourcing of these functions to large system integrators has proven ineffective and contrary to the interest of small business and open source concerns.  

Crushing financial burdens and deficits, coupled with increase demand for innovative solutions mandate a revamping of IT Acquisition Process and a move away from “build to spec” to a more economically viable model of “Open Source Architectures” and “Commercial Off the Shelf” solutions that have already been proven in the market.   As reflected in the September 08 OSD ATL Strategic Objectives document issued by the Honorable John Young, it is clear that “perfection is the enemy of good enough”.   Yet, we continue to discover that “we cannot solve today’s problems with same kind of thinking that got us their in the first place”.   Failure is no longer an option.  

Beginning when the Clinger/Cohen Act was drafted in 1996, many recognized that the federal government is no longer the source of innovation in the information systems market (both processes and technology) that it once was during the cold war.  Many recognize that DoD and Intelligence agencies need to “establish new processes” and embrace “non-traditional contractors” to better leverage emerging technologies and associated best practices residing in commercial industry.  Clinger-Cohen strongly encourage acquisition leaders to leverage innovations of the market (COTS, Open Source) that have significantly lower lifecycle cost and lock-in, objectives that are contrary to the incentives currently offered to Lead System Integrators and FFRDCs.  These challenges can be overcome with agile acquisition processes, greater financial incentives for leveraging innovation and COTS/Open Source, and delivering on time and within budget.   The Interoperability Clearinghouse was charted on 9-11-00 as a to usher in commercial IT approaches and methods, working within forwarding thinking organizations and public service group have emerged that could bring relief to this problem, and with appropriate stewardship and leadership.  By expending this humble public/private partnership, and overcoming the root causes of failure, some $50 Billion in failed programs could be redirected to re-establish the US leadership in IT while improving the effectiveness of core government mission elements that are technology dependent.

IT-AAC Focus:  The IT-AAC is organizing as a public/private partnership made up of concerns citizens and public interest groups working together for the common good and overcoming the barriers to failed reform efforts of the past. Its mission is to provide the Obama-Biden Administration and National IT Leadership with a trusted collaborative structure and a 500 Day Transformation plan that details a roadmap for Streamlining the IT Acquisition Process and thereby assuring critical mission elements that are highly dependent on IT (Info Sharing, Cyber-Security, E-Health, E-Gov/E-Biz, Green IT).  The President’s FY 2009 Budget documents $71Billion in funding for federal IT investments, not including the Intelligence Community budget estimated at $26B or imbedded IT systems comprising another $80B.
1) CHANGE: IT Acquisitions (excluding Weapon Systems imbedded IT), drives very different architecture and acquisition approaches, cultures and processes, requiring an adaptation needed to drive change and manage risk.

2) LEADERSHIP:  IT is a transformational technology, that creates more distracters than advocates, it requires much greater Leadership support, accountability, and authority to be effective. This was the intent of the Clinger Cohen Act. Good policy, poor implementation.  Leadership must be engaged, and drive cultural, process and technology changes.
 
3) OVERSIGHT: Congress and Agency leadership must codify and re-certify program vision, architecture and outcomes through the entire lifecycle, especially when leadership/PM changes occur.  Senior leadership attention and commitment to success must come from the top and be driven all the way down to every stake holder and value chain partner.

4) WORKFORCE: IT requires additional disciplines and skills often not present. The work force must be bolstered in a significant way, ensuring qualified and EXPERIENCED staff who are encouraged to understand the technology domains they are supporting.   FAI, DAU and NDU should build out their current programs to not only train, but mentor Acquisition PMs to make sure they are vested in the success of the program. Failure risk mitigation must trump process rigidity.  

5) ARCHITECTURE & METRICS: PMs must solidify, validate and propagate an actionable/measurable Solution Architecture that freezing requirements and measurable outcomes.  Vague requirements and statements of objectives do not work for IT.   Every stake holder and value chain participant should sign off on the required interfaces, business process changes and willingness to live with the 80% solutions.   An architecture without Performance Metrics and SLAs will not survive.  
 
6) ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES: With so many participants involved in an IT program, agency acquisition strategy must clarify roles and responsibilities of all participants, seeking to optimize contributions and buy in from the entire value chain.  This includes "contracts" with users, overseers, CIOs, CMOs, CPOs, Congress, standards bodies, FFRDCs, non-profits, COTS/Open Source developers and Systems Integrators.  Entry/Exit criteria must be established up front to set expectations and time lines.

The goal is to provide decision makers within white house, congressional and agency leadership in revamping IT Acquisition policies and processes required to ensure the effectiveness, timeliness and transparency of its estimated $177B investments.  If properly applied, this effort could effect a major economic stimulus for one of the nations greatest industries.  An actionable IT reform roadmap would improve effectiveness and reduce the failure rate of major IT programs and the critical missions they support. The IT-AAC and its membership offer the administration a conflict free structure, body of knowledge, expertise and analytical mechanisms needed to enable sound decisions on critical issues confronting our national leadership.  

The IT-AAC builds on the Interoperability ClearingHouse public/private partnership structure, seasoned thought leaders, and significant body of knowledge associated with 8 years of root cause analysis.  The IT-AAC leadership recognizes the increased role technology plays in furthering our nation’s defense, intelligence, healthcare and e-government missions, and brings forth the knowledge and experience needed to make transformational decisions on policies, processes and investments.  

