Department of Defense business transformation: it's on a roll: moving on an aggressive schedule, the Business Transformation Agency is determined to succeed in its mission to deliver the best support ever to its customers.

The new Business Transformation Agency (BTA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), celebrated its first anniversary on October 7, 2006. Barely a year old, BTA already is delivering results, making headway toward systematically improving DoD business processes, systems, and investment governance. The agency is reaching critical mass on a number of fronts, making gains in consistency, consolidation, and coordination across the DoD enterprise.

BTA's central mission is conveyed through its four strategic objectives: Support the joint warfighting capability of DoD; improve financial stewardship to the American people; enable rapid access to information for strategic decisions; and reduce the cost of Defense business operations.

These are worthy objectives and a pretty tall order. How can BTA achieve them? The agency started by identifying Business Enterprise Priorities: personnel visibility, acquisition visibility, common supplier engagement, materiel visibility, real property accountability, and financial visibility. Each one is critically important to military comptrollers and financial officers at all levels.

Aiming at these priorities, BTA now is developing and implementing initiatives and products, such as the Business Enterprise Architecture (BEA) and the Enterprise Transition Plan (ETP). These are the seminal plans of DoD business transformation and are updated semiannually in March and September. This schedule means that BTA is committed to delivering new and improved capabilities at least every six months, wave after wave.

The plans are utilized by the DoD components (for example, military services, Defense agencies, and DoD field activities) to design and implement their own business transformation solutions within a framework of transformational DoD business rules and standards. The most recent BEA (4.0) and ETP were released on September 28, 2006. (Both can be downloaded from www.dod.mil/dbt/products/Sept-06-BEA_ETP.)

The Department is establishing itself as a leader in business transformation. The first-ever Defense Business Agility Forum was held on October 17-19, 2006, bringing together some of the best and brightest transformational leaders and government professionals to hear author Malcolm Gladwell, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, magazine columnist Fareed Zakaria, Dave Girouard of Google, and others. Discussions included imperatives for twenty-first century Defense business; the impact of the global economy on defense; financial stewardship for the American taxpayer; large-scale enterprise transformation; technology, innovation, and agility; and more.

The challenges facing DoD business transformation fall into three broad categories: those that heavily depend on systems solutions; those that depend primarily on process solutions; and those that depend on both systems and process solutions. To provide oversight for programs within BTA, the agency established the office of Defense Business Systems Acquisition Executive (DBSAE).

Role of the DBSAE

My office is responsible for driving the successful implementation of assigned initiatives and programs that deliver DoD enterprise business systems and capabilities. It serves as the Component Acquisition Executive for enterprise-level programs and initiatives, as assigned by the Defense Business Systems Management Committee DBSMC), which was responsible for establishing the BTA and governs its priorities.

The DBSAE is charged with supporting the warfighter; supporting program managers and program executive offices; advocating for BTA and designated programs; and serving as the milestone decision authority for specific programs, as directed by DBSMC. The DBSAE manages relationships across organizational boundaries and functional areas and builds and continuously improves an acquisition team that responds to evolving requirements; adheres to DoD directives and instructions; and leverages commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technology. The Department has made significant strides in breaking down the legacy cultural and systems barriers that have hamstrung business agility. Thanks to DBSMC leadership, DoD now has better visibility into operations, tighter alignment of end-to-end business functions, and a noticeable bias toward excellence in execution.

An important activity related to DoD enterprise integration is the migration of systems from across the Department into a common portfolio of business enterprise programs. These enterprise programs will provide enhanced visibility, advocacy, and direct accountability to senior leadership and will enable focused implementation of DoD enterprise business capabilities.

As of October 2006, the BTA was organized to deliver the needed capabilities of 25 assigned programs. Each program is assigned to a program executive officer, who looks at each program not only individually but also as a family of systems. This portfolio view will allow DoD to gain from portfolio management strategies in the areas of funding, hosting, security, and schedule synchronization. Better yet, it will allow focus on how the portfolio family will operate.

Progressing quickly, we have established critical relationships with the warfighter, the principal staff assistants within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the heads of the DoD components. We have leveraged the BEA and ETP, together with the Department's decision support systems, and organized to deliver functionality.

Early on, we recognized that governance did not exist at the senior level. To manage its assigned systems as a portfolio, my office established O8-level steering committees for travel and payroll. Next, we plan to form a governance body for sourcing and, later, one for financial visibility. This is about leadership--leadership must be actively engaged.

Defense Travel System (DTS)

For an example of our progress, look no further than DTS, which has a long and storied past. Any of DoD's 3.5 million active duty military and reserve personnel and DoD civilian employees who have traveled on official business can tell you that the process notoriously has been long and difficult. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in one of its recent reports, called DoD's travel management practices and systems "antiquated" while acknowledging that improving DTS was "a daunting challenge."

