Read the case study The FBI given below and answer the following questions:
What do you think were the real reasons why the VCF system failed?
What were the points of alignment and misalignment between the Information Systems Strategy and the FBI organization?
What do you think of the CIO's final comment about how to change attitudes? Do you think it will work? Why or why not?
If you were the CIO, what would you do to help the FBI modernize and make better use of information technology?
THE FBI case study
The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. government, the FBI, was forced to scrap its $170million virtual case file (VCF) management system. Official reports blamed numerous delays, cost over runs, and incompatible software. But a deeper examination of the cause of this failure uncovered issues of control, culture, and incompatible organizational systems.
Among its many duties, the FBI is charged with the responsibility to fight crime and terrorism. To do so require a large number of agents located within the Unites States and around the world. That means agents must be able to share information among themselves within the bureau, and with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. But sharing information has never been standard operating procedure for this agency. According to one source, "agents are accustomed to holding information close to their bulletproof vests and scorn the idea of sharing information. This turned out to be a real problem in an investigation of Dark Market, an Internet forum that connected buyers and sellers so that they could exchange stolen information such as bank details and credit card numbers. When both the FBI and Secret Service agents were investigating each other as criminals, it took their British colleagues, who knew the secrets of both agencies, to avert a crisis.
Enter the FBI's efforts to modernize its infrastructure, codenamed "Trilogy." The efforts included providing agents with 30,000 desktop PCs, high-bandwidth networks to connect FBI locations around the world, and the VCF project to facilitate sharing of case information worldwide. The FBI Director explained to Congress that VCF would provide "an electronic means for agents to globally send held notes, documents, pieces of intelligence and other evidence so they could hopefully act faster on leads." It was designed to replace a paper-intensive process with an electronic, Web-based process. With such a reasonable goal, why didn't it work?
The CIO of the FBI offered one explanation. He claimed that the FBI needed to change its culture. "If the Bureau is ever going to get the high-tech analysis and surveillance tools it needs to. Fight terrorism, we must move from a decentralized amalgam of 56 file offices . . . to a seamlessly integrated global intelligence operation capable of sharing information and preventing crimes in real-time."He added that they were also very distrustful of the technology, as well as others not only in other organizations, but also within the FBI.