To avoid “reinventing the wheel” the IT-AAC is aggregating existing study efforts and communities of practice needed to tap into our Nation’s most experienced and respected experts on IT Acquisition Reform.  To support this effort, the Interoperability Clearinghouse (ICH) has assembled a significant body of knowledge in the form of Best Practices, Industry Study Groups, Blue Ribbon panels, GAO reports, Public Interest Consortia and other objective sources to better enable effective policy decision making.  The resulting emergent public/private partnership will provide our national leadership with collaborative structure, reusable solution frameworks and validated sources not available from traditional contracting mechanisms.  The IT-AAC will focus on the changes needed in current acquisition policies, processes and collaborative structures by the fast-paced Information Technology market.  We can no longer depend on failed approaches that take too long and cost too much.   Furthermore, the federal agencies are experiencing unacceptable IT program failure rates (72-80%) costing the tax payer tens of billion per year and impeding the delivery of mission critical IT capabilities (not including the Intel Agency budget which is estimated to add another $5B to the problem).  

This effort also aligns with the administration’s commitment to “Invest in the Nonprofit Sector”
•   “Create a Social Investment Fund Network: Use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas, and expand successful programs to scale.
•   Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits: Create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.

Additional details and meeting schedules will be posted at www.ICHnet.org and http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpt3sr.  

CONOPS:  The IT-AAC will operate in the public interest, as a public/private partnership “think tank” (following E-Gov Act operational guidelines), pooling resources and expertise drawn from multiple government and industry communities of practice.   As the ICH has its partners have been deeply involved in IT Acquisition reform efforts, it will bring to light documented gaps and root cause analysis already performed, and put into an operational context.  

It will establish a 500 Day IT Transformation Plan that will identify IT Acquisition process gaps, standards of practice, cultural impediments, and policy impediments that have impeded prior reforms efforts. By applying the Scientific Methods and Evidence Based Research, our leadership will be assured maximum transparency and objectivity in making decisions that that will empower effective governance and technology leadership required to improve IT Acquisitions and mission outcomes.   The IT-AAC will offer the new administration with a unique collaborative structure focused on overcoming policy, process and cultural impediments to IT implementation success, recognizing that “we cannot solve today’s problems with the same kind of thinking that got us their in the first place”.  

Purpose - To inform the administration leadership and career leaders on the specific challenges agencies face in executing existing IT policy and agency mission objectives.   Offer potential solutions for a way ahead in the form of an implementation roadmap, gap analysis, and leading practices that have already demonstrated to be effective.  

Method - through analysis of existing studies and use cases by an experienced panel, determine the critical areas requiring immediate attention that identify interdependencies and establish contextual framework. Form focused work groups to make specific recommendations regarding challenge areas and offer a framework for a long range national IT strategy via a 500 day plan.  

Root Cause Analysis – The ICH has participated and/or assembled dozens of studies on IT Acquisition failure patterns with many of the federal agencies including Office of the Secretary of Defense, AF, Navy, Army, DHS, GSA, PTO, GPO, GAO and the Intelligence Community.  Additional studies produced by Defense Science Board, AF Science Advisory Board, DAPA, Markle Foundation, CSIS, CIO Council, Industry Advisory Council, NDIA, RAND, and NCOIC has been analyzed and repurposed for the IT-AAC leadership, providing the administration with a clearinghouse of knowledge and expertise needed to effect much needed acquisition reform decisions.  

Senior Leadership Board - will be comprised of thought leaders from multiple communities of practice. Selection will be based on prior contributions to public service and commitments to transparency.  Individuals representing primary suppliers to the Federal government will be limited so as to avoid any appearance of conflicts of interest.    Those selected from primary federal suppliers will be asked to fire wall their activities from their respective company interests.  

Operational Activities will include;

•   Leadership Committees that pull from the IT-AAC diverse membership that will tackle key policy challenges.
•   Focused Working Groups that will leverage existing bodies of knowledge and repurpose to provide administration leadership with actionable plans and roadmaps
•   IT Acquisition Educational Forums (E-HealthCare, Information Sharing, Cyber Security, etc).  These will follow the very successful Secure E-Business conference structure established by OSD C3I during the 2000-2003 period.   Forums will expose best practices and lessons learned for the IT acquisition community.  Collaborate with universities (ie; CMU SEI, DAU/NDU, UofMD, UVA, GMU, etc).
•   Solution Architecture Integration Lab (SAIL) where innovations of the market can be quickly explored, validated and exposed in an open and conflict free forum to support innovation research pilots and better inform IT program lifecycle; visit www.ICHnet.org/sail.htm for detailed approach, OMB recommendations and industry white papers.    

IT-AAC Outcomes:  The ICH, under oversight of the IT-AAC leadership, will identify and leverage collaborative mechanisms, work products, root cause analysis reports, governance structures and contract vehicles already in place, providing both public/private partners with an array of mechanisms needed to guide measurable improvement in policies and programs.  The IT-AAC will provide federal IT Leadership with 500 Day plan establishes specific decision milestones that;  

-   Identify policy shortfalls and overlaps.  
-   Help Streamlined IT Acquisition Process and establish separate swim lanes based on proven approaches already applied by forward thinking agencies and public interest concerns
-   Improve information sharing and coloration mechanisms that leverage existing innovations and proven IT capabilities needed fror critical mission capabilities
-   Significantly improve the effectiveness, efficiency and transparency of federal IT investments, assuring the maximum use of US IT innovations.  Today, most innovators are locked out of the Federal IT Acquisition processes.
-   Help establish IT Acquisition standards of practice,
-   Established Educational forums with existing universities for the Acquisition Community where best practices and lessons learned can be shared and leveraged.
-   Reduce lifecycle costs of acquiring new IT and sustaining legacy IT, avoiding failed IT acquisitions, potentially saving an estimated $15 Billion per year.  
-   Enable acquisition of IT using a Services Oriented Architecture with measurable outcomes
-   Provide government leadership with a research coop where innovations of the market can be readily assessed and leveraged.

