ADP THOUGHTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00874R000300130010-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: October 1, 1985
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02: CIA-RDP91 B00874R000300130010-5
1 October 1985
STAT
FROM:
SUBJECT:
ADP Thoughts
Following up on your plans to task the offices with formulating an ADP plan,
the following issues come to mind as questions the offices may want to have
addressed in a broader DI framework.
Resources
1. Can we say anything about directorate. trends in the budgetary resources
that will be available for ADP? To what extent will the offices have the
flexibility to make their own spending decisions on untried technologies?
Recall that many offices felt burned by the experience a few months ago of
their spending plans collapsing when OIT failed to execute the requests.
. 2. To what extent will the directorate assure that ASG's money and skills
resources will be expanded to meet office needs?
3. Will the DDI support office staffing flexibility, and especially the
offices' needs to have new slots for ADP support people?
4. Will the DDI cough up space somewhere and money for a training facility
at HQs? There is a desperate need for a conference room equipped with
terminals (and perhaps PCs).
Technology
1. Can the DDI make a statement that its plans call for flexibility in the
acquisition of hardware, and that we have OIT assurances that it will support
whatever reasonable technology the DI decides is needed?
2. Word processing will be the most common use of ADP. Is there need for
a DI "standards" group that can define acceptable styles, for example, for the,
processed word? (I am thinking, for example, of needing to avoid situations
where ADP is not used because the supervisor or other authority doesn1t like
the typeface or format.)
Incentives
1. The offices have to be assured that ADP is taken seriously at the DDI
level, and that office performance will be measured as much by the kind of
technologies that are brought to bear on the data, analysis, and presentation
aspects of intelligence production as on the quantity and quality of output.
ADMINISTRATIVE - INTERNAL USE ONLY
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02: CIA-RDP91 B00874R000300130010-5
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02: CIA-RDP91 B00874R000300130010-5
SUBJECT: ADP Thoughts
2. At the same time, can we give offices assurances that we recognize
uncertainty and the likelihood that much time may be spent on truly
experimental endeavors that do not pan out?
3. Are there things the DI can do across the board, such as insisting that
the NID be produced electronically? That routine requirements and
coordination tasks be done electronically?
4. Can we help assure that those at the low end of the totem pole, but who
are likely to be the primary users of terminals -- the secretaries and Intel
assistants -- get training in word processing, database building, and similar
skills? Can we as a matter of policy give supervisors only a limited right to
deny an employee training on the grounds of immediate needs in the component?
STAT
STAT
(1 October 1985)
ADMINISTRATIVE - INTERNAL USE ONLY
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02: CIA-RDP91 B00874R000300130010-5