[Music] okay welcome back everyone i hope everyone enjoyed the break and had a chance to network and grab a fresh cup of coffee for our next session we're going to discuss how government agencies can leverage modern technologies to carry out any mission of any caliber please join me in welcoming to the stage our moderator nick zitsen chief strategy and corporate affairs officer at servicenow and lieutenant general robert skinner director of defense information systems agency and commander of joint forces headquarters department of defense information network [Applause] [Music] boy that's some nice play on music that you got there general thank you very much i i want to welcome you to federal forum i want to thank you two quick messages in that regard one light-hearted as we're back among people it is remarkable to me how many colleagues from servicenow i've met for the first time in person versus in a video meeting and how many of them have said how much shorter i am in real life than they thought i would be so i want to thank you for not greeting me that way this morning and second on a much more serious note in this uncertain moment in time in the world i want to thank you for your leadership for your service and all the women and men under your command it's an honor for all of us to have you with us today so thank you thank you and i'll tell you i'm you know hey i'm honored to be here first and foremost but but i'll tell you i'm mostly honored to be uh a good teammate uh having a great team that we work together with we have great partners whether it's industry academia whether it's other mission partners within the federal government and the department of defense the with the way that we've come together whether it's during the crisis piece of things that works that's going on today or just during competition i don't think we have seen partnership as great as it is today than it's ever been so that's great so maybe to set the stage for all of our guests here um it's a big remit that you lead director of the defense information systems agency commander joint force headquarters department of defense information network it's possible that some of our guests may not understand the full scope and remit how could you explain a little bit about what's under your your command so it it's very interesting right because it's uh in one sense on the jfhq dotan side um we're an operational level c2 headquarters under cyber command and we give direction out to what i call a federated republic so we've i'll say partition the dote in which is oh by the way the dod network is over 300 million ip addresses which is more than any other country but one actually two with the us and china so that's a huge network and so we kind of split that up into 45 different areas of operation where we've actually give direction to those entities to secure operate and and defend it and one of those entities is the defense information assistance agency so i always have to be cautious uh when i put an order out from jfhq dodin that when i receive it as the disa director that i'm happy with it because a lot of times i'm unhappy with what jfhq doane is doing on the disa hat so i always have to balance that this as an organization is about 19 000 military civilian and contractor force we have about a 12 billion dollar budget through working capital and general fund and that's a lot of capacity but that capacity is nothing without the partnerships that we have across the board and so that's kind of the expansiveness of what we deal with on a day-to-day basis and whether it's competition crisis and or conflict we are engaged 24 by seven each and every day getting after the things that our department needs to communicate to ensure command and control and to provide the support for warfighters excellent thank you for the overview you do speaking engagements a lot do you remember how hot these lights were i'm boiling right now it's remarkable i don't know if it's intentional but it's like impressive how much heat they generate yes um so and all i see is a blue light so i can't see anything either the um the concept of digital transformation i mean it's it's talked about everybody uses that term you've talked about the size and scope of the organization that you run i know that you've been on a digital transformation journey you know how can you level set what that means to you and how your agenda as the leader you know has advanced that that agenda it's very interesting as as we kind of talked a little bit before this if you ask 10 individuals what digital transformation means you get 10 different answers what i like to look at it is is how are we progressing and leveraging the digital technology to get after what our warfighters need and to get after what our our customers and our mission partners need what what we've done within the agency and and i'll talk mainly today on what we're doing within the agency but i'm happy to have a discussion on the joint for secretary of start but from an agency standpoint what we've really done is last october is we kind of put in in play three different key components of where we're trying to go from a digital transformation standpoint the first one was a restructure and a i'll say reorganization it was more of a restructure to really flatten the organization into four key areas that has a sport structure so we can really get after some key points the first one is our digital capabilities and security directorate which is led by jason martin and those are most of you will know those as the ones that provide the enterprise services whether it's mobility whether it's thing we're doing from cyber security the joint and integrated test command is there joint interoperability test command is there and so though they're focused on kind of mainly what