Richard Marcell: Right, Jim. So I’m going to go on from [00:00:02]. I guess he really captured quite well what our experiences have been to. So first of all, it’s really critical that we bring in the broad user community though I have access to the [00:00:13] monitoring data. There’s information assurance staff, there’s IT staff across the army. And you know, the army is very complex and very broad.
JIm Flyzik: Absolutely.
Richard Marcell: And so if you’re going to get real value out of the data, you have to start off on these projects with bringing them to the table because ultimately, ultimately, we want them to use the data to secure the environment. So they have to be a player. So it’s critical that communication be in place from day 1 and is sustained throughout the project.
Secondly, controlling expectation is critical. People will make assumptions especially leadership so it’s very important that you define very precisely what it is you’re going to deliver and how that will enhance the environment.
JIm Flyzik: Right, right.
Richard Marcell: And finally, metrics. It’s really metrics that we are focused on in all of these projects—to show exactly how it is contributing to the security of the army’s networks and also to show how that investment is contributing to our overall army mission. So we spend considerable time in that area as well.
JIm Flyzik: Yeah, yeah, because that’s a tough one. I mean, face it, you know, the ROI on security things’ always a difficult one especially in an industry where you’re worried about revenues and stockholders’ equity and cut in cost and then, you know, it’s hard to justify some of these investments.
Richard Marcell: In our case, of course, it’s not ROI. It’s more…it’s—“Can we demonstrate that we’ve actually enhanced the security of the network because we’re always…?”
JIm Flyzik: Always having the metrics.
Richard Marcell: Yes, because we’re always concerned about—“Could we have another unauthorized data loss?” And so that’s a very, very focused area and we spend time thinking through very carefully about what those metrics are to help us really realize where our gaps are and so we can address them in the future.
[END OF AUDIO 00:01:52]
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