Cutting the CF/DND HQ bloat - Excess CF Sr Leadership, Public Servants and Contractors

[PPCLI Guy]

I fear that we will get this wrong.  Positions are inevitably linked to process.  What we really need to do is review processes and ensure that all of them are necessary - perhaps we can accept just the tiniest bit of risk here and there, and reduce processes designed to obliterate risk at all levels.  Once we do that, we will find we are awash in personnel....

Instead, we will shave various ice cubes, and then try and reduce processes due to a lack of manning.  The analysis of those processes will be difficult to do because we will have already shaved off much of the horsepower needed to do a true analysis of risk and its attendant processes.....

Methinks that it just might be time for a true first principle review at Levels 0 and 1....

<<Edited for truly egregious grammatical error, with thanks to JMan>>

 

[McG]

I fear that we will get this wrong. 

I fear you are right.  I suppose we choose the path of "shaving the ice cube" because it is easier than the detailed review that is really required.  I also suppose it is because many HQs (I suspect it is the staffs more than the commanders) don't want to upset subordinate organizations by suggesting all may not be equal in terms of needs and surplusses.  ie. It does not matter if one unit is robust & comfortable with a given resource while others are lean & struggling, all will be cut equally on that resource because that is fair and we would not want to upset people by doing what is institutionally best.

10% from everywhere is the lazy approach.

 

[Infanteer]

Precisely.

Why does an Area HQ G-whatever shop have the manpower it does?  Because of a host of functions it is "required" to do - track this, authorize that, monitor this and that.  These things eat up manpower and staff hours.

Go back to the principle purpose of the staff to support the Commander in the exercise of command.  Does the commander of LFXA really need to know all these things that his GX tracks?  Or are these the things that the Comd says "next slide" to during his update brief?

There is probably a bit of a cultural thing at play - we need to accept "I will find out for you" as a reasonable answer to many uncommon questions instead of devoting a staff officer to track things that don't require immediate answers on a massive excel spreadsheet that is circulated amongst formations to upkeep.

Of course, cutting 10% from a staff without going through the process to identify this stuff will just leave the "required" stuff to be done (even though it doesn't really have to be) with less manpower.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

..and finally this pinhead reads something in this thread I actually get.

Right from the start I have thought this one concept has been missing in almost all of the ideas presented, less manpower means less taskings completed................the end.

Somebody, at some level, is just going to have to learn to live with that or this is just a nice song and dance.

 

[ArmyRick]

Sad thing though, imagine the "justifying" of not so required positions and their manning levels, meanwhile somewhere its gonna hurt to "shave the ice cube" and what happens there? The commander accepts the decision to reduce or cut and gives the bad news to his troops/staff.

Some will not want to do the same/more with less. In some cases, these cuts could easily be made.

I also agree, an honest analysis needs to be done and the manning/staff positions needs to be decided by a commander who will not forget to keep the main effort units first.

In someways its too bad that some civilian companies get this one right. Imagine if an industry had 80 management positions and 80 ground level workers? Bankruptcy! Or far less profits at least. I do realize that yes civilian companies and the military are too far different beast, but maybe we can learn something from them on what "upper levels" of staff need to be reduced/cut. Just a thought, thats all.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It reminds me, in a way, of a lesson I learned from a very fine boss, way back when. I recall that we were discussing the value of his education at the Royal Military College. "Time and risk management," he said, "is the most important thing I learned." There was, he explained, never - not once in four years, enough time to do everything that was expected so, quickly, he learned how to manage (budget) his time and, also, how to assess and manage risks. It was a skill he had when he was commissioned but which I, with two or three "pips" on my shoulder, was still learning.

Shortly after that I was posted as a "staff learner" to a small formation HQ - small in terms of number of staff officers. My experience there rather mirrored my former OC's at RMC: there was too much to do and not, in anyone's imagination, enough time to do it all. One (me) had to learn to assess and take risks - not to slough off anything but, simply, to give x a lower priority than y and accept the risk that I might have made a mistake.

I made mistakes - lots of 'em over 35+ years. Luckily, for the CF, most of my mistakes were minor - errors from which the 'system' could recover without much difficulty. Luckily, for me, most of my leaders were just that, leaders (rather than just being managers) and they were more interested in helping me to improve myself - and thereby improve the overall effectiveness of the CF - than they were in covering their own arses by hanging me out to dry for this, that or the other error.

Good leaders let the staff manage - sometimes just manage as best they can with the resources available.