Policies alone have not been effective, and often had an opposite effect.  This is why the IT-AAC will build on the ICH’s non-profit research institute structure, providing stake holders with necessary tools to enable sound decision making;

-   Decision Support Reports and Roadmaps
-   Reusable Solution Architecture Frameworks
-   Analytical and Advisory Services (cost recovery model)
-   Senior Leadership Working Groups
-   Acquisition Peer Reviews
-   Domain specific CxO Summits and Town Hall Meetings

Domain Working Groups; identify key mission areas that are highly dependent on an agile acquisition process to perform their mission objectives.  Due to the critical importance of successful IT Acquisition to our country’s mission objectives, this committee will address domain specific impediments and opportunities that should be addressed in terms of culture, policies, procedures and partnerships needed to assure implementation success.  Key mission areas that would benefit from this public/private partnership structure include;

•   Healthcare; focus on standardized patient record for independent system interoperable information exchange
•   Cyber Security; collaborative research and assessment technologies that improved non-repudiation, information integrity or trusted information environments
•   Interoperable Information Sharing; overcoming cultural impediments and improved comprehensive analytic opportunities.  Identify approaches and emerging approaches that have been effective.  
•   Business Systems; truly leveraging industry best practices associated with architectures, acquisitions and assessments, recognizing that legacy acquisition processes have not been effective, and often violate existing policies directing agencies to apply industry best practices and emerging standards.    
•   Shared IT Infrastructure; eliminating redundant application infrastructure by establishing a common set of infrastructure services within a SOA governance model.
•   E-Government; putting teeth in the E-Gov Act.  Re-invigorating CIO Council activities that drive true sharing of proven solutions. Improve use of public/private partnerships to leverage untapped resources and lessons the burden on government.  

Periodic out briefs to the public will be coordinated with the both political appointees and agency leadership through Town Hall meetings and forums.   Public reports and briefings will be posted at www.ICHnet.org.  

IT-AAC Leadership: The following council leadership has been assembled based on prior contributions and public service contributions made towards improving government IT acquisition process (a criteria for membership).  The IT-AAC recognizes the need to cut across communities of practice and represent the best and brightest in their respective fields of expertise to provide an objective and balance advisory.  

Recognizing the limited bandwidth and significant demands on their time, every effort will be made to extract from previous contributions, forums and prior recommendations.   Executive Advisory Board (confirming in bold, invited in non-bold) excluding active government executives (out of respect for the current administration):
o   Honorable Michael Wynn, former Secretary of USAF, IT-AAC Chair
o   Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
o   Honorable Dave Patterson, former OSD Comptroller, University Of Tennessee
o   Harold Heard, Former Sr. VP, Enterprise Architecture/SOA, Citigroup
o   Honorable Dave Oliver, former OSD ATL, EADS
o   Karen Evans, former OMB E-Gov Administrator
o   Honorable Robert Cresanti, former Secretary of Technology, SAP America
o   Jonathan Breul, IBM Business of Government
o   Gen (ret) Bill Campbell, Former Army G6 CIO, BAE Systems
o   Lt General (ret) Jack Woodward USAF, former AF Deputy CIO
o   Chuck Corjay, Sr VP CACI, President, AFCEA NOVA Chapter
o   Dr. Marv Langston, former OSD C3I DCIO, former Navy CIO
o   Dr. Jerry Mechling, Director of E-Gov Education, Harvard KSG,
o   James Lewis, Director Policy, CSIS
o   Steve Cooper, Partner, First DHS CIO, Strativest
o   Kevin Carroll, former Army PEO EIS, ICH Fellow, IT-AAC Vice Chair
o   Larry Allen, Executive Director, Coalition for Government Procurement
o   Charles Tompkins Esq., Chair Systems Management Dept, NDU IRMC
o   Stephen Buckley, Kerberos Consortia, MIT Sloan
o   Al Mink, Vice President SRA
o   Edward Hammersla, EVP Trusted Computing Solutions
o   Frank Weber, former AF ESC 554 Wing Commander
o   William Lucyshyn, Director of Research, School of Public Policy, U of MD
o   Dan Johnson, Sr. Council, Computers & Communications Industry Association
o   Lewis Shepherd, former DIA CTO, Microsoft  Institute
o   Frank Cooper, VP/CTO, Concurrent Technology Corp
o   John Weiler, Director, Interoperability Clearinghouse, IT-AAC Vice Chair
o   Dr. Robert Childs, Director, IRM College, NDU IRMC
o   Dr. Paul Nielsen, former AF Major General,  CEO, Software Engineering Institute
o   Alan Balutis, Director Internet Solutions Group, Cisco Systems
o   Kirk Phillips, Managing Partner, The Kirk Group
o   Paul Brubaker,  Senior Director, Cisco Systems

