Does the DSR provide the policy mandate for Defence to really evolve?

Eight years before the DSR, the First Principles Review (FPR) wrote of persistent issues in the Defence capability system, resistance to change, chronically risk-averse behaviours, and obsession with process at the expense of outcomes. It would seem we haven’t come that far since the FPR.

“Defence’s current approach to capability acquisition is not fit for purpose”, the DSR states. As if it couldn’t get worse than this blunt assessment, the DSR continues: “Mechanisms put in place to manage risk in Defence acquisitions do not serve us well in the current strategic environment.

“They are burdensome and misguidedly risk-averse.” That a document so laden with bureaucratese would use the phrase “misguidedly risk-averse” speaks volumes.

The DSR recommends that “options should be developed as soon as possible to change Defence’s capability acquisition system so that it meets requirements and is reflective of our current strategic circumstances”. I suppose we will see what these options are in the fullness of time but there might be some hints as to a new direction in the DSR.

In 2015, the FPR stated that “it is clear that the processes in the current capability development life cycle are cumbersome, excessively bureaucratic and inefficient. The organisation is more focused on process adherence than high-quality capability outcomes.” Seemingly as a fix for this, the FPR recommended disbanding the Defence Materiel Organisation (and Capability Development Group) and creating the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group.

Since DSR was equally critical of Defence acquisition, FPR didn’t seem to do the trick; although it must be said the FPR focused more of the invigoration of “Strong Strategic Centre” and “One Defence” model vis downstream activities in acquisition post-government approval.

The DSR does go that one step further than the FPR in a fascinating and more subliminal way.

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In contrast to the FPR, which advocated for the need to plan for, integrate and deliver all fundamental inputs to capability, as part of a holistic approach to capability, the DSR jettisons references to FIC and instead writes that “Defence must move away from processes based around project management risk rather than strategic risk management. It must be based on minimum viable capability in the shortest possible time.”

And with that, a new addition to the Defence lexicon was born — the MVC. The DSR uses this term five times and I suggest that the selection and usage of this term is deliberate and intended to invoke the concepts and methodologies popularised in Eric Ries’ book, The Lean Startup.

According to Eric Ries, a minimum viable product (MVP) is a version with just enough features to satisfy early customer need and to provide feedback for future product development. The key idea is to quickly validate assumptions about a product or business idea with minimal effort and resources, by deploying a simplified version of the product with real customers.

Released in 2011, The Lean Startup argues that building an MVP allows companies to quickly learn from early adopters, test their assumptions, and iterate rapidly before committing significant resources to building a full-featured product. In practice, an MVP might consist of a basic prototype or a stripped-down version of a full-featured product.

The exact form of an MVP will depend on the specific product or business idea, but the key is to focus on delivering just enough value to early customers to validate assumptions and test the market.

The notion of an MVP is related to Agile methodology (another term used vividly in the DSR). Both MVP and Agile prioritise delivering value to end users early and often, while also embracing a continuous feedback loop, continuous improvement, and iteration.

In practice, the MVP approach often involves using agile techniques to rapidly build, test, and iterate on a product based on customer feedback. By releasing early and often, agile development teams can quickly incorporate customer feedback and adapt to changing environmental conditions.

This is a huge difference to how Defence delivers capability under the One Defence Capability System, which is emphatically waterfall, and in execution embodies most of the criticisms levelled at the capability system by both the FPR and DSR.

Putting aside the cognitive dissonance in the DSR direction to deliver the MVC while optimising for a range of operations, the direction to deliver MVC has implications for not only what is delivered, but how. Agile teams are specifically constructed to promote collaboration, communication, and flexibility. They are cross-functional and less hampered by organisational stovepipes. The are generally co-located to support dynamic collaboration.

They are self-organising and very flat, often not bound by hierarchical structures. They place emphasis on empowering and preparing individuals to take ownership and responsibility of the project and especially their particular part. They also require less externally mandated reporting overheads, tending to prefer internal daily stand-ups, sprint planning and retrospectives. All of this is hugely at odds with current project structures and the One Defence Capability System.

The logical counterargument to the above is to insist that surely, the drafters of the DSR didn’t intend a change so significant through usage of MVC, a mere approximation of MVP. And it would be a fair point but for a small passage of text in paragraph 12.6 of the DSR; “In our new strategic circumstances the focus must be on the capabilities of the Enhanced Force-in-Being, with an emphasis on incremental upgrades through the life of a capability rather than pursuing longer-term solutions.”

This is textbook Agile and the specific allusion to “increments”, for me, clinches it. Agile teams deliver work in increments through “sprints”, time-boxed periods of development that will deliver a shippable product increment.

If these seemingly pointed references to Agile delivery are deliberate, surely, they must provide the policy mandate for Defence to adopt Agile practices and dramatically change how projects operate, and how capability is sustained.

In summary, I argue that both the DSR and FPR before it have revealed cultural, procedural, and behavioural shortcomings in the Defence capability system. The recommendations in the FPR missed some of these and ushered in an era of holistic delivery of FIC, which caused the sudden appearance of one or several “long poles” in project “tents” throughout Defence.

In response, the DSR has recommended Defence move towards delivering an MVC; capability that meets threshold on time with a view to upgrading through life. I argue that DSR is actually hinting at the much-needed deeper reforms of Defence business, specifically in how it runs capability acquisitions, and mandating the adoption of Agile methodologies.

This would be a dramatic sea change for Defence, but maybe one that is well overdue. The notion of the MVP first emerged around 20 years ago and rose to greater prominence when Ries published The Lean Startup in 2011. Since then, the organisations most effective at delivery have adopted Agile, leaving Defence many years behind the times.

DSR has effectively mandated that Defence should catch up and adapt. Any resistance to doing so may squander the best opportunity Defence has had to really modernise capability delivery and join the 21^st century.

Jerimy Tucker is an experienced capability development expert, and national security policy advisor. He has worked across the joint, land and cyber domains for over 10 years and is currently engaged in army littoral and amphibious capability. He is the managing director and co-founder of Delta Tango Advisory.