you see as a user then we have the hosting and computing center the hackers as they call themselves and this is where leveraging innovation to transform we've brought those from the cloud computing program office who are the true are really innovators to our ecosystem who's been there a while who's got some great talent and bringing them together so we can so the ecosystem can be transformed with modern technology and and modern think then the third one is kind of our enterprise integration and innovation center disa has never had an organization that is solely responsible to cross-cut across the agency for innovation mr roger greenwall is is leading that effort that's where steve wallace from an emerging technology standpoint they that's where they they come together to drive that and then the final area is our i'll say opsan infrastructure center which is led by mr don means they are the ones who from an assured c2 and from an infrastructure standpoint and from our command and control so all of our field commands and field offices that's where they come together under mr don means that's providing the support to the combatant commands which as a combat support agency is key and critical to what we're doing then we have our strategic plan which i'm happy to go in uh in different parts where we have five loes and those who've heard me talk you know the number one priority within the agency is assured c2 and how do we modernize how do we i'll say stabilize ensure and modernize and transform how we do command and control in the department and how we can leverage the digital technology to get after that we have tdm switches we have promenas we have all kinds of old technology that today is not best value anymore um and it oh by the way because it's getting older it's harder to maintain and harder to assure that that command and control we have four other eloise i'm happy to talk to as we as we get in other questions and then we've aligned our budget which strategy without a budget is a pipe dream and while i will never turn down additional dollars from the department we are aligning our resources to those priorities that enables our organizational structure to really get after the organizational design that we're trying to do in order to truly have digital transformation and transform how we do business which is what i look at when we say transform it's how do you transform how you do business leveraging technology to meet the future needs of our warfighters so long answer i apologize no no it's a good answer let me ask you about a few themes right everybody in the audience is is fundamentally pursuing several similar themes and conversations in their in their day-to-day life leveraging data certainly one of those things this has been a lifelong there i say a career-long priority for you as you think about all the different initiatives that you have sponsored that you're leading that the agency is leading what takeaways would you give you know the audience about what you've learned about how to pursue data centricity and how decisions are made how organizations are run not very well how's that for that we didn't prepare that answer so our loe 3 is leveraging data as a center of gravity this as an example never had a chief data officer never had a chief data office function and or office so we've changed that we have caroline karczyk is our acting cdo and what we've asked her to do and actually she's dragging us as an agency is how do you leverage all the data that's out there to make the right decisions and to provide the right capabilities bandwidth to me is not an issue storage to me is not now bandwidth in certain parts is an issue yes storage is not an issue so we've taken those off the table but what you've got to be able to do is how can you access that data because you can use you can talk machine learning you can talk artificial intelligence you can talk all these i i'll say from chief clint because i like to talk about the the it bingo game right you can talk you can use all these terms but if you don't have a good understanding of the data and how it's accessible and how it's interoperable to provide those decisions then then those those concepts are i'll say foreign and they're sub-optimized so what we're trying to do is so how do we define and understand that all the data that we have how do we make it i'll say more structured but at least accessible because you don't want to go down the path of everything has to be a certain structure because you're going to limit your opportunities how do you ensure it's all accessible to then make the right decisions as an example we have so many different instruments so many different sensors on the networks you know this is 300 million ip spaces ip addresses we're not leveraging half of those i would offer and in order to truly understand what is going on in your organization in your systems and in your network you've got to understand that data and kind of bring it all together that's what caroline's working on to try and bring at least from an agency standpoint we own all the internet access points from a department defense standpoint we own the 10 main ones we don't know all of them there's a lot of data that goes through those each and every day how do we better leverage that with what we have applications applications tell you a whole bunch of things and there's millions of applications within the the department of defense that can be leveraged to better understand what's going on so i'll follow up to that but before i do i'm not a doctor but i remember reading an article that um temperatures over 115 degrees you should hydrate so i could offer you some room temperature water if you'd like any um is this just water yeah i think it's i remember when i was when i was on the civilian side in