 Invited Government Advisory Panel
o   James (Raleigh) Durham, Director, Joint Advanced Concepts, OSD ATL
o   Keith Seaman, Component Acquisition Executive, Business Transformation Agency
o   Dave Weddell, Deputy N6/CIO, Navy
o   Jan Frye, Chief Acquisition Officer, Veterans Administration
o   Chris Miller, Executive Director, PEO C4I, Navy
o   Bill McKinsey, Chief IT Management, FBI
o   John Whitmore,  Deputy AQI, Secretary of the AF
o   Terry Balven, CIO, AQ, Secretary of the AF
o   Tracy Tynan, Director Acquisition Center of Excellence, BTA
o   Tim Harp, Deputy Asst Secretary Acquisition, OSD NII
o   Tyree Varnado, Deputy Director, Acquisition, GSA
o   Tommy Morris, Director Developmental Technologies, OSD Health Affairs
o   MaryAnne Rochy, Deputy CIO and PEO Acquisition, OSD Health Affairs
o   David  Schroeder, Director External Relations, OSD HA CIO
o   Gino Magnifico, CIO, Army Contracting Command
o   Stewart Whitehead, SES J8, Joint Forces Command
o   Dr Paul Tibbits, Deputy CIO and Director Enterprise Development, VA
o   Dave Green, CTO, US Marine Corps
o   Barry Robella, Professor of Systems Engineering, Defense Acquisition University
o   Jake Haynes, Program Manager, Defense Contracting Management Agency
o   Dr Gary Federici, Deputy Asst Secretary of the Navy, C4I
o   Terri Everett, Chief Procurement Officer, Director for National Intelligence
o   Kevin Smith, Deputy Chief of Engineering, ASD RDA
o   Kathy Laymon, Supply Chain Risk Mgt, US Army
o   John Higbee, Director Acquisition Management, Department of Homeland Security
o   Maureen Coyle, Deputy CIO, VA
o   Brad Brown, Director of Acquisition Policy, Defense Acquisition University
o   John Whitmore, Deputy Director, AF Acquisition, SAF/AQI
o   LtGen Jeffrey Sorenson, CIO, US Army G6
o   Dr. Ed Siomacco,  Director Enterprise Services, Army NETCOM
o   Julius Knapp, Chief, Office of Engineering and Technology, FCC
o   Bobby German, CIO, NASA
o   Margie Graves, Acting CIO, Dept of Homeland Security

Government members will not be asked to contribute to any recommendations.

Assessing the Problem, leveraging existing sources of evidence

" There is broad agreement on the need for acquisition and contracting reform in the Department of Defense. There have been enough studies. Enough hand-wringing. Enough rhetoric. Now is the time for action. "

With growing GOA and DoD IG evidence pointing to common failure patterns in federal  architecture and acquisition of IT systems going back to 1990s, the Interoperability Clearinghouse (ICH) and has focused its efforts in identification of the root causes of these failures and establish mechanisms that enable fact based decision making at each stage of the IT architecture and acquisition lifecycle.  Following a Lean Six Sigma approach to process transformation, ICH has incorporated lessons learned and failure points identified in Blue Ribbon panels, GAO reports, DoD IG Audits, and other objective sources that point to a pattern of failure in both DoD’s acquisition lifecycle and performance assessment collection mechanism.    

Numerous blue ribbon panels have identified these root causes of failure and recommended means of implementing major policy initiative like Clinger-Cohen, President’s Management Agenda and most recently, OMB’s FEA-PMO.  Those studies already identified include but not limited to;

•   1997 Clinger-Cohen Act: Required commercial best practices and use of commercial IT offering as the 80% solution (COTS).  

•   June 1999, Electronic Commerce Conference Working Group report on Software Quality and Interoperability.  It recommends that DoD change its architecture methods (C4ISR) to make them more inline with commercial standards and best practices. These recommendations led to the creation of an Interoperability Clearinghouse public/private partnership.  

•   April 2000, AF Science Advisory Board Report on “Challenges of inserting commercial items into missions systems”.  This report strongly encourages DoD to establish a clearinghouse of commercial best practice to help DOD PMs avoid  common pitfalls.  This report is posted at www.ICHnet.org

•   September 2002 NDIA-SEC report on “Information Systems Interoperability”.  It recommends creating verifiable interoperability standards around commercial technologies and standards such that DoD IT leaders can review and evaluate viability of a system and its components BEFORE contract award.  

•   February 2003, Industry Advisory Council Enterprise Architecture Special Interest Group, an industry group that advises OMB and the Federal CIO Council on how to achieve better implementation of the President’s Management Council. These OMB approved recommendations encourage government to update current architecture processes and technology evaluation metrics.  This report and others are posted at www.ICHnet.org/sail.htm

•   March 2003, Carnegie Mellon SEI report on “An Assessment of DoD’s Architecture Framework.” Again it details inherent limitations of DoD’s “one size fits all” architecture methodology and recommends adoption of commercial standards and best practices. This too is posted on ICH’s main web page.  

•   January 2006 Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment (DAPA) Report coordinated by Mr. Dave Patterson, former OSD Comptroller.  
•   April 2009 Defense Science Board report on IT Acquisition http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2009-04-IT_Acquisition.pdf

•   May 2009 Center for Defense Information, America's Defense Meltdown,  http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/america_defense_meltdown_exec_summ2.pdf  

•   IAC/ACT report on IT Acquisition http://www.actgov.org/actiac/documents/pdfs/Enabling_Federal_IT_Innovation.pdf

•   GAO Report on Navy ERP http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05858.pdf

When looking at the cultural impediments to change, one might reflect on the advice and observations of Nicolai Machiavelli, in 1513 AD, “Nothing is more difficult than to introduce new order. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who only may do well under the new”.  

