The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

42 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The final product—mercifully succinct and short on bureau- cratese—meets my hopes. No, it does not solve every problem, but it does move the ball down the field on critical issues and addresses key policy and management priorities. Of Mice and Men Global events will always remain unpredictable and crises inevitable, but that is no excuse for failing to plan for them. As Dwight Eisenhower observed, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” The 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Devel- opment Review aims to model this kind of long-term thinking by laying out policy goals we can all use as signposts, along with internal reforms to help get us there. Combined with the implementation guidance that will follow, it is designed to have a meaningful impact on the daily work of diplomacy and devel- opment at headquarters and in the field. From the beginning of the QDDR process in April 2014, the QDDR office, reporting to Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom, engaged Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development employees of all ranks and specialties, both in Washington, D.C., and overseas. We visited or spoke with staff serving at more than 50 posts and consulted the larger foreign affairs community: nongovernmental organization stakeholders, retired Foreign Service professionals and our allies overseas who are facing similar challenges. The QDDR office reflects a similar diversity, comprised of Foreign Service officers and specialists, civil servants, political appointees, contractors and detailees from USAID, the Depart- ment of Defense and think-tanks. We also conducted an online QDDR Sounding Board Challenge, a separate channel from the regular State Sounding Board, in which 4,700 participants from all levels of State and USAID took part. Their responses helped make the QDDR a document that truly reflects the thinking of both organizations, not just a few voices. Finally, we are also grateful to the American Foreign Ser- vice Association for the series of thoughtful papers that they contributed to this process and the constructive spirit with which their representatives participated in the development of the QDDR report and its plans for implementation. AFSA’s contributions were essential to many areas of the final report, including the emphases on investing in a skilled and diverse workforce, enhancing economic leadership, managing and mitigating physical risk, and promoting employee work-life wellness. Through months of engagement, a number of recurring themes emerged. The people who work for our organizations are dedicated, mission-oriented professionals with a passion for promoting America’s interests abroad. Most of them want the QDDR to offer clarity about U.S. foreign policy priorities and improve the tools to produce results in a rapidly chang- ing world. Based on their extensive input, here are five specific ways the QDDR is attempting to meet that standard and make the lives of everyone on our teams a little easier: 1. Technology and Knowledge Management Although State and USAID have come a long way from the infamous Wang computers of the 1990s, Foreign Service personnel serving overseas, in particular, now face a different communications challenge: how to respond to a constant flood of emails and taskers from Washington and still find time to engage beyond embassy walls. To help them cope with this dilemma, the QDDR calls for a comprehensive knowledge management strategy at both agencies, one that averts the need to “reinvent the wheel” every time we tackle a problem. The great news is that we have a distinct advantage in this area: offices like the Information Resource Management Office of eDiplomacy have been working on knowledge issues for more than a decade, and the department has a deepening understanding of methodologies and techniques. We need a comprehensive strategy now to address the call by Secre- tary of State John Kerry for better knowledge management: “In a world of information saturation, State and USAID must improve our knowledge management, data and analytics to achieve these goals.” We received countless helpful suggestions from the field which fed into our ideas on knowledge management, such as one from Matt Chessen, currently of the Bureau of East The QDDR is our chance to look beyond the crises of the day to modernize every aspect of our work.