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By Ray Bernard, PSP, CHS III
Security Technology & Design

Planning for a security one-card initiative is more complex than planning for earlier types of security card technologies. If you want to use your smart cards for multiple applications, as many facilities do, you’ll need to think beyond security planning and consider business planning as well. Your project time line will have to take many additional business and management factors into account.

Often high-level project time line items are not considered early enough in a one-card initiative. That’s almost to be expected, because technology implementation programs tend to have a strong focus on technology. Consequently, many of the problems that arise with such programs are not technology problems, but problems in program planning and management. Whether or not an item is considered early enough in the program can mean the difference between success and failure on some particular aspect of the initiative. This article, along with the nearby illustration, is intended to highlight items and actions you may not otherwise think of early on in the one-card process.

Name the Card and the Initiative
Naming the card and the initiative has many benefits, not the least of which is that people know exactly what you are referring to when you reference the project or card. For example, The Boeing Company dubbed their card the SecureBadge, the initiative the Boeing SecureBadge Program, and the program manager the Director of the Boeing SecureBadge Program.

Identify or Solicit a Visionary, Sponsor and Manager
Begin by finding a visionary, a sponsor and a manager for the project. It is possible but not likely that a single person would fill all three roles. As the name suggests, the visionary is the person who understands the full vision for the initiative and articulates it for the various stakeholders. The sponsor is the executive-level manager who interacts with the initiative’s core team and acts as liaison with other executives. The sponsor champions the initiative; signs off on high-level documents such as the business case and program initiation documents; obtains budgets; guides and monitors progress; and helps overcome organizational resistance. The initiative’s manager (whose actual title will vary depending upon the organization) has overall responsibility for successful planning and execution.

Define Vision and Objectives
The project vision and objectives are high-level approval items. Senior management must embrace the vision and objectives, provide approval in concept, establish the authority to continue, and commit resources to fully defining the initiative.

Determine the Applications
An organization can use smart cards in a remarkable variety of ways. Think about how your organization might use them.
Security applications include physical and logical access control—possibly with card-based biometrics—as well as encryption and digital signature for e-mail, documents and transactions. There are considerable security and financial benefits to one-step provisioning, whereby an HR system or an identity management solution pushes user roles or security privileges out to both the physical and IT security systems and revokes privileges in both when personnel are terminated. Smart card-based office automation workflow control can require printers to put a hold on confidential printing until the print job’s cardholder appears in person at the printer.

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