ITAcquisitionAdvisoryCouncilCharterShort2.doc
 ITAAC WEBSITE:  ITAcquisitionAdvisoryCouncilCharter.doc

[Anti_Illuminati]

Might as well throw this in here, kind of off topic, but it all ties in anyways:

http://www.sofmag.com/wp/2009/06/gen-victor-renuart/
http://www.acus.org/event_blog/facing-undefinable-threats
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/280537-1

Facing Undefinable Threats


Gen. Victor Renuart, commander of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, told the Atlantic Council and a live C-SPAN audience that most threats to the homeland are no longer definable and exist on the seams between military, information, and communications.

[Satyagraha]

RAND Review
Force of First Resort
Katrina Offers Lessons for Improving the National Guard Response to Catastrophic Domestic Emergencies

http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/summer2007/katrina.html
By Lynn E. Davis

Lynn Davis, director of the RAND Washington office, was U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs from 1993 to 1997 and deputy assistant secretary of defense for policy plans from 1977 to 1981.

Tragic as the effects of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath were in exacting an enormous toll in death, destruction, and suffering in 2005, the catastrophe did give the United States an opportunity to become better prepared not only for natural disasters but also for terrorist attacks. Such attacks, especially those involving weapons of mass destruction, could require responses similar in nature and scale to those demanded by Katrina.

The table outlines how the effects and response requirements of several scenarios now being envisioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — from radiological, nuclear, and biological terrorist attacks to a major earthquake — would be generally comparable to the effects and response requirements experienced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Thus, the lessons so painfully learned from the hurricane could help America become stronger for all types of future catastrophic domestic emergencies.



The nation’s response to Hurricane Katrina and to the breach of the levees in New Orleans was both impressive and unprecedented. It was also inadequate. The most important problem was the speed with which state, local, and federal civilian organizations were overwhelmed. However, the military response also faced problems, especially in the critical first few days. These problems contributed to delays in evacuating the Superdome and convention center in New Orleans and in accomplishing search-and-rescue operations throughout the storm-ravaged areas of Louisiana and Mississippi.
The lessons so painfully learned from the hurricane could help America become stronger.

Numerous difficulties beset the military response. The initial call-up of the U.S. Army National Guard in Louisiana and Mississippi was hindered by the fact that each state had a brigade, or about 3,000 troops, redeploying from Iraq. It took more than three days for roughly 6,000 backup troops to arrive from other states, because many had neither planned nor exercised for such emergencies. As the forces flowed into the region, they lacked command and control, because it took more than a week for U.S. National Guard (henceforth national guard) division headquarters staffs to arrive. Finally, the president did not decide until the end of the first week of the response to send in active-duty land units from the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, in part because most of these units were either overseas or preparing to deploy.

Absent changes in how the army plans for, responds to, and operates in catastrophic domestic emergencies, future responses might not look much better. To improve military disaster-response efforts, the U.S. Army should take the following steps:

     * Give state national guard units the federal mission to conduct homeland security activities, as is the case today for planning and funding counterdrug operations.

    * Create ten regional national guard rapid-reaction homeland security task forces.   * Collocate these task forces with the regional planning offices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
* Create opportunities for the regional national guard task forces to train regularly with local first responders, including law enforcement officials, and other local units that are focused on counterterrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
    * Train state national guard units for rapid response not only within their states but also for emergencies in other states.
    * Prepare governors to call up state national guard units quickly and involuntarily for active-duty, out-of-state emergencies.
    * Establish plans to use the Air National Guard or commercial airlines to fly designated national guard units to out-of-state emergencies.
    * Prepare state officials to designate backup national guard units that could fill in during disaster response operations for national guard units deployed overseas.
    * Assign both national guard and active-duty army units to homeland security missions as part of the army’s routine unit-readiness planning process.
    * Prepare state and federal leaders to select quickly from a set of predefined command-and-control alternatives, giving the lead to federal or state task forces, depending on the characteristics of an emergency.



Guardian of the Homeland

The U.S. National Guard is the military force of first resort for domestic emergencies. It played a central role in the response to Hurricane Katrina.

In organizational terms, the national guard is a component of both the U.S. Army (Army National Guard) and U.S. Air Force (Air National Guard). Today, state national guard units are being regularly called upon for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. But most often, national guard units function as state militias, falling under the command of state governors and senior state military officers known as adjutants general.
Creating ten national guard regional task forces would enable them to prepare for and respond quickly to emergencies across states.

Each National Guard Task Force Would Be Responsible for One of the Ten
Planning Regions Now Being Used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency

FEMA's ten multistate planning regions.
SOURCE: Federal Emergency Management Agency, About FEMA, “Regional Operations,”
April 5, 2007. As of press time: www.fema.gov

Accordingly, many of the most pertinent military lessons from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath deal with how state governors and adjutants general can improve the response of their state national guard units to out-of-state emergencies. For example, the military response to Katrina from states out-side the disaster area consisted mostly of volunteers. In the future, state officials need to be ready to call up units involuntarily, need to have ready backup units to fill in for those deployed overseas, and need to plan for how to use the Air National Guard or commercial airlines to fly units out of state when necessary.

