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DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
In 1994, DIA leadership examined all agency processes for conformance with NPR objectives. The cornerstone of this effort was a quality assessment of the entire agency. In August 1994, surveys were sent to all DIA employees, both in the United States and abroad. DIA leadership solicited views on teamwork, empowerment, customer focus, cutting red tape, and cost saving measures, as it was important to get not only their opinions, but their participation in re engineering DIA. Over 65% of the work force expressed their views.
Immediate feedback came from the Director, at that time, Lieutenant General James R. Clapper, Jr., who challenged DIA to identify solutions; employees representing virtually every DIA organization volunteered to form twentyeight teams to action the resulting concerns. In February 1995, the chairpersons of these teams signed contracts with the Director to: identify and work toward common, wellunderstood Agency goals; expand empowerment and diversity management awareness; more efficiently/effectively use resources; expand recycling, conservation, and safety programs; eliminate bureaucratic "red tape"; and, to better illuminate family and wellness issues. The groups worked until 30 June 1995, identifying over 100 recommendations, which were provided to line managers for review and implementation. To date, over 75% of the recommendations have been implemented and the remaining 25% are expected to be fully implemented.
Specific reengineering successes include: savings of $50 to $75 thousand per year in postage/mail costs; expanded use of local facilities for conferences, avoiding funded travel for offsites; paper waste reduced due to comprehensive review of forms and automation; unnecessary red tape has been eliminated by setting up new, streamlined administrative procedures; overtime expenditures have been reduced, where possible; voice mail tweaked to improve responsiveness; a review of environmental and safety standards resulted in significantly safe work spaces for DIA employees; use of alternate work schedules has been expanded throughout the Agency; employee councils exist in every organization; physical security practices have been streamlined; excess computer hardware is now removed within 10 days; and Agency conservation efforts have allowed staff to apply energy rebates from the local utility company. Finally DIA has implemented new civilian awards, promotion, and performance appraisal systems as well as created an employee wellness program.
DoDIPP empowers individual intelligence analysts and production centers to interface directly with consumers of their reports. Also, quality control procedures eliminates layered management reviews of products. Based on the individual center's ability to provide unique intelligence production on the topic, each production center is designated the primary or collaborative producer for specific intelligence analytic functional or substantive areas. The DoD intelligence community is able to permit each Unified Command, military service, and DIA staff to directly assign validated intelligence requests. Action can then be taken without negotiation sessions or other bureaucratic or administrative overhead.
In 1995 the DoDIPP initiative systematically revised defense intelligence production by leveraging the analytic strengths and unique expertise of 17 production organizations (9 Unified Command joint intelligence centers, 4 military intelligence centers, and 4 DIA production centers) to create a corporate atmosphere and process. DoDIPP is now moving beyond the original 17 to encompass new centers of expertise.
The DoDIPP has coupled new policies with technological advances to routinize the intelligence requirement process and intelligence production into an efficient process that is transparent to the customer and requires minimum management and oversight.
- Intelink, which became operational early in 1995, uses public domain Internet technology to
"publish" classified multimedia intelligence products and allows user access to data they need when it is needed.
- COLISEUM, a database application which became fully operational in July 1995, provides the
automated mechanism for assigning production requirements, scheduling, deconflicting, assigning production, tracking and managing overall production activities.
DoDIPP focuses on the customer by producing tailored reporting responding to documented requests for specific intelligence rather than intelligence generated by individual production element interest. This greatly decreased unnecessary production and enabled the analysts to satisfy required needs.
DoDIPP cuts red tape by establishing "single stop shopping" for intelligence customers, clarifying and streamlining production processes, and eliminating several layers of bureaucratic review.
DoDIPP gets back to basics. Management of the requirement process and of the production process is one of centralized oversight and decentralized execution. Consequently, DoDIPP cut the number of policy and procedures directives and publications by more than 50 percent.