The Army puts vast time and resources into something called Knowledge Management. Any user of Army Knowledge Online and its agglomeration of user groups, networks, libraries, menus, and searches, knows that this is a well-intentioned but mostly futile endeavor. It is a blocky, chunked-up system that requires an endless array of credentialing, accounts, and searches to do anything. Worse, the Army requires that most personnel functions be accomplished through the online system.
The in-theater information management system is also terrible. You might think that the Army has a streamlined, easy-to-use information system. Nope. The Army does have a system where you can spend half an hour looking up a phone number, and discover that it's the wrong number for someone who left the country months ago. This is because sites require constant maintenance, which gets progressively lower in priority the longer a unit has been deployed, and the more times it has changed personnel out. You may find some of the information you need for a specific staff section, but you will only do that after dodging dead-link minefields, outdated and un-maintained sites, and so forth. Then, the document will only be about an 70% solution to your question, as it was produced for a totally different reason. Trying to find a simple document is extremely challenging, though to the Army's credit, there is typically some sort of search function that may help if you're really astute with keywords. And very patient.
If you are trying to get an answer to a question that isn't in a product somewhere, you have to resort to email and phone calls to get ahold of the person who knows what you're talking about. More than once, I have sent out an email question to someone, only to get the 20-email thread back in two days and see that the last person referred the thread to me as the subject matter expert. If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked! Now I am back at square one, and don't know where the email chain should have branched to get me to the right person.
Why is this worth valuable electrons and your time to read about?
Well, one of the key challenges the Army (or whole military, as most large operations are now joint) faces is sharing relevant information in a timely fashion across all organizations that need it. This is a formidable task. When one organization partners with Iraqis, for instance, and writes a report or hears some useful information, that information typically has applications all over the country. If that information isn't disseminated in a timely manner, then huge amounts of time and energy are expended trying to accomplish the exact same task that has been accomplished before. Winning wars and building nations is tough enough, but try to do it twice, concurrently, and you get the idea.
Information handling is vital to conducting synchronized operations across literally hundreds of staff sections and organizations, and yet the Army's response leaves huge gaps in awareness of reports, policies, orders, statistics, and meetings. Half of the meetings (in this SM's humble estimation) are conducted because someone is trying to find out information that other people already know. This causes a huge cascading effect, where meetings are held to prep for other meetings, which are in turn used to prep for other meetings, which are used to prep for other meetings, the results of which are then taken to a decision-maker for judgment. I do not offer exaggeration on the layers of CYA pre-meetings that are necessary to get a decision or guidance. While some meetings are necessary for discussion and analysis, most meetings should happen to make decisions or when a discussion is absolutely necessary.
Poor information management causes vast waste of time and effort.
But does it have to be this way? I suggest not. Let's look at some alternate tools for awareness.
There is technology available to make information sharing easier. For instance, let's take a look at a typical division website. There is a scrolling SIGACT bar that someone put in; there is a set of outdated links, or perhaps links to the unit's internal portal, which is great for the unit but terrible for anyone else trying to get information. The staff section links will go to pages with little useful information. If I know someone in the unit has something that I want, getting it takes ten times longer than it should when I have to do a separate research project to find a current staff roster, call the person, and wait for him to dig up the information.
While the unit's internal portal may be useful and have information, that information does no one any good if it's not accessible and if other folks don't know it's there. Critical reports, assessments, and data sheets often languish without potential customers being able to see them, and sites go un-updated due to lack of trained site-maintainers. How can we remedy this?
Simple: Use a market solution. There have been very few things in history that the government can do better than private enterprise, and this is not one of those things.
Pay Google to re-vamp the search, archiving, and information management system, like with a Google search engine, Wave, and Google Docs. I'll bet a paycheck that the company could set up a much more efficient and effective system for the military for less than the current system's cost outlay.
Use Twitter to ask and answer questions in real-time.
Use the available technology and tools to get people away from the static section web-page concept, and get them tied in together for cloud computing, real-time messaging and information boards, feeds, and whatever else works for sharing information to the right people at the right time.
Let's get away from fact-finding meetings and move towards getting accurate, current information to decision-makers. It's time to move on to doing other productive things, like winning, and putting our soldiers' time and effort to better use than trying to building Sharepoint that no one looks at.
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