Even if these steps are taken, the preparations made within the states will be insufficient. The national guard needs to adopt a regional focus in preparing for catastrophic domestic emergencies, such as Hurricane Katrina, that exceed the response capabilities of individual states. The best way to improve the army’s response to domestic disasters is to empower the national guard for a regional focus.

Region II serves New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Region IX serves California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the territories of Guam and American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Creating ten national guard regional task forces would enable them to prepare for and respond quickly to emergencies across states. Each task force should be responsible for one of the ten multistate planning regions already being used by FEMA (see the map). Each task force should coordinate its homeland security efforts with FEMA and other civilian relief operations. Consisting of about 900 members, each task force should be able to respond within 18 hours to support the local and regional civilian agencies that are first on the scene.
Available, Predictable, Reliable

The army’s existing unit-readiness process can be used to achieve quicker and better results from both national guard and active-duty troops. Currently, army active-duty and mobilized national guard units move through a series of scripted, predictable steps to prepare for rotations or for unforeseen contingencies overseas. This newly designed method is called the Army Force Generation process.

The army should take advantage of this process to enhance the nation’s military response to catastrophic domestic emergencies. As units enter into the readiness phase preparing them for an overseas mission, they should receive homeland security training as well. Some national guard and active-duty units could then be assigned a homeland security mission in place of an overseas mission. The number of personnel given a homeland security mission would be determined in light of currently available civilian responders.

Multiple command-and-control structures complicated the military response to Katrina. Given the uncertainty of future emergencies, designating a single command-and-control arrangement would be neither feasible nor wise. Instead, a set of alternatives needs to be defined, giving the leadership to either a federal or state task force and enabling decisionmakers to select quickly depending on the circumstances of each emergency and the capabilities of the affected states. In general, as the number of states involved or the scale of a catastrophe increases, the case for federal leadership grows stronger.
In general, as the number of states involved or the scale of a catastrophe increases, the case for federal leadership grows stronger.

Some of these initiatives will cost money. But what is needed most is a change from past perspectives and practices regarding the role of the military in responding to catastrophic domestic emergencies. That role can no longer be ignored.

Hurricane Katrina came with ample warning. A terrorist attack would not. The need for trained and ready military forces to deal with homeland security missions is no less important than it is for dealing with contingencies overseas. But domestic forces cannot become trained and ready unless they coordinate their efforts for reliable regional responses.

As an editorial in Louisiana’s Shreveport Times recently declared in response to these recommendations, “Natural disasters and manmade ones will continue to test the preparedness limits of our state and nation. Giving a federal mission for homeland security — with regional assignments — to the national guard would be a major step forward toward meeting the challenges of the unknown.”

Army Forces for Homeland Security, Lynn E. Davis, David E. Mosher, Richard R. Brennan, Michael D. Greenberg, K. Scott McMahon, Charles W. Yost, RAND/MG-221-A, 2004, 99 pp., ISBN 0-8330-3673-4.

Full Document Full Document
Hurricane Katrina: Lessons for Army Planning and Operations, Lynn E. Davis, Jill Rough, Gary Cecchine, Agnes Gereben Schaefer, Laurinda L. Zeman, RAND/MG-603-A, 2007, 106 pp., ISBN 978-0-8330-4167-8.

[Satyagraha]

Excerpted from RAND Corp Report, p.64:

Bioterrorism Preparedness Training and Assessment Exercises
for Local Public Health Agencies

http://www.hhs.gov/aspr/opeo/documents/rand3.pdf

B3. Plague Medium Exercise Template

OVERVIEW
This tabletop exercise is one exercise in a suite of exercises that have been developed to aid health department officials in assessing the ability of their department to effectively respond to a bioterrorism (BT) event. Each exercise in the suit focuses on a different type of bioterrorism event such as a bacterium, toxin, or virus. This exercise focuses on the purposeful spread of a virus -- plague -- in a population of people. The exercise will take approximately 4 hours to complete. It is divided into two steps. In the first step participants are presented with an outbreak and must first detect the problem and then begin connecting the dots by developing a case definition and conducting an epidemiologic investigation. In the second step participants must interact with other key actors involved with the response.

OBJECTIVES
Assess the ability of the health department in the areas of:
• Surveillance and Detection
o Use of existing surveillance systems to detect potential outbreaks
o Initiation of active surveillance
• Diagnosis and Investigation
o Establishing a case definition
o Clinical and laboratory investigations
o Epidemiologic investigation
• System-Wide Coordination
o Handoffs with regional or state health department
o Coordination of efforts with other local and state actors (e.g., elected officials, law enforcement, etc.)
o Establishment of an Emergency Operations Center
• Risk Communication
o Effectively communicating essential messages to the public
o Initiation of a public information campaign
o Coordination of information to media
• Disease Control
o Prophylaxis and vaccination capabilities
o Isolation and Quarantine
o Closing of schools, workplaces, hospitals, etc.
Elements required to meet these objectives appear as checklists at the end of the suite of medium exercises.

EXERCISE MANAGEMENT
Two individuals are needed to conduct this exercise:
• A facilitator who conducts the exercise and, as necessary, offers probes to the participants. (The purpose of the probes is to keep the discussion moving forward, and to focus the discussion if it moves off track.)
63
• A note taker to take notes during the exercise.

