On Oct. 1, the CIA officially stood up its first new directorate in more than 50 years — the Directorate for Digital Innovation — to spur integration of new techniques and technologies throughout the agency.
The DDI is the result of a 90-day review of the CIA's organizational structure conducted earlier this year, which found that the agency needs to modernize in key areas, including embracing cyber capabilities and increasing training and leadership development.
The new directorate is charged with advocating new technologies across the agency, creating a "strategic framework" for IT management, enabling innovation and developing training regimens, particularly around cyber.
Digital Innovation became the fifth CIA directorate, along with the Directorate for Analysis, Directorate for Operations, Directorate for Science and Technology, and Directorate of Support.
The agency also introduced 10 new mission centers on Oct. 1, mostly centered on geographic areas, though they also include centers for counterintelligence, counterterrorism and weapons and counterproliferation. The mission centers will act as central operation hubs connecting information and capabilities across directorates.
"Today, we mark a key milestone on the modernization journey that we started almost seven months ago," CIA Director John Brennan said on Oct. 1. "Nevertheless, the modernization effort is about much more than changing the way CIA is organized; it is about how we work together every day to bring the best of the agency to the challenges we face."
Brennan also noted other modernization efforts going on at the agency, including the Talent Center of Excellence and Executive Secretariat, both stood up in June.
"This kind of change will take time," he said. "With our agency's new structure in place, we will follow through in the coming weeks and months by acting on critical feedback from the workforce and focusing on fundamentals."
Aaron Boyd is an awarding-winning journalist currently serving as editor of Federal Times — a Washington, D.C. institution covering federal workforce and contracting for more than 50 years — and Fifth Domain — a news and information hub focused on cybersecurity and cyberwar from a civilian, military and international perspective.
