Additional Information:
ThoughtLink surveyed 76 interagency (IA) planners from the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Treasury to determine their perspectives on IA coordination in the context of planning for complex contingency operations, and their thoughts on T&E needs for their community. These individuals were asked questions related to interagency coordinate requirements, their own backgrounds, the challenges and benefits of IA coordination, and the types of training that would be useful.
ThoughtLink conducted a similar survey between June and September 2003. This time ThoughtLink interviewed 26 USG officials from the same four agencies who have some direct or indirect relationship to the Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) concept. This is a relatively small number, which reflects the fact that, at any given USG civilian agency, only a small number of people have direct interaction with the JIACG members.
The surveys covered: information about the respondent and their job; their individual perspective on the JIACG concept as well as their assessment of their agency's perspective; how JIACG members are recruited, trained, and the effect of a JIACG tour on a member's career; and most importantly, their thoughts on the T&E needs of the JIACG participants.
In response to survey participants desire to educate senior decision-makers on the JIACG concept and its value, ThoughtLink recommended the development of success stories. Success stories augment metrics, which are often hard to develop so developing unclassified success stories and sharing them with senior decision makers will help develop support for the concept and its continuation. Gaming can be an excellent method for communicating this. As an example, USAID sponsored the creation of a board game to show senior leaders what communities of practice (part of their knowledge management initiative) are and how they work. The game was played for about 1.5 hours and generated a lot of discussion and insight. Thus course content, together with JIACG success stories and other JIACG information from JFCOM, can also be transformed into a much shorter briefing to senior decision-makers on the JIACG concept.
Recognizing that communications among peers and between agencies was a fundamental component of success, ThoughtLink explored a variety of technologies to improve communication and knowledge management across JIACG teams and their agency headquarters. For starters, NDU and JFCOM can provide value to JIACG members by learning more about their working environment and concerns through knowledge management. People often spend a long time learning who are the key people, how to contact them, and what are the key reference documents or other materials for their new interagency job. Developing tools and/or processes to acquire, save, and transmit this information will be useful. In general, technology (portals and communities of practice) is most useful as a way to bring people together and support their communication and information sharing with each other.