Participants

Step 1 participants:
• Local health department staff only
o Health director
o Communicable disease control director
o Bioterrorism coordinator
o Epidemiologist
o Representative from a public health laboratory
o Public health nurse(s)
o Public Information Officer (local health department)

Step 2 participants:
All participants from Step 1, and:
• Local stakeholders
o Law enforcement
o EMS personnel
o Hospital infection control staff
o Local physicians
o Minority community leadership
o Elected officials
o Emergency Management official

Depending on the local environment and the relationship between the state and local health department, it may be useful to include regional or state health department staff in an exercise. See Chapter 4 for more details.

Initial Situation Report
[Customize the exercise template by choosing one of the below three options for the initial situation report. These options are designed to differ in the level of advanced notification that a health department has prior to an outbreak. In option 1 there is no advanced notification and in options 2-3 there is at least some advanced notification.]

Option 1 (Outbreak within the jurisdiction) —A localized disease outbreak originating in the health department’s jurisdiction.

If Option 1 is chosen, the facilitator should immediately begin discussing the first case report after the initial situation report

June [year]:
[Local area] is locked in a continuing heat wave with daytime high temperatures expected to exceed [number] degrees Fahrenheit

Summer vacation traffic is high and air quality is poor

The health department has been receiving a steady stream of calls with reports of dehydration, especially among infants and elderly

Some of the elderly patients have developed respiratory distress and two have died

Senior centers have begun to distribute fans to centers without air conditioning.

Option 2 (Outbreak within the region) —A regional outbreak that occurs first in a region close to but outside of the jurisdiction of the health department.

June [year]
[Local health department] officials receive an alert via the Health Alert Network about an outbreak of plague in nearby [region]. The alert cautions health departments in the region to be on the lookout for patients with respiratory illnesses.

If Option 2 is chosen, the facilitator should allow participants to discuss what (if anything) they would do if they received such an alert. [Consider using active surveillance probes listed after the first case report]

Option 3 (Distant outbreak) —A statewide outbreak that occurs in a state that is not geographically close to the health department.

June [year]
The Associated Press reports that [distant state] has a plague outbreak that has affected [number] people. The state health department is still trying to identify the cause of the outbreak however bioterrorism is strongly suspected.

If Option 3 is chosen, the facilitator should allow participants to discuss what (if anything) they would do if they received such information.

Case Reports
Facilitator Dialogue

Who is responsible for receiving case reports today?
[To identified person]
You receive the following case report on June 26 at 9:00am from an emergency medicine doctor who is at [local hospital]:

June 26, a 10 year-old male child is brought to the [local emergency room] with shortness of breath, a cough and blood-tinged sputum. He is accompanied by his mother, who works as a housekeeper in [local area]. The mother speaks little English but is also coughing. Both are from Guatemala. They are given masks, and asked to wear them while sputum examinations are pending. The boy is admitted to the hospital after he is found to be febrile and have a cavitary lesion on his chest x-ray. The mother has no health insurance and refuses a chest x-ray. A PPD test was placed on the child. AFB smears are preliminarily negative. You receive a call about a suspicious case of TB in a school-age child.
[Clinical background story: While this case could well be plague, it is most likely TB. However, the shortness of breath, cough and blood-tinged sputum are non-specific enough that you would catch this if doing active surveillance for plague. The suspicion about plague increases once the AFB smears are negative, although that does not definitively rule out TB either.]

Facilitator Probes

[To identified person]
• What other information (if any) would you like to have from the caller?
• What advice (if any) would you give the caller?
• Who in the health district would you contact regarding the case? What would you tell them?

[To all participants]
• Who would assume responsibility and take charge at this point?

[The designated official should be encouraged to take charge of the discussion]
• Can you outline the main steps you would take?
• How would you handle the language barrier?

[These probes relate to active surveillance. If this was discussed during the initial situation report, move on. ]

• At this point would you do anything to try to identify if there are more cases?
• Which entities would you need to contact to initiate active surveillance? What are you going to tell them?
• How would you do active surveillance in vulnerable populations?
• What would you do with potential or suspicious cases that you identified?
• How would you aggregate information on suspicious cases?
• What percentage of physicians in your community could you contact?
• Would your active surveillance include a general public health advisory?

Facilitator Dialogue

Who else here might handle a case report if [the person responding to the first case report] is not available? [To identified person] You receive the following case report on June 26 at 3:00pm on the same day from the infection control practitioner at [local hospital]:

June 26, a 72-year-old man with a history of recurrent congestive heart failure (CHF) is admitted to [hospital] with a cough and bloody sputum.

He has obvious signs of fluid overload and is clinically in heart failure.

He has a history of multiple admissions for CHF, often due to running out of medicines at the end of the month.

The patient has no fever, and has no recent travel history.

You are called only because the ICU physician has been asked by the hospital infection control staff to report any cases of cough and bloody sputum. Sputum gram stain was over de-colorized, but negative.

[Clinical background story: This patient came to attention because he had cough and bloody sputum. You cannot rule out plague, but it is not as likely as simple heart failure.]

Facilitator Probes

[To identified person]
• What other information (if any) would you like to have from the caller?
• What advice (if any) would you give the caller?
• How if at all would you know about the first case reported earlier in the day?