federal service the challenge with respect to everybody having their own system and as a result everybody creating new sets of data that really are transparent only to an individual part of the organization and not available to the entirety of the organization as you sit at the very top of a very large organization again as people come in and present things to you thinking about the entirety of the organization whether or not things are aligned what are people looking at this truly in an enterprise fashion again this is tough advice i think for people to get because they've never lived and then they never sat in the seat that you sit in is that fair yes and you know the the other thing is you know that i'll say the department of defense it is is very powerpoint centric as other organizations are there's been a lot of effort over the last few years to get away from powerpoint and leveraging the virtual environment leveraging the data is out there leveraging those systems so that as your as an example as we're going through our strategic plan we have action items that that we have tasked out to all the different organizations well those are in a those are virtually so at any point in time somebody can go in and they can see exactly the progress that's being made um with those those action items that's how we run that's how we are running our different administrative meetings and our strategic planning meetings is what is out there it's not powerpoint so we're not having somebody having to ham jams something and it is it is there and it's uh that's kind of how we are trying to leverage just as a small example um in any other places as we're doing our operations update meetings um and we have all just taken the 10 ieps for example we're bringing data in from those ieps to show kind of what's happening at the boundary for example you know what's happening with our email gateway which is blocking millions of emails a day that are that are malicious so we're leveraging the data from them as a means to run the organization and they get all the different pieces what i'd offer is we don't necessarily have an enterprise view per se because we still don't have all those data feeds identified and into the into the right systems but we're well on our way let me get your reaction to two other themes that i think are prevalent themes that we talk about a lot one of them is future work you're competing for talent you want people to stay and to feel fulfilled uh there's an intersection there technology's part of it culture's part of it you know how do you think about where things are going if at all we all believe this new normal post-pandemic future work environment what are your thoughts on that topic that you'd like to share yes i i don't think we know what the the new normal is i don't think we're there yet i think the the pendulum swings left and right you know everybody's in the office nobody's in the office and now we've kind of come come back and forth the way we try to think about it is it's got to be based on the mission um we always want to take care of our people yeah i mean that's that's first and foremost but the mission still got to get done so how do we make sure that the mission is done in the most optimized manner so for example um if there are things that have to be done in an office location whether it's based on classification or other things then that needs to be done and people need to be in the office um if things can be done remotely because we've got to have a mobile force and what i offer is while the force doesn't have to be mobile each and every day we've got to be able to surge from a mobile standpoint and so we've got to have mobility there but we can't think about it as individuals right there's a team component of this that to truly understand the culture of an organization you understand that through the teamwork and the teaming that happens and i would offer from a virtual standpoint you may be missing something from a team aspect while your position and you can be great at working 100 percent mobile and one percent off the office is that the same for the team that that you are a part of is that same for the team as organization so i think that we're going to be in a hybrid and i think the new normal is a hybrid of sorts based on the mission and based on the the person but just as important as based on the organization and that organizational team and and how can you have that cohesiveness well one of the things that that i think we've learned a little bit is um we were i would say probably i'm just throwing these numbers out about eighty percent ninety percent in the office before co precobit during covet we're about twenty percent in the twenty twenty five percent in the office at any one time i think the agency did amazing work at the beginning of the pandemic because those relationships were already there people knew each other they knew how they operated they knew how they acted um and it carried us for for a very long time what we've been working through is how do you sustain that where you flip the model of not 80 20 but 2080 and i don't think either models act is is the best so we're continuing working through from an organizational standpoint is how do you maintain the right social aspect and i think this is a national issue as you as we think about the the the pandemic is there's a national issue of not understanding the social aspects and i don't think those will manifest themselves for five to ten years to do a quick instant poll show of hands three months from now how many of you believe that the federal workforce will be back to pre-pandemic in terms of its office behavior how many think it will be different yeah i think to your point nobody knows where exactly where it's going to go uh one more theme for you