5.1.
Strengthened Governance
Strengthened data governance will include increased oversight at multiple levels. The Office of
the DoD CDO will govern the Department’s data management efforts and ensure sustained focus
by DoD leaders. The DoD CIO will ensure that data priorities are fully integrated into the DoD
Digital Modernization program, ensuring synchronization with DoD’s cloud; AI; Command,
Control, and Communications (C3); and cybersecurity efforts. The DoD CIO will also promote
compliance with CDO guidance via CIO authorities for managing IT investments, issuing DoD
policy, and certifying Service/component budgets.
The CDO Council, chaired by the DoD CDO, will serve as the primary venue for collaboration
among data officers from across the Department. This body will identify and prioritize data
challenges, develop solutions, and oversee policy and data standards of the Department. While
working closely with the appropriate governance bodies, members of the CDO Council must also
advocate that data considerations be made an integral part of all the Department’s requirements,
research, procurement, budgeting, and manpower decisions.
5.2.
Focus Areas
Data policies and standards alone cannot strengthen data management or improve data quality.
They must be continuously informed by feedback from users who consume, produce, manage, and
govern data with particular emphasis given to the operational community and warfighter needs.
For this reason, the Department must utilize ongoing initiatives in key mission areas to rapidly
apply the Strategy’s data principles and quickly generate lessons learned. Although data is critical
to every DoD mission, initial areas of focus include: Joint All-Domain Operations, business
analytics, and senior leader decision support.
Joint All-Domain Operations: As part of the National Defense Strategy’s focus on great power
competition and conflict, the Secretary has directed the Joint Staff and Military Departments
(MILDEPs) to develop new concepts for coordinating military effects in an all-domain fight. The
data governance community must closely partner with the Joint All-Domain Command and Control
(JADC2) Cross-Functional Team (CFT), the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), and the
Deputy CIO for C3 to ensure that we can coordinate information with the tactical edge in a highly
contested environment. Clear data standards and interoperability requirements for JADC2 directly
support future military readiness. The integrated JADC2 exercises led by the Joint Staff will
provide real-world outcomes that will aid in prioritizing data gaps, as will lessons from the Army’s
work on data design principles and similar efforts by the other MILDEPs.
When new data gaps are identified, the data governance community must work with mission area
managers to determine whether changes are needed to hardware; software; tactics, techniques, and
procedures; or risk acceptance. The mitigation of many legacy systems is not cost-effective,
making it imperative that all future systems are procured with data-interoperability, software
upgradability, and cloud-readiness as requirements. The DoD CDO, along with Component CDOs,
must also ensure that operational users remain informed of new data-enabled capabilities from the
commercial sector and DoD research. Ultimately, DoD’s transition to a data-centric organization
depends on effective feedback between the data governance and operational communities, and the
trusted collaboration this entails.