FBI Case Study the Primary

FBI Case Study The primary reason why Trilogy (Virtual Case File) had to be supplanted by project Sentinel was due to the inability of the FBI to keep charges of expense related to the former project. Moreover, this inability extended to an improper accounting of expensive equipment (totaling approximately $7.6 million) (Pulliam, 2006). From an information technology (IT) perspective, the lack of success in the investigative application of Trilogy was directly related to each of these failures.

Due to excessively high costs and few results, Virtual Case File had to be substantially reduced in 2004, which impacted the ability to keep track of equipment and of expenses. The secondary reason for the replacement of Trilogy with Sentinel is because of the ineffectiveness of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Due to limited monitoring of payments to contractors hired to work on Trilogy, this department was directly responsible for the questionable expenditures and missing equipment, since it did not dutifully review and inventory those things.

Again, inadequate IT infrastructure is the reason why GAO and the General Services Administration, were unable to better keep account of inventory and expenses. Thirdly, the FBI needs a functional "investigative data warehouse" (McGrody, 2004) to be able to readily review and access both inventory and equipment assets. The development of such an IT system, which was not fully functional while Trilogy was being fostered, could have prevented the financial debacles that resulted in Trilogy's replacement by project Sentinel.

The lack of enterprise architecture that the FBI had at the time that Trilogy failed directly impacted that failure. This term is largely used within the Academy of Sciences report to refer to an integrated system in which most IT systems can share and allow users access to data to verify expenditures and the statuses of equipment and other important things.

This is important because without such an integrated system, there is only a plethora of independent silos guarding legacy data, which is how missing equipment and questionable expenditures become approved without any full cognizance on the part of custodial organizations such as GSA and GAO. However, the Academy of Sciences definition of the term enterprise architecture also extends beyond mere IT architecture, although such architecture will certainly support the Academy's definition.

This definition denotes "a detailed characterization of the bureau's goals, tasks, strategies, and key operational processes" (National Academy of Sciences, 2004). These objectives would then be facilitated by IT solutions it implement them. One of the most important lessons learned in this particular case study is the fact that the lack of support from upper-level management can certainly hamper any efforts towards enterprise level of IT solutions.

Although funding was certainly there for Trilogy, many upper level executives did not want to become involved in the process because of the perceived difficulty not only in implementing IT solutions -- thereby linking reams of legacy data from an assortment of disparate silos -- but also because of actual difficulties in getting representatives from different departments to align their goals and objectives.