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The ironic thing about the DHS was it was supposed to make the communication lines between the FBI, the CIA and other federal law enforcement agencies better. T

The ironic thing about the DHS was it was supposed to make the communication lines between the FBI, the CIA and other federal law enforcement agencies better. This is one of the major failings of what happened on 9/11 - a total lack of sharing of intelligence between the CIA and FBI. And here we are, almost 15 years later and nothing has changed or improved. Several commentators even argued if the DHS actually worked, several of the recent terror attacks would have been prevented. Either fix it, or get rid of it.

mathattack 13y ago
Adding a bureaucracy to improve communications is like adding a junior programmer to a late project. It totally misses the nature of the problem.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Well, it can make sense when the added bureaucracy aligns well with an unexpected functional requirement that otherwise cuts across organizational boundaries. Even if you don't move every agency under the new structure, simply having a single point of responsibility for that new function can help with communication flow. I think that's the real issue, is that functional requirements cropped up with no point of focus, but when they instituted a new agency to handle that they wrapped it up with a whole Department and a grab-bag of other tangentially-related agencies.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    Maybe we're arguing the same thing. I kind of view it like... If there's a group of people who aren't talking, adding someone to facilitate communications doesn't add much. Improving the structure is better than adding on top of it. (This is sometimes why PMOs fail. Adding someone to make sense of a bunch of projects doesn't address why they weren't making sense previously)
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Right, mere facilitation is no good, you need to give that new person directive authority and make that function their job. That's actually one of the things I'm struggling with in my current job. I oversee a collection of units that can easily track a certain pool of wastefully-utilized resources, but have no actual power to fix it. Those with actual directive authority over the individual elements of that pool have no incentive to correct things other than some guy 8 levels higher in the chain of command being irritated. And a third party that actually does the work that would get elements of this pool out of the pool drag their feet on it completely as for them it's "just admin". So I get to make reports on this waste everyday but with little effective power to fix it. Standing up an audit team that would have the power to fix requires resources, resources which no one seems to have now...
      - mathattack 13y ago
        It sounds like you're being underutilized. Many times people "Create an organization" to solve a problem as a way to say they're doing something, without actually having to get dirty themselves. I don't know your situation well, but perhaps it may be time to look around.
        mpyne 13y ago
        I'm a freaking O-3, I have nowhere near enough 'pull' required to tell organizations led by O-5 all the way through O-9s to get their collective organizations off of their collective asses, even if I felt like 'getting dirty'. But, even if I felt like it, what happens when I leave and the next guy comes along who doesn't care at all? The situation I'm talking about here isn't one of my primary duties, it merely happens to be related. Right now this issue is essentially no one's primary duty, which is one of the problems. My proposed solution is a tested principle from software refactoring, applied to organizations writ large. In fact I've often been surprised at how well software engineering practices can translate over to organizational systems design practices.
        mathattack 13y ago
cafard 13y ago
Information sharing has definitely made strides, whether or not through DHS--else how could Manning and Snowden come up with such quantities to leak?
snowwrestler 13y ago
Information sharing has most definitely improved. One example is the Prism program, in which the FBI is responsible for data collection and then pipes it to the NSA. Not saying that is good for the country overall, but the agencies are definitely sharing more data.
- dsl 13y ago
  That has nothing to do with DHS. As a result of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 put the Office of the Director of National Intelligence "in charge" (in an oversight capability) of the 17 major intelligence agencies we have here in the US. For better or worse it dramatically increased intelligence sharing and cooperation, as well as effectively tearing down the walls between domestic and foreign intelligence work.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    I didn't say that it did--just that information sharing has improved.

mathattack 13y ago

Adding a bureaucracy to improve communications is like adding a junior programmer to a late project. It totally misses the nature of the problem.

mpyne 13y ago
Well, it can make sense when the added bureaucracy aligns well with an unexpected functional requirement that otherwise cuts across organizational boundaries. Even if you don't move every agency under the new structure, simply having a single point of responsibility for that new function can help with communication flow. I think that's the real issue, is that functional requirements cropped up with no point of focus, but when they instituted a new agency to handle that they wrapped it up with a whole Department and a grab-bag of other tangentially-related agencies.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Maybe we're arguing the same thing. I kind of view it like... If there's a group of people who aren't talking, adding someone to facilitate communications doesn't add much. Improving the structure is better than adding on top of it. (This is sometimes why PMOs fail. Adding someone to make sense of a bunch of projects doesn't address why they weren't making sense previously)
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Right, mere facilitation is no good, you need to give that new person directive authority and make that function their job. That's actually one of the things I'm struggling with in my current job. I oversee a collection of units that can easily track a certain pool of wastefully-utilized resources, but have no actual power to fix it. Those with actual directive authority over the individual elements of that pool have no incentive to correct things other than some guy 8 levels higher in the chain of command being irritated. And a third party that actually does the work that would get elements of this pool out of the pool drag their feet on it completely as for them it's "just admin". So I get to make reports on this waste everyday but with little effective power to fix it. Standing up an audit team that would have the power to fix requires resources, resources which no one seems to have now...
    - mathattack 13y ago
      It sounds like you're being underutilized. Many times people "Create an organization" to solve a problem as a way to say they're doing something, without actually having to get dirty themselves. I don't know your situation well, but perhaps it may be time to look around.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        I'm a freaking O-3, I have nowhere near enough 'pull' required to tell organizations led by O-5 all the way through O-9s to get their collective organizations off of their collective asses, even if I felt like 'getting dirty'. But, even if I felt like it, what happens when I leave and the next guy comes along who doesn't care at all? The situation I'm talking about here isn't one of my primary duties, it merely happens to be related. Right now this issue is essentially no one's primary duty, which is one of the problems. My proposed solution is a tested principle from software refactoring, applied to organizations writ large. In fact I've often been surprised at how well software engineering practices can translate over to organizational systems design practices.
        mathattack 13y ago

cafard 13y ago

Information sharing has definitely made strides, whether or not through DHS--else how could Manning and Snowden come up with such quantities to leak?

snowwrestler 13y ago

Information sharing has most definitely improved. One example is the Prism program, in which the FBI is responsible for data collection and then pipes it to the NSA. Not saying that is good for the country overall, but the agencies are definitely sharing more data.

dsl 13y ago
That has nothing to do with DHS. As a result of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 put the Office of the Director of National Intelligence "in charge" (in an oversight capability) of the 17 major intelligence agencies we have here in the US. For better or worse it dramatically increased intelligence sharing and cooperation, as well as effectively tearing down the walls between domestic and foreign intelligence work.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  I didn't say that it did--just that information sharing has improved.