 

[GAP]

there's a huge divide in todays generation in how they decide need & want.

 

[Pusser]

The best example of BS micromanagement and wasted staff effort is something that happened to me a few years ago.  Some staff weinie (I'm biting my tongue right now and not saying what I really think the A**HAT should be called) at HQ decided he/she wanted to look good and so created a report to be shown as a slide during the weekly commander's brief.  This report required input from each ship in the Formation.  In the typical fashion in which we now work, the "requirement to report" came through the "tech net" (i.e. bypassing the chain of command).  One of the elements of the report was a statement of the number of days rations held on board the ship.  I protested for the following reasons:

1)  providing the information required manpower I felt I didn't have;

2)  the information was perishable.  I had to have it in by Wednesday, so some junior staff weinie could collate it and make the Powerpoint presentation for Friday.  By the time the information was presented it was most likely inaccurate because people had eaten in the meantime and I had often embarked more groceries by then;

3)  I was confident that the Commander simply said, "next slide" when it came up;

4)  The information was of no use.  The supposed purpose of this report was so the Commander could make deployment decisions, based on ships' readiness.  However, I argued that he would make that decision based on engineering state, weapons suites, etc, not the amount of potatos  in the vegetable locker.  Besides, there was no way that the ship would ever deploy faster than I could fill the storerooms.

All in all, the report was a pointless waste of time and I refused to cooperate, partially based on the fact that the "task" was not sent to me by the chain of command.  Unfortunately, this approach backfired on me and the CO was livid that a slide at HQ was being presented with "No Report" beside our ship's name.  I should also point out that I had informed my chain of command what I thought about all this, but the XO let me dangle on that one (i.e didn't stick up for me during that pleasant conversation).  In the end, I ended up tasking someone to make sure the information was passed to HQ, but I'm still bitter about it.  If any process ever needed cutting this was it.  One reason I can see for the bloating of staff is the growth of useless reporting requirements.

Before anyone pipes in to say that Days of Supply for rations is vital operational information that commanders need, I have to specify that I agree with that when a ship is at sea.  At sea, a commander needs to know how much food he has so he can plan for replenishment and the like.  However, in that scenario, the information needs to be current ( in fact, that was reported daily).  For a ship alongside in homeport though, a weekly report is pointless, especially if the brief doesn't happen for a few days afterwards, and like I said before, bringing the ship up to 100% is a matter of a few phone calls and the time it takes to physically embark it.

 

[Infanteer]

One reason I can see for the bloating of staff is the growth of useless reporting requirements.

I'd say one of the main reasons.  I see it every day.  Different staff branches of the Land Army Staff send out spreadsheets which snowball downward - by the time they hit the units, an Adjutant is stuck with a dozen or so things with various levels of information requirements and return dates.

 

[Old Sweat]

And how do these various reports and returns help the CLS run the army? If the Souris River is flooding, does he check the number of rubber boots issued to various units across the army, or does he say "I guess the Patricias and the Gunners in Shilo will be piling sand bags pretty soon?" And do the loggies nod their pointy little heads and continue to stock pile the sand bags they  had organized because Manitoba floods every Spring?

 

[GAP]

And how do these various reports and returns help the CLS run the army? If the Souris River is flooding, does he check the number of rubber boots issued to various units across the army, or does he say "I guess the Patricias and the Gunners in Shilo will be piling sand bags pretty soon?" And do the loggies nod their pointy little heads and continue to stock pile the sand bags they  had organized because Manitoba floods every Spring?

Yeah......but that's the Red River....not the Assiniboine....for the Assiniboine you need to know about the rubber boots......don'tcha?

 

[ArmyRick]

The dreaded Microsoft spread sheet is a useful tool in the right hands and a weapon that creates unnecessary work in the hands of others.

I do remember belonging to an organization which had a low leadership to troop ratio (Not usually heard of I guess) and the boss wanted a document available to give him a snap shot of the coy status at the time.

The acting CSM (will not name him) created this ridiculous spread sheet that included way too much information (to the point the commander was having trouble getting a clear picture of what was going on) and the worse of it, he wanted all 4 of us platoon WOs to use the same document (Imagine waiting an hour or two every day to have your turn?). Eventually the document was at least broken down by platoon but I never did see how this document helped the OC or the CO make critical decisions, but as I was told by the CSM, the info was available at any time for the CoC to access. I didn't agree with it but supported it as required.

