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 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

See also

• Network-centric organization
• Network-centric warfare
• Network simulator

External links

• Command and Control Research Program

References

• Command and Control Research Program Website
• Power to the Edge by Alberts and Hayes (2003)
• Power to the Edge presentation by Dr. Margaret Myers, CIO-DOD
• "Command and Control Implications of Network-Centric Warfare"