Defence Business: The future of Army acquisition (Part 2) | ADM Feb 2011

Sustain, Improve, Fix

With those three broad observations in mind, let me offer what I believe are the ‘sustains’, the ‘improves’ and the ‘fixes’ that Army needs to focus on in the next 12 months. I offer three of each.

What to Sustain

1. Army needs to sustain our commitment to the Division split in AHQ in support of CA as CM. No brainer!

2. Army needs to sustain the continual improvement of the Army Objective Force Handbook as the basis for Army’s intellectual argument and position for analysis in Force Structure Reviews. It needs to be the golden thread of logic that ties tasks, threat and environment to our form and function. The AOF.

3. Army must sustain the effort to continue the Land Warfare Conference as this is where we have the opportunity to find out what we don’t know and see the potential to do our job better. In the coming weeks my Division will be inundated with good ideas from soldiers and commanders from what they see this week.

What to Improve

1. Army needs to improve the application of a systems approach to Capability Development. We have begun the work to develop a systems approach to Army’s capability but its application can be more widely adopted. It is more than the old Battlefield Operating Systems as the list includes Army’s force generation systems. These systems are open systems and each capability will form components of a number of the systems. But it is already helping us to identify the issues that have in the past fallen between the DCP project cracks.

We have developed 31 Core Land Integrating Primary Systems (referred to as CLIPS) and we are bringing all of our functions in Modernisation Division into line with these systems and CLIPPING each of our activities, in support of the development of the Army Objective Force Handbook, to these Systems. The application to date has already proven powerful and allowed us to seize opportunity we might not have seen without it. We will improve our use of this approach as we learn.

2. Army needs to improve the methodology employed to identify our Needs. We need to establish a better way of interacting with those who have the potential to better

understand Army’s Needs. Two examples of ways we do this now that can be improved are:

Firstly, by the formal establishment of an arrangement for ex-Servicemen and women to help Army identify its needs. In my view we could do with an organisation like the Association of the US Army (AUSA). The bottom line is that we need to ensure a closer relationship with former soldiers.

I have always been taken by the US Marine Corps concept of “once a Marine, always a Marine”. We need an arrangement such as this to capitalise on the experience we have positioned in Industry to help us identify what we might Need. I have been struck in the past 12 months by the number of former soldiers in industry who have demonstrated a genuine interest in helping Army. They clearly understand what is in Army’s interests and they are enthusiastic to help.

And Army needs to improve the opportunity, indeed in my view institutionalise, the “Good Ideas Expo” which has seen a re-emergence in the last few years. This concept has been picked up and is being effectively employed in Army’s approach to the Strategic Reform Program. It’s a way of identifying the good ideas that come from the innovative solutions to problems encountered at the grass roots level of Army. Army can improve our capacity to discover the ideas and when appropriate and possible, act quickly to harvest them.

3. My 3rd improve concerns the way we describe what we need. In particular, we need to better appreciate the implications of acquiring capability that is feasible now. We need to seek capability that will best integrate. Capability is more than the best equipment; it is what we do with it and how we man it.

I am a strong believer in ‘learning by doing’. Let’s get the capability quicker and get it into the hands of soldiers to tell us how its best used, identify the problems and then set ourselves up for success in subsequent acquisitions.

This Improve point supports the concept described earlier of buying less more often. If we concentrated on buying less (ie not attempting to kit out the entire Army in one acquisition) and kept the Requirement at low technology risk (read easily integrated even if not the Rolls Royce capability that might be available on the market) in order to ensure a smooth ride through the acquisition process, we could learn from the introduction of the capability into service and utilise that information in acquiring the next tranche.

Finally, What to Fix

Firstly, Army needs to institutionalise a Needs Document. We need to develop an Army Capability Needs Document (ACND) that represents CA’s intent and vision from which everyone subsequently involved in the process draws relevance. It needs to be version controlled and referred back to often to ensure for example options being developed address the actual need as articulated by the CA.

This ACND must account for project interdependencies to ensure systems integration is accorded appropriate priority. It must drive the capability development process to a predilection for capability that integrates or CLIPS into Army. We’ve always had this responsibility for producing the ACND, and we will pick this up as a key task in 2011.

Secondly, Army needs to address our involvement in the cost-capability trade-off decisions. We need to work closely with all levels of staff in CDG and DMO to ensure money and staff effort are optimised and risk is minimised, that’s all of Defence’s risk! This is particularly critical in Requirement writing.

Army needs to ensure it provides sufficient detail to progress the capability development process and make sure we are involved when solutions are being tendered to such an extent that we can inform the selection criteria given the influences of the other fundamental inputs to capability that create the capability – especially trained soldiers and doctrine, organisation and TTPs.

Thirdly, Army needs to explore the utility and implications for seeking a more adaptive acquisition strategy. There is an appetite for this across Defence now and we are all looking for a way to do it better. We need to ensure we incorporate flexibility in the scope to allow for technology upgrades. Where appropriate buy fewer (just in time) and employ an adaptive acquisition strategy, especially for technology that we know refreshes faster than our process currently allows us to acquire it. 

Along side this fix, is the work army will need to do internally to ensure soldiers and commanders understand the necessity not to acquire a capability for the entire Army and then wait for the next complete replacement. I think they are on the cusp of understanding that already.

Conclusion

I’ve attempted to cover the journey of Army Modernisation in the past 18months and give you an insight into what I see as my challenges in the next 18 months. I am pleased to report we have made significant progress and in my view managed to assist the capability development process and those involved in it to do what we all want to do, make Army more capable to deal with the uncertainty of the future.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to pass on my views. I trust you found my perspective useful. I am looking forward to the challenges my Division faces. If we can achieve as much in the next 12 months as we have in the last 12, I think we’ll be doing very well.