I thought I was told that monitor mass was supposed to replace all spread sheets in official use? Or did I not understand that point correctly?
I used my own spread sheets when I was a CQMS, but I and I alone updated the damn thing (I didn't let my subordinates monkey with it). I also had sole control of it and in that regard, it was useful. I knew at all times where C7 # XXXX was or when C6 # XXXX was sent in for repair.

I like what was said earlier. Their is only so much critical data a commander should need at the snap of a finger, the rest should be something that should be researched when and only when required. This would ease an unnecessary burden and from the sounds of it, wasteful staff positions. 

 

 

[Old Sweat]

The following oped piece from the Chronicle-Herald is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act. The author argues, well, I am not quite sure what he is trying to say, other than that the Coms are a good thing. He does say that rather than cutting positions, they should be transferred to sharp end positions. About the only saving he can identify is to transfer MP training to the RCMP Depot, but even that seems more than a little half-baked.

 
Transformation report out of step with needs of Canada’s military

By TIM DUNNE
Sat, Oct 1 - 4:55 AM


Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, DND’s outgoing Chief of Transformation, submitted his Report on Transformation 2011 at an interesting nexus: There are recurring fiscal crises in the U.S. since the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; several European nations are embroiled in their own financial maelstroms arising from sovereign debt crises; Canada’s wisdom in averting previous financial problems may not save us from looming difficulties brought on by the troubled nations on both sides of the Atlantic; and the Canadian Forces have finished their combat mission in Kandahar to undertake a training assignment in Kabul.

The Canadian government has wisely decided to cut the costs of government by directing all federal departments to identify savings of five to 10 per cent.

Lt.-Gen. Leslie’s mandate was to identify economies totalling $1 billion to meet the federal government’s direction. He takes aim at retired General Rick Hillier’s transformative restructuring of the former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff organization into four constituent components in February 2006:

•Canada Command, to focus on defence of Canada and assistance to provinces and territories;

•Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, to plan and conduct Canada’s military operations, from humanitarian and peace support to combat;

•Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, to act as Canada’s high-readiness, quick-reaction force;

•Canadian Operations Support Command, to deliver high-level operational support to the Canadian Forces at home and internationally.

He writes that these separate commands draw people away from the navy, army and air force into these structures, making the Hillier-model headquarters bloated and inefficient. He emphasizes the need to consolidate these headquarters into a single entity that would, in effect, "de-structure" Hillier’s work.

Lt.-Gen. Leslie neglects to take into account that in January 2010, under this "bloated and inefficient" headquarters system, the Canadian Forces concurrently conducted:

•Operation PODIUM, support to the Vancouver Olympics;

•Operation HESTIA, the humanitarian assistance operation in Haiti following its devastating earthquake;

•Ongoing operations in Afghanistan, where routinely 2,500 were deployed, 2,500 were preparing to deploy and 2,500 just returned; and

•Planning for the G-8 and G-20 summits in Ontario.

According to several senior Canadian Forces representatives, our military would never have been able to achieve these high levels of performance prior to Hillier’s transformation.

The general’s transformation organization discovered a 46 per cent increase in military and civilian headquarters personnel from 2004 to 2010, not including "thousands of contractors, consultants and professional services people … needed to manage the increased volume of process and work." These contractors cost the Defence Department and the Forces approximately $2.7 billion in 2010 alone, which, the general notes, should be reduced by 30 per cent over the next several years.

He identified that 9,000 reservists are employed full time, and that 50 per cent should be demobilized to return to their former part-time service with their reserve units. Cost savings could also come from reducing the number of military and civilian personnel by 3,500 each and reinvesting the funds elsewhere.

Rather than suggesting that this points to a top-heavy organization that needs trimming, it demonstrates that the heavy operational tempo which the Canadian Forces are undergoing desperately requires people. Headquarters are forced to raid ships, battalions and wings for people to administer Canada’s mandatory domestic and international operations, and humanitarian missions.

Lt.-Gen. Leslie’s recommendations are not transformative. For that, he and his staff needed to truly step outside the box and identify measures that may not be initially apparent and would require skilled management to implement.

For instance, if personnel reductions are absolutely essential, instead of shrinking the military and civilian headquarters staffs by 3,500 each, as Leslie suggests, perhaps the military positions could be reallocated to operational units, ships, battalions and squadrons over several years. Concurrently, as the 3,500 civilian staff members retire or are reassigned, those positions could be militarized, giving the Canadian Forces several thousand more military personnel to meet the staffing requirements at the various headquarters and within the operational units, and to ease the burden on our military personnel who are required to deploy more often because of personnel shortages.

