6 Sep 96

SUBJECT: USSTRATCOM Information Resource Management (IRM) Vision

1. PURPOSE: Describe USSTRATCOM command vision, goals and objectives for information resource management.

1. KEY POINTS:

- The USSTRATCOM IRM vision: "Information where you need it, when you need it, how you need it"

- IAW OMB Circular A-130, information resource management in the Federal government is:

-- The process of managing information resources to accomplish agency missions

-- The term encompasses both information itself and related resources, such as personnel, equipment, funds, and information technology

- In DoD, IRM is further defined as:

-- The planning, organizing, directing, training, promoting, controlling, and management activities associated with the burden, collection, creation, use, and dissemination of information by agencies, and includes the management of information and related resources

- USSTRATCOM is an "Information Organization"

-- Virtually every input, process, and output in the command is information-based

-- IRM is frequently an "overhead" activity, requiring expenditure of resources in addition to those required for the command's primary missions of deterrence and force employment

- USSTRATCOM information activities may be considered either value-added or non-value-added

-- Value-added activities include decision-making and dissemination of information; both of which may directly affect deterrence or employment of force

-- Non-value added activities include retrieving, scanning, combining, auditing, and disposing of information, activities that are part of the cost of doing business, but are not themselves the business of the command

- Metrics for information activities will always involve at least one of these two measurements: time and distance

-- How much time does it take to perform an activity?

-- How far do people have to travel to do what they need with information?

- USSTRATCOM IRM goals:

-- Increase the speed and frequency of value-added information activities

-- Increase the amount of useful information available to USSTRATCOM personnel while reducing the time and distance needed to find and employ it

-- Increase the command's potential to assimilate and make use of information

- Specifically, USSTRATCOM must commit resources and attention to the following:

-- Develop an information infrastructure, both physical and virtual, that will support the command's information needs

-- Deploy and enforce uniform policy and standards that ensure seamless sharing and integration of information between all USSTRATCOM agencies

-- Migrate paper-based information activities to a computer-mediated environment, but only when there is a valid business reason to do so

-- Reduce the number and complexity of information interfaces while increasing their usefulness as sophisticated tools with which to access, manage and deploy our information resources

- And, perhaps most importantly, we must train and educate USSTRATCOM members to take best advantage of advanced technology

-- An information system is only as sophisticated as the people who employ it

-- "Bell and whistle" technology may be intriguing, but if your people can not or will not use it, you have wasted both your money and your time

3. IMPACT: While peace is our profession, information is the life blood of our business. How well we manage our information resources will have a direct bearing on how effectively we keep the peace.