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Organization: U.S. Army

Industry: Government

Site: U.S. Army internal

Application: ATG Dynamo e-Business Platform 5.1

Business profile: Army Knowledge Online AKO is the primary component in the Army's commitment to knowledge management and becoming a network-centric, knowledge-based organization. The Army's Knowledge Management strategy capitalizes on the AKO pilot and includes the development of an enterprise infrastructure for sharing knowledge among Army communities to improve decision dominance by commanders and business stewards.

The U.S. Army's online communication needs are typical of many large, global corporations: make information available to those who need it, when they need it, around the world. So in the spring of 2001, the U.S. Army launched a mission to overhaul its portal Web site, a homegrown solution that wasn't making the grade. The Secretary of the Army put Colonel Robert Coxe, Chief Technology Officer, DISC4, U.S. Army, in charge of the transformation. In three short months following the new portal's deployment, the number of registered users grew by over 450 percent, reaching a larger online audience than ever before. Mission accomplished.

The Army's first portal provided users with a large volume of data and many links, but it wasn't looked upon as a source of valuable or useful knowledge. "It had no real 'reach back'," explained Coxe. "People weren't using it. Instead, they were creating their own local processes and databases, which meant we were duplicating efforts and therefore wasting valuable development time and money."

Other important drivers behind the Army's overhaul included reducing IT and operational costs without compromising its service to its vast and geographically dispersed user base. They wanted to turn their portal into a tool that would help them keep their most valuable "employees," by enabling them to offer special incentives and benefits online. And they wanted their portal to help them create a culture that shared a common understanding of Army policy.

When Coxe took the reins of this project, there were many technological hurdles to overcome. Online content and functionality were being created independently in locations around the world, using a variety of point solutions and disparate systems. The portal that the Army was using to pull it all together was created on a platform that required custom developed code to expand or modify. And IT costs were racing toward out of control - for example, the Army was running more than 6000 e-mail servers, a number Coxe hoped to reduce dramatically through consolidation.

Strategic thinking drives selection of ATG Dynamo

Coxe knew the solution that would replace their current portal needed to be open and standards based, making it easier to develop, maintain, and extend. It would need to have strong personalization capabilities to make it a solution that Army personnel would want to use, one that could be customized to each person. And it would need to be highly scalable - the current portal, though meant for wide usage, had never really been tested. If they created a successful replacement portal, it would have to be capable of supporting the Army's 1.2 million users, at locations around the world.