Ignorance Management – Risk Reduction

This thesis analyzed Joint Vision 2020 and DoD Transformation technical concepts in the context of the “Cooperative Maritime Strategy for the 21st Century.” It hypothesizes that Decision Superiority requires a renewed emphasis on the fundamentals of decision making.

The thesis introduces the concept of Ignorance Management as a risk reduction concept to help focus decision makers, and the IT professionals who support them, on getting the “right information, to the right people, at the right time.” The concept of Information Readiness Levels is explored as a means to help operational forces more objectively gage the ability of the information architecture to support decision making in the context of specific missions. One finding is that technical convergence has occurred and the promise of network-centric operations is becoming more fully realized as organizational and cultural evolution accelerates.

Examples of organizational evolution are provided, including a survey of portfolio management and Communities of Interest policies. The thesis concludes with a case study of the Universal Core, an interagency information sharing initiative that exemplifies enterprise behavior, including political, technical and cultural progress in this area.