Hey all. Basically the title; I'm seeking anyone who is a former DHS or FEMA employee, or who has worked closely with FEMA.
I’m looking for insight into how operations are actually carried out (not just "how they should be" because those are two very very different things), especially around "deployment readiness," personnel qualifications, staffing, training, approvals, resource coordination, and incident response.
I want to understand the real workflows used in practice before making assumptions based only on public documentation. I’m especially interested in where existing processes or systems create unnecessary friction, what works well today, and what staff actually need during day-to-day operations and deployments. I also heard that this is a pretty big bipartisan issue (future of FEMA and its organizational structure) which means that there may be a big distinction between "how software at FEMA gets things done" and "how FEMA actually gets things done in reality."
DO NOT DISCLOSE PRIVATE INFORMATION!
If you have relevant experience and would be willing to talk for 20-30 minutes, please respond here.
EDIT:
First and foremost, someone claimed this is potential phishing. This is not the case in the slightest: I asked to not disclose PII, I was clear that I would like to chat directly with someone involved, and I was very clear that I'm curious how their deployment readiness tooling works in particular. The tools in question are usually siloed and accessibly only by individuals who are involved to which there is a very high and robust level of security protections in place to deter bad actors. Also, my name is literally in my Reddit handle.
Anyways, on with a bit more detail. I'll be thorough because I was not specific enough. I'm interested specifically in the Deployment Tracking System that is sometimes referred to as the "Legacy DTS." I am currently building a modernized version, a potential incumbent for a future opportunity, but in order to be anywhere close to operational and in order to deliver something worth using, I have to get into the nitty gritty details about how real workflows look in several departments. RFIs / Sources Sought are great opportunities for experts in the field to understand real requirements and speak with people who have used the legacy tooling.
Here is a list of workflows I'm curious about because I was genuinely broad, but the goal is to eventually understand what is lacking and what is inefficient:
* Responder requests position -> PTB assigned -> tasks completed and evaluations recorded -> training reqs checked -> qualification progresses (1.1.1 in the RFI)
* Mentorship, e.g. assigning trainee to mentor -> mentor coaches -> mentor evaluates trainee (1.1.2)
* Development plans (e.g. responder creates goals -> mentor evaluates trainee) (1.1.3)
* Deployment performance evaluation, course registration, instructor management, curriculum management, training feedback (this is an interesting aside: where does feedback occur -- are there communication threads similar to what you might see on Asana or Monday?)
* The actual LMS structure
* Training transcript / certs and decertification as well
The most obvious DTS questions I could come up with:
* Which systems are authoritative for personnel, identity, qualifications, training, incident data, travel, property/equipment, and organizational structure? For each domain, should DART own the record, replicate it, or only reference it? This determines the data structure of the build.
* Is DART modernizing their LMS too? Or integrating it with an existing partner?
* What exactly determines whether a responder is eligible for deployment? Which conditions are mandatory, preferences, overrides, etc?
* What does the existing DTS usually integrate with as opposed to what it hosts on-prem?
More importantly, though: what problems do you guys have with the legacy DTS? Is there a bug or a feature that is simply so manual, inefficient, unworkable, or annoying that you'd be more than happy to have automated?
