Multi-agency sting operations make headlines daily across Canada. Recent successes include a partnership between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the York Regional Police to bust a Toronto area drug ring, and a new security and anti-terrorism initiative between the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP. Moreover, Public Safety Canada was created in 2003 “to ensure coordination across all federal departments and agencies responsible for national security and the safety of Canadians.”
So why, then, does everyday collaboration continue to be a hurdle for some organizations, particularly those performing different duties within the same geography?
From incident response to major events to day-to-day operations, organizations, cities, and regions need a quick and easy way to securely share and act on their data in a controlled manner, either internally across departments or externally with partner organizations. Without it, they miss opportunities to inform planning and improve performance and safety.
“The world in which we live in, it’s a team sport. It takes these organizations to collaborate with each other to solve our problems,” said Hexagon’s Mike Baker.
Unfortunately, four main hurdles often stand in the way of collaboration technologies and processes buy-in.
- Collaboration projects are expensive, take too long to roll out, and can even have negative impacts if unsuccessful.
Many organizations believe it will take years (and millions of dollars) to set up a multi-jurisdictional system. Instead, they resort to traditional forms of communication to save time and money, which leads to siloed data, misinformation, and slower response times.
Agencies need a way to initially set up a collaboration system – in a matter of days, not months or years — to share information without spending millions of dollars for new IT infrastructure and ongoing maintenance costs. Cloud-native systems are ideal solutions because they require no on-premises infrastructure. Even better is a subscription-based system in the cloud that makes participating in the system as simple as signing up for a subscription. Initial setup is also more convenient, and these systems can save an organization thousands of dollars by eliminating expensive, point-to-point interfaces with other agencies.
- Integrating data systems from different sources is too difficult.
Intra- and inter-agency collaboration projects rarely succeed due to the seemingly overwhelming task of data system integration. Organizations see integration as a barrier and too cumbersome to execute and often resort to siloed internal and external systems that make communications unreliable and often forgotten in practice.
Organizations need an easy answer to intuitively integrate data systems to get collaboration projects off the ground. They also need the option to own their interfaces and data integration to eliminate reliance on vendors and cut the costs of building interfaces externally. Collaboration systems that leverage prebuilt interfaces and employ integration platforms focused on integrating different devices, systems, and applications are capable of interfacing to diverse data types and message formats across public safety (for example, NIEM or CAP), government, and other domains.
- Collaborative systems only focus on emergency-related workflows when I need them for both day-to-day use and when things don’t go as planned.
Organizations can no longer financially or operationally support different tools for managing day-to-day incidents and major emergency events. They need tools that seamlessly transition from normal operation to crisis mode when needed. Most systems handle daily workflows or major events, not both.
Organizations need a scalable system to fit the needs of day-to-day operations while seamlessly transitioning to address larger emergency situations. As such, they should choose collaboration technology with the flexibility to fit their needs at any given time. The ability to make changes instantly, change data-sharing rules quickly, and form channels as situations evolve should be a priority when deciding on a collaboration space. Flexible collaboration technology allows organiations to bring in other departments or even external agencies on the fly to affect the most positive outcomes.
- Minimal organization control and flexible options over what data is shared, when it is shared and who it is shared with – a lack of trust.
Any collaborative, data-sharing system needs to allow the owners of the data to quickly configure data-sharing rules to determine not only what data should be shared out to the collaboration network, but also with whom and under what conditions. After all, if an organization doesn’t fully trust that it has full control over its own data and the rules that govern the distribution of that data, collaboration will never get off of the ground.
Whether it be the redaction of certain data fields, different levels of permissions for different participating entities in the collaboration network, or some mix of rules-based data sharing based on the ”priority” of an incident, trust and confidence that participants own their data and the data controls that govern how it is shared with the broader collaboration network are key to adoption and creating mutual value for all involved.
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All of these needs are valid and can be met with a modern, well-designed, and secure collaboration space in which all participants receive mutual value. This will enable users to go beyond simply viewing data to actively collaborating as events unfold.
Are you ready to reimagine collaboration? Find out more about HxGN Connect, Hexagon’s new cloud-native, SaaS collaborative workspace.
