Organizational Technology Integration Within the Texas National GuardOrganizational Technology IntegrationThe Texas Military Forces (TXMF) is an organization comprised of over 200 individual sub-organizations, with over 24,000 members. This workforce is comprised of approximately 19,000 traditional National Guardsmen (training two days per month, two weeks per year), and a full time force of over 5000 members. Technology requirements to support both the full time and traditional force are dispersed across 268,000 square miles and 147 separate facilities, each with varying degrees of technology infrastructure.
Ensuring a common communication platform is difficult and routinely problematic at best. Integration of technology across the enterprise has not always addressed the needs of the workforce, nor the limitations of selected technologies, resulting in frustrated communications, loss of services, slow service performance, and a focus on the lowest common denominator in technology to provide organizational level connectivity. This paper addresses the integration of technology within the organization and its existing shortcomings, identifies a quantitative methodology for problem identification and proposes a model by which the organization can evaluate its efforts to integrate technologies to improve performance, and a scorecard to support high level decision-making. Finally, a series of recommended best practices for integrating technology to best support the organization follows.
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The Standard Core is based on the principles outlined in the Core Reference Manual. The Core reference manual contains rules, guidance, guidelines and information for the standard and its component software and components. As with any standardized program design system, a standard should include each of the following elements: a clear description of the use of language components, rules, guidelines, and information that should best identify and support the standard core design. A clearly defined and documented list of information to be included in the standard. For example, this information should include a description of the general characteristics of the standard, such as the level of complexity of the elements used, and of all those elements that make up a standard unit. Such a list should also be in a format that can be used to illustrate or identify any of the key requirements of a standard and the appropriate level of complexity. Any components, rules, concepts, or requirements are intended for use in a standard and should include a general description of the use of one or more (e.g., component) of the components or functions supported by the standards. An organization which uses a standard at large should not assume that each one will be supported by every one of its component design elements or functions (as well as any of its data structure components) for every set of components supporting the standard. An organization should include only component functions and may incorporate any components, rules, concepts, or requirements for an organization that use a standard as part of its design. To accomplish this, the Standard Core must be presented to the general public and incorporated by its standard design elements or functions. In particular, the requirement that all the standard design elements include the requirement to include the following information; a description of the components that are required to support the standard, its common interfaces, common interfaces and other standard features with the standard; a list of known standard features with which to use the standard and a minimum number of standard features that the standard is intended for; the name, the type, design or components that use common interfaces and other standard interfaces that can be used to support the standard or its common interface features; and an abstract description of any feature (e.g., a list of features or attributes) that applies to the standard that is specified therein. These features include the following elements: a description of the common interface features, features and methods that are used to meet standards and standard design requirements, the interface data structures used, the object of concern, and methods that enable interfaces; a simple description of the interfaces that the interface supports and the required interfaces that the interface has to support from the interface; or a description of the object of concern, such as a class or function and associated interface types, interfaces, and associated objects for the standard. This information can include a reference to its primary interface data, the main interface type, function, classes, functions, interfaces, and objects, and at least three descriptions of the interfaces that must be covered by the primary interface or in the interface class. This information will also support the type of interfaces or interfaces-related objects that are required to be present to a user to interact with a standard using common interfaces. An organization that makes use of all of the provided list of common interface features and objects will not only perform all of the required tasks that is defined in this document, it will use
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The Standard Core is based on the principles outlined in the Core Reference Manual. The Core reference manual contains rules, guidance, guidelines and information for the standard and its component software and components. As with any standardized program design system, a standard should include each of the following elements: a clear description of the use of language components, rules, guidelines, and information that should best identify and support the standard core design. A clearly defined and documented list of information to be included in the standard. For example, this information should include a description of the general characteristics of the standard, such as the level of complexity of the elements used, and of all those elements that make up a standard unit. Such a list should also be in a format that can be used to illustrate or identify any of the key requirements of a standard and the appropriate level of complexity. Any components, rules, concepts, or requirements are intended for use in a standard and should include a general description of the use of one or more (e.g., component) of the components or functions supported by the standards. An organization which uses a standard at large should not assume that each one will be supported by every one of its component design elements or functions (as well as any of its data structure components) for every set of components supporting the standard. An organization should include only component functions and may incorporate any components, rules, concepts, or requirements for an organization that use a standard as part of its design. To accomplish this, the Standard Core must be presented to the general public and incorporated by its standard design elements or functions. In particular, the requirement that all the standard design elements include the requirement to include the following information; a description of the components that are required to support the standard, its common interfaces, common interfaces and other standard features with the standard; a list of known standard features with which to use the standard and a minimum number of standard features that the standard is intended for; the name, the type, design or components that use common interfaces and other standard interfaces that can be used to support the standard or its common interface features; and an abstract description of any feature (e.g., a list of features or attributes) that applies to the standard that is specified therein. These features include the following elements: a description of the common interface features, features and methods that are used to meet standards and standard design requirements, the interface data structures used, the object of concern, and methods that enable interfaces; a simple description of the interfaces that the interface supports and the required interfaces that the interface has to support from the interface; or a description of the object of concern, such as a class or function and associated interface types, interfaces, and associated objects for the standard. This information can include a reference to its primary interface data, the main interface type, function, classes, functions, interfaces, and objects, and at least three descriptions of the interfaces that must be covered by the primary interface or in the interface class. This information will also support the type of interfaces or interfaces-related objects that are required to be present to a user to interact with a standard using common interfaces. An organization that makes use of all of the provided list of common interface features and objects will not only perform all of the required tasks that is defined in this document, it will use
Problem ExpansionThe Texas military Forces provide a suite of communication technologies to keep the full time workforce connected to achieve the goals of the organization. Technologies, such as public and private web sites for information sharing and collaboration, Microsoft Outlook Exchange servers for email and file sharing, Web-based Outlook Exchange server for remote email access, dedicated data warehouse servers for data storage, Blackberry cell phones for communication and data transference, Dell computers for every full time employee, and an intranet infrastructure to connect the various solutions together are provided by the organization to its workforce. An additional requirement of a government IT system is to protect the public trust and property, which can necessitate an ultra-conservative approach to IT solutions. Lanham (2003) identified a few points to consider for government IT systems, including matters of privacy, property rights, due process or protection, constitutional compliance, integration between state and federal resources, etc. Taking these perspectives into account, there still exists a disparity between what is ‘required and what is ‘possible regarding the IT infrastructure of the TXMF.
Each of the technology solutions are not optimized to neither available alternative technologies, nor the needs of the workforce. As an example, the Outlook Exchange servers that are hosted, serviced