Data, Design and the Road Ahead: Part 2 of the Digital Transformation for Defense

In the first part of our podcast on digital transformation trends for the defense community, Donna Settle, Vice President, Federal Defense for Maximus, former Acting CIO for the Department of Defense, Reserve Brigadier General (Ret.) Leslie Beavers, and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mary F. O'Brien  who served as the director of command, control, communications, and computer/cyber and CIO, J6, Joint Staff at the Pentagon, shared their thoughts on the evolution of the Fulcrum Strategy and much need innovation in identity access and management strategies in order to meet the demands of real world threats and requirements of the Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity.

We ended the first part of the podcast with a discussion about cybersecurity trends, but the conversation continued for much longer into other vital areas. The next part of the podcast continues to focus on digital transformation for the defense community but turns our attention to data, design, and the road ahead. Today, no organization can truly transform if it has yet to unlock the power of its data and makes that information interoperable across the entire defense ecosystem while still acting as a single source of truth. Without interoperable data any organization will struggle amongst other things to use AI to its fullest potential or capitalize on a full spectrum of intelligence that can reveal mission critical insights.

While technology grounds this modernization conversation, Settle was eager to discuss the broader underpinnings of a successful transformation – people and process. Without all three areas subject to change, digital transformation can’t be fully realized. Moreover, within the processes driving change, ensuring that human-centered design principles guide actions so that systems truly work for the end user and can support innovation at scale.

With so much at stake as tensions in the Americas and around the world continue to intensify, the ability of the DoD to leverage new digital tools and technologies in pursuit of national security has never been more important. You can learn more about digital transformation when you clickthrough to the second part of our podcast.