Even before Sept. 11, the concept of a “revolution in military affairs” was being widely embraced by the new leadership of the U.S. Department of Defense. Now, the push to modernize the Pentagon is in full force. Writer Elizabeth Wasserman spoke recently with DoD CIO John Stenbit about the changes.
CIO INSIGHT: What issues face all government CIOs when it comes to dollars, legacy systems, politics and aging technology?
The government is not a decentralized authority because the political-financial intersection is pretty complex. There’s too much control. That works fine with things determined by the government, but it doesn’t work in cases where the pace of technology is determined by somebody else. In the information technology business, the pace of technology is determined by the commercial sector. The government can install all these processes and then assume it can execute. But by then, the world has moved on. That’s the fundamental problem for a government CIO.