The system was in dire need of improvement for a number of reasons. As GAO put it, "The successful implementation of DTS is critical to reducing the number of stovepiped, duplicative travel systems throughout the Department. We have reported on a number of occasions that reducing the number of business systems within DoD can translate into savings that can be used for other mission needs. Further, the shift of DTS to BTA, which makes DTS an enterprise-wide endeavor, should help in making DTS the standard integrated, end-to-end travel system for business travel."

The enhancements and expansions made to the system mean that DoD travel no longer is the headache it once was. The new DTS makes the travel process faster, easier, and better by seamlessly automating the three DoD travel processes: authorization, reservation, and voucher filing. For the first time in its history, most of the effort on DTS now is focused on usability.

From their workstation desktops, travelers can generate their own travel authorizations, make trip reservations, and route travel requests for approval. The system is paperless and uses DoD Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates for digital signatures, as required. It's totally Web-based--no need to load software. All a traveler needs is a Web browser plug-in for digital signature authentication and system security.

When the trip has been completed, the traveler easily can create a voucher from the data already stored in the system. He or she scans or faxes required receipts, which are attached to the voucher for electronic archiving. The voucher then is electronically routed for approval and submission to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). An electronic funds transfer from DFAS to the traveler's bank account completes the process.

Users can access the system in a number of ways--through a Web browser, client/server access, or character-based environments. Even users who are not yet automated can take advantage of the new, improved DTS through their supporting commercial travel office.

DTS is compliant with privacy act requirements, protecting travel documents and personal profile information by allowing the Defense Travel Administrator to limit traveler and Authorization Official access. The system is based on COTS software, leverages the Defense Information Infrastructure, and uses a clustered multiprocessing environment with modular systems for maximum flexibility. It's easy to add processors, memory, and functionality based on customer needs; and, because of the client/server architecture, DTS users gain better presentation of information along with greater flexibility during interaction.

The system is optimized for database environments and features powerful servers and software products that provide the exceptional reliability and efficiency required to meet DoD's high volume of transactions and query-intensive applications.

Stringent control of system data and resources is built into DTS, and the DTS team delivers a command and control level of trust via the system's security. Secure gateways and other security controls in the data center provide identification and authentication of users, control access to specific data records, and prevent the unauthorized disclosure and dissemination of DoD travel data. All internal resources of the system--computers, networks, and data--are protected from external attack.

Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System (DIMHRS)

Another example of progress, which will touch millions of service members, is found in DIMHRS (pronounced "dime-ers"). This is an end-to-end, integrated military personnel and pay system.

Developing and deploying DIMHRS, as with the reengineering of DTS, are no small tasks. Both are among the largest such system installations ever in the history of the planet. With DIMHRS, BTA is on the verge of delivering some prime enterprise capabilities, which, of course, is why the agency was created. DIMHRS is a transformational technological effort that integrates personnel and pay functions to offer accurate and timely data on personnel assets; tracks reservists for both pay and service credit; traces all military personnel in and around a given forward deployed theater; and offers standard data for comparison across services and components.

DIMHRS will be first deployed to Army and Air Force components. In a few months, when we first hit the button on DIMHRS, the system will be handling pay for more than a million soldiers and almost half a million airmen. DIMHRS implementation will result in significant improvements in the ability of military services to account for and manage their human resources.

BTA--Moving Forward

The BTA may have stood up barely a year ago, but it's quickly demonstrating progress and delivering success that are critical to its future. The BTA has moved on an aggressive schedule, particularly with important systems like DIMHRS and DTS. Our aggressive schedule must be kept--and even accelerated.

We have promised vigorous movement forward, and a promise is a promise--we must deliver. In moving forward, the challenge for those in the field is how better to use the information the systems provide at the component and operational levels. The challenge at BTA is to ensure that DIMHRS and DTS are delivered so that savings soon can be realized.

I am excited by the roles these two major programs are playing in delivering on the promise of DoD business transformation. There is no more important mission than to deliver the best support we can for the warfighters--the men and women in uniform serving our nation--while balancing that support with strong stewardship of the American taxpayer's hard-earned dollar. This is a mission we embrace. In it we must not, we cannot, fail.

I look forward to achieving the full promise of the capabilities of DTS and DIMHRS, and in the delivery of even more DoD Enterprise-wide capabilities as BTA moves forward into its most promising future. We accept the responsibilities that come with this leadership role.

For additional information

on the BTA and DIMHRS, visit the following sites:

www.dod.mil/bta

www.dimhrs.mil

www.defensetravel.osd.mil

Major General Carlos "Butch" Pair