[To all participants]
• How would you begin thinking about establishing a case definition?
• When (if at all) is there a meeting of the core local health department team who would respond to this problem? What happens at that meeting? How are activities coordinated among staff?
• When (if at all) would you contact your state health department and what would you tell them?
• What contact (if any) would local health department staff have with patients or their families (e.g., would staff call cases on the phone, conduct medical record reviews or personally visit the cases and possibly collect samples)?

Facilitator Dialogue

How does the your health department triage case reports that come in after hours? Who here might receive a case report after hours? [To identified person] You are woken on June 26 at 11:45pm and receive the following case report from an ED physician at [local hospital]:

June 26, a 42-year-old flight attendant reports for work at [local airport]. While waiting for his aircraft to arrive, he suddenly feels flushed, and over the next hour feels feverish and slightly confused. By the time he should board his plane, he feels too sick and weak to fly.

He is sent to the emergency room at [local hospital], where he is found to be hypotensive, and tachypneic.

While still able to talk, he says he is HIV positive, on meds, and that his last viral load was low.

He becomes too tachypneic to talk and is intubated.

CXR was consistent with ARDS.

Sputum gram stain revealed gram-negative bacilli.

 He is currently in the ICU.

You are called because of the infectious disease alert sent to your hospital, but the doctor thinks the patient has an AIDS-associated infection.

[Clinical background story: This patient probably has plague. The HIV may have made him more susceptible or made the clinical progression faster. The gram-negative bacilli are consistent with plague, but this could also be another gram-negative pneumonia. But each of these people are ”possible cases” and should be considered contagious until proven otherwise.]

Facilitator Probes

[To identified person]
• If you received a call like this after hours, what would you do?
• Would you wait until the morning to handle the situation or is it urgent enough to deal with immediately?

[To all participants]
• Is there anything that would cause you to link all of these case reports together?
• How would you begin to connect the dots?
• What other information would you need?

End of Step 1
Step 2

Facilitator Dialogue

The [local health department] has decided to convene a meeting with other local [and possibly state] actors that might be involved with a response to a potential outbreak to inform them about what has been happening.

[Depending on the local environment and the relationship between the state and local health departments, state health department officials may also need to be included in this meeting].

Briefing for other local actors
Local law enforcement
Local elected officials
Etc.

Facilitator Probes

[To the person identified as the leader during Step 1]
• You are in charge of this meeting. Outline the major areas you would like to discuss at the meeting.
• Would you still be in charge at this point or would someone else take over?

[To new participants]
• What kinds of questions would you ask the [local health department] at this point in time?
• What are your concerns?

[To local health department participants]
• How would all of you coordinate your epidemiologic investigation with the investigation that law enforcement will be conducting?
• What type of patient information are you allowed to give to law enforcement?

[To local law enforcement]
• During a public health emergency, who do you take orders from?
• If you need PPE to use during your investigation do you have access to some?
• Have law enforcement personnel all been trained in how to put on PPE?

[To local decision makers]
• What role do you see yourselves having in a situation like this?
• How would you keep open lines of communication with the health department?

Facilitator Dialogue

The initial results of [local health department] active surveillance are as follows:

[The size of the outbreak in this exercise can be tailored to be most appropriate for the goals and size of the local health department participating in the exercise]

The emergency department at [major local hospital] tells you they have seen nearly [number] people with respiratory illness in the last 24 hours. [number] have been admitted over the last shift, and their ICUs are now full. They are going on diversion.

Other local hospitals are experiencing similar challenges. [Only include if there is more than one local hospital associated with the health department participating in the exercise]
[Local health center or clinic] is reporting unusual numbers of cases with flu-like and respiratory illnesses

[Other local health care facility] reveals that they have seen a few people with flu-like and respiratory illness, which seems a bit odd for June. They have [number] people with respiratory failure in the ICU.

Facilitator Probes

[To local health department participants]
• How do you coordinate your efforts with local health care facilities?
• Is it your responsibility to help a hospitals with its divert schedules?
• Do you know the divert schedules of the hospital(s) in your region?
• What is your strategy for containing the spread of the disease?
• What is your strategy for reducing fatalities among those infected and exposed?
• Do you tell people experiencing certain symptoms to report only to those hospitals?

[To hospital staff present]
• What expectations do you have (if any) about the assistance you would get from your local health department during an emergency like this one?
• What type of a communication network do you have with the local health department?
• If you needed to acquire more respiratory equipment or other medical supplies could your local health department help you? If so, whom would you contact for help?
• How do you deal with large numbers of “worried well” people coming to health care facilities? Is there anything the local health department could do to help?

[To local health department participants]
• How would you handle a large number of calls being placed to the health department by worried people?
• How would you manage staff and handle things like staff burnout, staff not showing up for work, etc.


Facilitator Dialogue

The press has been hounding the [local health department] for a statement for over 24 hours. The local news has been reporting all of the information it can obtain.

Representatives from the media surround the health department and request a press briefing

Media are going to local hospitals and questioning doctors and nurses who have seen patients with respiratory illnesses

Media have been interviewing patients discharged from local hospitals.
The media insists that you hold a press briefing.

Facilitator Probes
• Who is in charge of communicating with the media in an event like this?
• What are the major messages you would like to give to the press and the public?
• How do you manage your press campaign?
• How often do you speak with the press?
• How do you keep your message to the press consistent?
• Does the health department have templates that it can use to create fast messages for the media?
• How do you avoid frightening the public?
• How much information do you give the media?
• What advice do you have for the public?