Graduate Information Systems

The primary objective of an information system is to enable an organization to perform work competently so that it can achieve significant targeted results and serve its constituents more effectively. In the case of FBI implementing the Virtual Case File (VCF) from 2000 to 2005, the tangible value intended was to create a case management system that would assist agents with inputting data to compare and search for correlations within sensitive cases. This would drastically change the work flow through the bureau which would typically fill out forms either by hand or word processing program. The VCF was the third phase of the $380 million project approved by Congress called the FBI Information Technology Upgrade Project. The program came to be known as Trilogy. The intangible value was to enable the FBI to become technologically savvy enough to initiate its preemptive enforcement strategies. The first two phases of Trilogy were successfully completed and deployed high speed, secure networks connecting FBI offices around the world to share data. As a result of the first two prongs of the Trilogy initiative, new capabilities were offered to support the FBI’s counterterrorism mission. However this progress would not be utilized until a decade later with the failure of implementing the VCF program and replacing it with a new program altogether called the Sentinel project in 2012.

The feasibility of the VCF management team is what needs to be examined first when looking at what went wrong. The FBI would later claim that they lacked the skill sets in personnel such as program management and software engineering. Special Agent Larry Depew was appointed project manager in 2002 with no IT project management experience. He was responsible for a team of seven agents whom advocated for a group methodology of subject matter experts in periodic joint application development meetings. What came of these sessions was a pitiable blueprint design that led to poor architectural decisions complimented with undefined VCF requirements when the original contract was signed. Repeated modifications in code led to further delay where change requests were being logged after change requests. Further managerial turmoil