A Conversation With: Kathy Tamer

Kathy Tamer is USA’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer and is responsible for the development and implementation of Information Technology (IT) initiatives that create and maintain a competitive advantage for the company. In this issue of “USA Update,” we talk to Tamer about upcoming changes and challenges for the management of USA’s enterprise systems and IT infrastructure.

UPDATE: We’re hearing a lot about the need to transform our approach to our enterprise systems. Could you define enterprise systems for us and how employees typically interact with them?

TAMER: Basically, an enterprise system is a system that is used across multiple elements, sites and/or contracts to conduct the day-to-day business of the company. The list of USA enterprise systems closely follows the list of support and program management orgs. Our human resources systems. Our payroll systems. There are a number of systems we use for financial management, like PeopleSoft Financials, FMS (Financial Management System) for financial reporting, the Earned Value System and travel and expense. Then, there are a number of systems in SQ&MA (Safety, Quality and Mission Assurance); internal audit; communications and public relations; supply chain management; property management. We have a number of applications that people use on a day-to-day basis. In the past, some of these systems, such as property management, have been provided by the government. New procurements require the contractor to provide their own systems, so we’re in the process of bringing those systems in house. Most applications are accessed via the Internet or intranet, others via dedicated applications like USA Timekeeping System (USATS).

UPDATE: What is driving the need to transform our enterprise systems?

TAMER: The major drivers for this transformation are the looming end of the Space Shuttle Program and the ongoing transformation of USA into a multicustomer, multicontract company.

Considerable time and effort has been spent over the last 13 years collapsing and consolidating the IT systems – the systems we use on a daily basis. Many of our systems are tightly coupled with the government systems – shared data, interfaces, applications and infrastructure, integrated to provide improved performance and information assurances. Some applications developed to support SPOC requirements are now in use on multiple contracts. We’re working closely with NASA as part of the Shuttle Transition and Retirement effort to sort through the list of IT assets and determine disposition plans.

UPDATE: What can employees do to prepare for changes to our enterprise systems?

TAMER: Stay flexible. Think positive. One thing we know for certain is that we aren’t going to know what the future holds for the space business any time soon. Think out of the box. Things are going to change. Prepare to react quickly when urgent requirements emerge. As we get further into transition and retirement, as different contracts are awarded, as NASA decides where they want SPOC assets to go, or what we need to retire, we’ll restructure the architecture appropriately. Hopefully, we’ll be able to mitigate the impacts to our users and employees.

UPDATE: How do you see our basic IT infrastructure changing in the next few years, and what role will new technology play in that?

TAMER: USA as a company is still going to continue to exist. As a result, we will still need to provide an IT infrastructure, and there still will be an infusion of new technology. It may not be as fast as we’ve been able to do it in the past. It may not be on as large of a scale as we’ve done it in the past. In some cases, it might even be simpler, but the requirements will still be there.

We have an annual IT planning process, and over the last two years, we’ve expanded it from SPOC to include the entire company. I expect that new contracts will still have an IT planning requirement. New technology decisions will be based on customer requirements and will drive the content of those IT plans. What that does is enable us to leverage off the standards, leverage off new requirements and really focus on our IT investments where we can do the most good. It will enable a better window into the future and better target use of our resources.

UPDATE: What IT security concerns do you have as we make these transformations?

TAMER: In any environment, when you have a large amount of change to your infrastructure, you risk compromising your security architecture. At this point, we’ve engineered security into our change process. Every single change is reviewed for IT security implications, and as we decouple our facilities, as we move facilities around – whether it’s data centers or where people are located – we’ll take a look at it from the overall architecture perspective and make sure we’re not doing anything that exposes us to additional risk.

Fundamentally, we must make sure we apply the appropriate amount of due diligence to maintain a secure posture.

UPDATE: You’ve used the term “end user-nomics” before. What does that mean in the context of enterprise systems?

TAMER: If you break it down into two words, “end user” is the ultimate consumer of the finished product. “Nomics” comes from the Greek word that means manage. When you put the two together, it’s the management of the end user’s experience.

Did you ever go to the old internal Web site, try to find something and not be able to find it? Searches didn’t work, or it didn’t get you want you wanted. You had to know which organizations owned which process before you could find the applications you needed. So, when you think about it, what we’re trying to do in everything we do is to think about the end user, how they will use our products and services.

One example of a project where we’ve really focused on is the internal home page redesign. For the past year, Communications and Public Relations and Information Management (IM) have been working to re-engineer the internal home front page. What we have tried to do is make it easier to find the resources that the user needs. You no longer have to go to a particular organization to find a tool. All the applications are gathered under “Applications and Tools,” and you can find a list of almost every application without knowing what organization owns it. That’s just one small example. We’re looking closely with the curators on this as well. It’s one thing to search the Web page, but if the curator doesn’t have the key words in the right place, you’re not going to find the Web page. Or, if you have a policy that is called something that is not intuitive, you need to make sure it has the right keywords attached to it so the user can find it from their perspective. We’ve also deployed a new search system, Enterprise Content Integration Services (ECIS), as part of the intranet that allows you to search the USA intranet as well as the EDMSP (Enterprise Document Management System Production) Docbase and the Internet. You can access the ECIS by clicking on the “A” next to the search box on the home page.

Fundamentally, “end user-nomics” is about making sure that the products and services we provide are delivered in a fashion that’s user friendly and hopefully increases the productivity and effectiveness of our users.

UPDATE: As our Chief Information Officer, what do you see as our biggest challenge in the information management arena?

TAMER: Thinking smaller.

UPDATE: Could you elaborate?

We managers have got to help people understand that we’re no longer going to be one big contract or one big company with a lot of different contracts. We’re not always going to be doing things the same way. We’re not always going to have the same approval processes. We need to figure out what needs to be centralized and what can be decentralized. From a planning perspective, one of our challenges is trying to stay ahead of the game. As we evolve to our future state, many questions remain unanswered. In the meantime, we’re positioning ourselves to anticipate the needs of our customers while mitigating risks and managing costs. For IM, that includes USA employees, suppliers, subcontractors and, of course, our prime contractors and NASA. This is definitely a time of change – and change brings opportunity.

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