Building Blocks: An Exciting New Resource for Info Sharing Guidance and Best Practices

I’m very pleased to announce a new tool on the ISE website that I believe will advance responsible information sharing at all levels of government. The Building Blocks tool is a knowledge resource where we are sharing lessons learned and best practices from the office of the PM-ISE as well as from our mission partners.

We have developed Building Blocks around five foundational Blocks of success: Governance, Budget & Performance, Acquisition, Standards & Interoperability, and Communications & Partnerships. The Blocks are organized by major topic areas and then divided into the questions we ask when building information sharing. They also showcase our mission partners’ success stories as real-world examples to help users understand how this works.

The information in the Blocks includes:

• Governance: This Building Block explains the need for governance and decision-making bodies, help define the structure of a governance body, and demonstrate how you can establish key processes within a governance body.
• Budget & Performance: This Block describes the initial steps to budget planning, and outlines how to effectively impact budget and how to develop performance measures in order to measure success.
• Acquisition: This Block links to relevant resources for developing an acquisition plan and incorporating standards in acquisition. It also directs users to grant opportunities for information sharing and safeguarding initiatives.
• Standards & Interoperability: This Block explains the utility and requirements of the ISE Enterprise Architecture and Identity and Access Management Frameworks, outlines key steps of building interoperability, and links to top standards resources and Standards Development Organizations.
• Communications & Partnerships: This block outlines the steps required to foster engagement with partners, provides links to helpful tools and resources for engaging stakeholders, and details many important information sharing partners.

Finally, I would like to thank our mission partners for their time in reviewing and contributing to the site. Their feedback has been invaluable. I encourage you to visit the site and let us know what you think. Post a comment below, email us, or send us a message on Twitter.

We are interested to hear what you think of the tool and if you think it is missing anything you’re looking for to accomplish your information sharing and safeguarding mission. We’re also hoping you will share your knowledge, guidance, and success stories so that we can continue to build and improve this great resource.