The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 9 State Gets SMARTer After contract delays and the in- evitable bugs in early versions, the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Tool- set is beginning to live up to its promise. SMART is now up and running at 155 posts and is also operational in several department bureaus, reports retired FSO Barry Fulton, a longtime consult- ant to the project. Ever since Secretary of State Colin Powell launched the initiative to up- grade the department’s technology in 2001, SMART’s vision has remained unchanged: creation of a simple, secure and user-driven system to support the conduct of diplomacy through modern messaging, dynamic archiving and in- formation sharing. The effort began with a survey of in- dustry, other government agencies and several foreign ministries. None had a system that would allow the efficient merger of existing State Department systems with a searchable archive, sat- isfaction of records management re- quirements, and presentation of an intuitive user interface. After a two-year effort by a major defense contractor failed to meet State’s requirements, the department took over management of SMART, with somewhat skeptical agreement from the Office of Management and Budget. The goal was not to upgrade State’s existing system, but to move the department from a vertical culture of need-to-know to a more collaborative culture of need-to-share . The core team of about a dozen Civil Service and Foreign Service man- agers grew tenfold as contractors were recruited and additional State Depart- ment specialists were assigned. If the mantra of SMART was “user-driven,” the requirement for success was to build, test and pilot —over and over— as the program adopted a methodology know as agile development. Early users were patient but candid in their feedback, so developers went back to the drawing board. The second pilot round was more successful, but still revealed some flaws. As user feed- back became more positive during the third phase, the program manager got the green light to begin worldwide de- ployment. With 16 deployment teams in the field and the cooperation of a host of players at every post — ranging from chiefs of mission to systems managers and office management specialists — SMART is now available to more than 20,000 State Department employees. While the system is not perfect, the great majority of overseas employees adapted quickly and have expressed satisfaction with it. The pace of deployment in Wash- ington has been more measured, as most resources were initially directed at overseas posts and regional bureaus. Attention is now being focused on the functional bureaus, with a scheduled completion date of February 2011. What next? SMART 2.0, of course. Technology will not stand still, and in- coming employees expect robust tech- nology to support their work. For more information on the devel- opment of SMART, see Fulton’s article, “State Gets Smart,” online at the Amer- C YBERNOTES W e must build the sources of America’s strength and influence and shape a world that’s more peaceful and more prosperous [through] comprehensive engagement … building and integrating the capabilities we need to succeed, capabilities that span the military, diplomatic, develop- ment, intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security fronts. [This effort] includes strengthening multilateral institutions and norms so that shared challenges can be met through collective action. — John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, speaking about the administration’s new National Security Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C., May 26, www.csis.org