TSA CIO on The Need for Collaboration

I was at Management of Change conference in Philly this morning and saw the Chief Information Officer for TSA speak – Dr. Emma Garrison – Alexander

Here are my notes

Building 30 year collaboration…
-Some people hear collaboration and only think of 2009 and on

Collaboration defined – a true partnership in which both organizations pool
their resources and technologies in a cooperative manner in order to achieve
certain strategic objectives of both parties (Campione, 2003)

The question isn’t whether we should collaborate. The question is how we should collaborate

Need a mission need to collaborate. Has to be a value in collaborating.

Can’t transfer accountability. How do you share responsibilities in a collaborative environment?

Who is responsible for risks and rewards in a collaborative environment

Transparency being pushed from top down

Collaboration & Mission Connection

Key is to align technology with mission need

-Is technology the answer?

-People always want to skip to the technology as answer.

-Technology is usually not the biggest issue

-The key enabler and the security debate.

-Security debate is always same…my network is more secure

-What is the role of culture?

-Real barrier

-Can it be mandated?
-Yes, but it is
not a guarantee

What is the value proposition?
-The mission
case has to be made
-Not separate part
– just a way we work
-What’s the
benefit of collaboration? Have to
demonstrate to people…extra effort that usually takes longer

People don’t want another tool.
Need to understand what I do and how I do it. Want integrated set of tools

Having off-sites CIO with all business units. Has to be tied to mission objectives

Internal Boundaries
-Lines of Business
-Field locations
-International sites

External Boundaries
-DHS
-Federal CIOs
-Industry Partners
-Public

IdeaFactory – web-based tool that empowers all TSA employees to:

-submit ideas
-provide comments on how to improve new concepts
-rate ideas that should recommend for implementation
-use social media concepts to harness the wisdom of the crowds
-Employee engagement occurs throughout the entire lifecycle with leadership
support and strategic communications enabling the overall program

Was a rule – children can bring liquids on plane. Everyone interpreting different. TSA screener suggested – change word to impant.

Build it and they will come philosophy doesn’t work – processes and rules of
engagement were necessary

TSA Blog stats
-Response to TSA Agents Took My Son scandal
-TSA Rapidly Responds
-10/15 – Passenger makes complaint on her blog
-10/16 –TSA posts information and video for transparency
-155,000 hits in 5 days (TSA blog receives 500k hits a month)
-5,000+ hits on Twitter
-933 tweets subject-related

Cloud computing has great promise but in early stage. Especially opportunity in O&M. Email as a service.
Still have a lot of work to do to implement on a broad basis. Looking forward to that area maturing