FROM THE ARMY
ACQUISITION EXECUTIVE DR. BRUCE D. JETTE
THE ZEN OF DATA
Managing data holistically from the foxhole to the Pentagon enables bet ter decision-making.
T
he old saying is that “an army runs on its stom- ach,” but that’s not quite the case anymore. With our feet firmly planted in the digital age, our Army doesn’t run on its stomach—it runs on data.
Currently the acquisition community has no enterprise-wide tools for managing Army acquisition-related data such as financial information, system requirements, logistics or sched- ules. Te execution of billion-dollar programs is maintained on isolated Excel spreadsheets of program and budget analysts. When senior decision-makers need information, they have to send a request through their chain of command. Tat request then gets consolidated over the course of days and weeks by various headquarter elements until the needed information is sent back up the chain. It takes too much time. At pres- ent, there is no efficient and effective way to store and share the data that leaders need when they need it. We are chang- ing that.
Commercial companies such as Amazon and Google and the financial industry have demonstrated that current and emerg- ing technologies make data management critical to being an industry leader. Now is the time for Army acquisition to invest in the tools and governance structures that will facilitate a data culture transformation in the Army.
I believe effective data management is one of the keys to successfully rationalizing Army data—in other words,
grouping related data fields into tables, determining key fields and then relating those tables using common key fields. Effi- cient access to the right data allows Army leaders to make better, well-informed decisions. But to achieve effective data management, we need to change the way we conduct busi- ness—change our culture—from the executive level at the Pentagon to the Soldier in the foxhole.
HOLISTIC DATA Data is defined as factual information used as a basis for reasoning, discussion or calculation. It is invaluable, but only if it is collected, managed and maintained properly. With- out effective data management, our business processes could experience a dependability breakdown—there could be dozens of needlessly duplicated processes, products could be wildly over budget and anything that’s measured in numbers, like how many tanks are operationally ready, could be totally inaccurate.
Te Army is an enormous entity, and the amount of data it generates is staggering. Te acquisition enterprise itself is no small part of that, and we’re aiming to have a holistic approach to managing data. It is absolutely imperative.
Right now, data is stored in many different locations—in various clouds or on many different servers—and isn’t partic- ularly accessible to those who may need it; it’s siloed. In other words, we have different datasets in different places, and no
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