Obstacles into opportunities

In pondering what I want to design, I went back to the DEST400 module blurb. What stood out were words like strategic thinking, successful leadership and implementing effective work practices in a problem-based learning environment.

Words that I have heard my entire military career.

This then reminded me of the Harvard Review article, Bureaucracy Must Die. I first ready it for DTR400, and it strongly resonated:

"It is the unchallenged tenets of bureaucracy that disable our organizations—that make them inertial, incremental and uninspiring." Gary Hamel

Bureaucracy itself is an invention. Created by humans; designed to create change and alignment in an effort to produced organisational rigidity.

Minister of Defence, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds CSC, released the Defence Transformation Strategy in 2020.

Senator Reynolds describes, the focus is Strategy, Capability, Reform through bureaucracy. Strategy and Capability are the leading drivers to fight the land, sea and air battle. While reform is their natural and the necessary facilitator as its companion.

The Australian Government intends to spend, $270 billion for the procurement of capability over a ten-year period. The defence budget for this period is $575 billion. This spend needs to be efficient and planned, part of a greater program.

My current job is to absorb the bureaucracy and processes of multiple groups and services. I find enterprise solutions to which are requirements based, operational, cost-effective and accessible.

So taking those figures, noting my project is a priority one of this reform, I want to recalibrate our thinking, systems, and institutions. I want to create reform in our Defence schools and ensure an enterprise solution for the whole of Defence.