With millions of dollars in new Department of Homeland Security grant funding at stake, state and local law enforcement agencies need to examine their competitive positioning if they want to stand out from the crowd of applicants, especially in the area of Intelligence Fusion Center funding.

Do you have a good handle on the Fusion Center Guidelines and how to implement them? Have you accounted for the relevant Fusion Center Center sections of the Director of National Intelligence Information Sharing Environment Implementation Plan? Do you have a strategy for implementing the Global National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan?

If you’re not sure about the answers to these questions, JusticeExperts.com can help with its Fusion Center Implementation Development Framework (FCIDF). Created in consultation with the Office of Justice Planning and the Information Sharing Environment Program Office, the FCIDF is a methodology-based approach for providing Fusion Centers with practical, detailed assistance for implementation in accordance with all federal guidelines and requirements, including products and templates for efficient execution. In summary, the framework:

• Integrates, for the first time in one place, all relevant guidelines and requirements relating to Fusion Center develop, including:
  • DHS, DOJ and Global Fusion Center Guidelines;
  • Information Sharing Environment (ISE) Implementation Plan "Action Steps" relating to Fusion Center development;
  • Relevant intelligence-led policing components of the Global National Criminal Intelligence Sharing Plan (NCISP); and,
  • FY20072008 Homeland Security Grant Program requirements, guidance and tools.
• Describes a five-stage Fusion Center Implementation Development Framework (FCIDF) that assigns the Fusion Center Guidelines and other requirements to appropriate development stages;
• Details implementation tasks for accomplishing each stage in accordance with the Fusion Center Guidelines, all other requirements and best practice implementation principles relating to the natural sequencing of dependent tasks, implementation efficiency and techniques for cultural change management and process re-engineering;
• Incorporates, "nuts and bolts" action steps for each of the identified tasks; and
• Produces templates for each stage such as agreements, plans, policies, analyses, techniques, architectures, statements of work, RFP's and other outputs that can be customized to reflect unique Fusion Center-specific circumstances.

Just as the Fusion Center Guidelines standardize the "WHAT" that centers should achieve, the FCIDF is a structured implementation development framework that establishes a comprehensive approach for "HOW" to achieve the guidelines and other requirements.