everybody's fundamentally in a customer service environment we're trying to serve citizens in your case you're trying to serve the warfighter you're trying to serve other stakeholders across dod what is the future of customer service how are you reorienting the agency to think more in terms of modern tactics and tools in that regard how are we successful in the new normal that that's really what we're we're trying to think through because it's not the normal you know get get folks together um and then and then uh fan out get together fan out i think there's there's a new normal of kind of how do we leverage the technology in the right place at the right time but also have that interpersonal relationships with our mission partners because that that will never go away because because you build trust with those interpersonal relationships but my request to industry and others is to continue help the government and help others determine how to get best value for all parties that's what it is at the end of the day it's not the cell it's the best value to tackle the problem sets that we have today and people heard me talk and i'll throw out licensing licensing is a is a i won't say i'm on the war path because it's not over but i'm really focused on do we have licensing right for the government right we have some enterprise licenses but then when you when you see the price point of enterprise licenses and sometimes you see subcontracts and sub non jaila non enterprise license that has a better price point i'm going well how does that that that should never happen in my eyes um also if if the government is asking for something that you know darn well the government will never take advantage of help us i just ask i just ask you to help us there's no single individual no single contracting officer no sync organization who knows exactly what is necessary but as from a partnership that'll work okay for example we have contracts where from a true up standpoint where we'll say the government wants to be able to true up every month well if to true up every month there's a risk associated with the reseller and and or the the company so in order to accept that risk the price is higher which we all know darn well that the government has i won't say never rarely would be able to true up each month and so working together is it a six-month through-up is it a one-year tour because again we want to be accurate and we want to be fair we want to have best value on both parts you know if you want we could bring steve back up here and you could grill him on some of these themes so i won't say what company that was present company excluded obviously um so general uh believe it or not we go through these conversations so fast i think again thinking about our audience here they they hold you in the highest esteem as we as do we in respect for the organization the agency that you run the command that you have but they look at you as a leader uh first and foremost and if you could give everyone some leadership advice this is a remarkable time in world history seemingly everything is going against bringing people together and concentrating people on a mission and a purpose how do you think about your role as a leader of of of people on a daily basis what advice would you give to this audience about how they might think about themselves as leaders at this at this delicate time as as things are more i'll say more chaotic we look at a couple of different things first is diversity of thought surround yourselves as senior leaders with diversity of thought so that we're getting the best advice as decisions are being made i think some sometimes individuals will really clamp down with just one or two individuals and trying to go through we're missing a great great opportunity we've got to be agile one thing that we've that i've learned a long time ago is if you're looking for 100 of the data to make the perfect decision you will never make a decision you have to be agile you have to be flexible and get as much information as you can to make a sound decision and one thing that we always talk about is is the decision reversible or is it once you make that decision then there's no going back if it's reversible i think there's additional risk that that you can take um and delegating that down to the lowest level and let them run at because mistakes will be made if it's something that's that's irreversible then that's probably where you want to take a little bit more time gather a little bit more data but not 100 so in today's day and age the ability to be agile is key in my eyes and then i'll say that the final thought is um always take care of yourselves too um as senior leader if you don't take care of yourself um then you can't take care of others and so it's been in fact my team tells me a lot that okay so it's time to go home um because you need a break i think they're actually saying is we need a break from you but always have have somebody there that can you know a a a person who who can who's watching you too um because as you're taking care of your teams as you're taking care of others somebody else has to also help you take care of yourself because it's a journey and it's it's the long game no matter what crisis is happening you know well general i hope that helps that was very helpful i want to thank you first of all as a as a as a partner we appreciate that and the opportunity to work together i want to thank you as a leader and i want to end where i began at a moment in time where frankly none of us know what's to come i think the reason that we all sleep at night is because we know we have you and the women and men under your command the greatest fighting force ever in the history of the world and we owe you a debt of gratitude for that thank you very much [Applause] [Music]