Power to the Edge

Power to the Edge refers to the ability of an organization to dynamically synchronize its actions; achieve command and control (C2) agility; and increase the speed of command over a robust, networked grid. The term is most commonly used in relation to military organizations, but it can equally be used in a civilian context.

"Power to the Edge" is an information and organization management philosophy first articulated by the U.S. Department of Defense in a publication by Dr. David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes in 2003 titled: "Power to the Edge: Command...Control...in the Information Age." This book was published by the Command and Control Research Program and can be downloaded from the [http://www.dodccrp.org/ Program's website] .

Principles

Power to the Edge advocates the following:

*Achieving situational awareness rather than creating a single operational picture

*Self-synchronizing operations instead of autonomous operations

*Information "pull" rather than broadcast information "push"

*Collaborative efforts rather than individual efforts

*Communities of Interest (COIs) rather than stovepipes

*"Task, post, process, use" rather than "task, process, exploit, disseminate"

*Handling information once rather than handling multiple data calls

*Sharing data rather than maintaining private data

*Persistent, continuous information assurance rather than perimeter, one-time security

*Bandwidth on demand rather than bandwidth limitations

*IP-based transport rather than circuit-based transport

*Net-Ready KPP rather than interoperability KPP

*Enterprise services rather than separate infrastructures

*COTS based, net-centric capabilities rather than customized, platform-centric IT

Agility

The philosophy of Power to the Edge is aimed at achieving organizational agility. Such agility has six attributes:

*Robustness: the ability to maintain effectiveness across a range of tasks, situations, and conditions

*Resilience: the ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune, damage, or a destabilizing perturbation in the environment

*Responsiveness: the ability to react to a change in the environment in a timely manner

*Flexibility: the ability to employ multiple ways to succeed and the capacity to move seamlessly between them

*Innovation: the ability to do new things and the ability to do old things in new ways

*Adaptation: the ability to change work processes and the ability to change the organization

Links

*Command and Control Research Program

References

* [http://www.dodccrp.org/ Command and Control Research Program Website]
* [http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Alberts_Power.pdf Power to the Edge] by Alberts and Hayes (2003)
* [http://www.chips.navy.mil/archives/02_Summer/authors/index2_files/power_to_the_edge.htm Power to the Edge] presentation by Dr. Margaret Myers, CIO-DOD
* [http://www.afrlhorizons.com/Briefs/Feb05/IF0409.html "Command and Control Implications of Network-Centric Warfare"]

ee also

*Network-centric organization
*Network-centric warfare
*Network Enabled Capability