The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) on July 10 released its strategic plan that aims to sharpen the Defense Department’s (DoD’s) military readiness, drive acquisition reform, and push modernization efforts through FY 2022.
The strategic plan is a broad framework that maps out the “planning priorities, resource allocation, and assessment criteria to ensure highest levels of performance and productivity on an enduring basis,” DISA’s Strategic Communication and Public Affairs office said.
The plan discusses three broad goals: “operate and defend; adopt, buy, and create solutions; and enable people and reform the agencies.” And it identifies seven strategic objectives:
- Modernize the infrastructure;
- Enhance operations;
- Optimize for the enterprise;
- Strengthen cybersecurity;
- Drive innovation;
- Enable people; and
- Reform the agency;
DISA emphasized that the DoD Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy and Cloud Strategy are new components of its technology adoption plan to help advance these goals and objectives.
“The AI strategy outlines the requirement for speed and agility to translate artificial intelligence into operationally relevant military capabilities at the rate of technological advancement,” the document said. “The cloud strategy outlines the need for a secure cloud environment that spans to the tactical edge and is capable of providing rapid computing and storage capacity.”
Backing DISA’s goals for the next three years are four principles – improving customer service, collaborating with businesses, developing metrics to measure overall mission performance, and taking prudent risks to drive agility and innovation.
The strategic plan also describes a technology roadmap that DISA will use to meet its goals. DISA said the roadmap will provide “a framework to explore technologies that will contribute to a more secure, coordinated, seamless, transparent, and cost-effective architecture for the DOD that transforms data into actionable information and ensures dependable mission execution in the face of a persistent cyber threat.”
DISA and the Joint Force Headquarters-DoD Information Network (JFHQ-DODIN) will review and update the strategic plan at the beginning of each fiscal year to ensure the document continues to best meet DoD’s needs.