And if the Transformation staff stepped even farther outside the box, they may identify even more opportunities for cost reductions in infrastructure and training. Take, for example, the Canadian Forces Military Police Academy at CFB Borden, Ont., which has an annual aggregate budget in excess of $3.5 million, which includes the annual operating budget, and civilian and military salaries. This year, the academy expects to graduate 570 students.

There are several institutions throughout Canada that teach policing, including the RCMP’s Depot Division in Regina, Sask., which has been training RCMP constables since 1885. Perhaps a brief discussion between the senior staffs of the RCMP and the Canadian Forces could be fiscally advantageous for both.

Tim Dunne is a Halifax-based military affairs analyst, a Research Fellow with Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies and a member of the Royal United Services Institute (NS) Strategic Action Committee.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

"What!?!? The Emporer isn't wearing any clothes?!?!

 

[a_majoor]

We need to keep our eyes on the prize here.

Gen Leslie is only saying what many of us have said for many years (decades, centuries. Possibly officers in Sargon the Great's armies had similar sentiments); monies and resources should be shifted form Headquarters to the field force, ships at sea and aircraft.

We have all seen how ever growing bureaucracy and "process" have changed things; when I enlisted I recall having to sign three pieces of paper and swear the oath, I was in pretty quickly. Today it takes months and a hockey sock of paperwork to enlist a Class A reservist. In my early Regular Force career, the company clerk had access to the only photocopier and a typewriter; the BOR was similarly streamlined. I could often find the clerk outside the office having a smoke since he had little to do (The 2I/C was such a capable officer he could literally write an exercise order on the back of a cigarrette package. This explains his taste for "Players", since there was a calendar printed on the back as well....) Now a Reserve unit administering a platoon+ needs a plethora of clerks with full office automation suites working all out on papers, and a simple range instruction is @ 19 pages long (If you want to dispute that, look at the standards set in the CAP course which I taught a few yers ago. To save myself a lot of time, I have electronic formats for most common ranges and can produce range instructions once I know the physical location and can look up items like the location of the hospitals etc.). Others on this board have attested to the growth of "process" in many other areas.

Yes, a streamlined HQ structure will employ far fewer people, and will cause hardship for some, but the organization overall will have many more employment opportunities (the salaries and benefits of the estimated 200 "double dipping" colonels could probably provide the funding to keep one or two of HM's warships fully manned rather than tied up with a sleleton crew, for example). As well, a streamlined organization can move faster, firing rather than rewrding the sort of people who take a decade to field a rucksack and getting projects concluded fast enough that inflation does not price them out of the market or technological obsolecense makes them irrelevant.

 

[Michael OLeary]

We have all seen how ever growing bureaucracy and "process" have changed things; when I enlisted I recall having to sign three pieces of paper and swear the oath, I was in pretty quickly. Today it takes months and a hockey sock of paperwork to enlist a Class A reservist. In my early Regular Force career, the company clerk had access to the only photocopier and a typewriter; the BOR was similarly streamlined. I could often find the clerk outside the office having a smoke since he had little to do (The 2I/C was such a capable officer he could literally write an exercise order on the back of a cigarrette package. This explains his taste for "Players", since there was a calendar printed on the back as well....)

Those were also the days when a platoon commander (and everyone else) managed all required administration using only the QR&Os and the CFAOs (now DAODs). Now we get bogged down trying to meet the expectations of often unnecessary extra regulations promulgated at (for the Army as an example) Army, Area, Brigade, and Base levels that are supposed to "supplement" the core regulations but usually only create process steps (like locally produced forms) to achieve the same requirement. If any of these extra processes are that important, why aren't they part of the core regulations and why are they different for each Area, Brigade, Base, etc.? Part of the bloat has sustained itself by existing to maintain ever out-of-date supplementary regulatory documents, and then fill their time telling units to repeat work because they used an out of date version when that was the only one available.

 

[Old Sweat]

Let me make a comment that probably has more than a grain of truth to it.

A major cause in the growth of the paper burden and bureaucracy was first the appearance of the photo copier and then that was exacerbated by information technology. Before, when staff officers had to prepare drafts by hand and then proof and edit copy typed on duplicator paper, the aim was to cut down the bumpf as much as possible. However, staff work by photo copier meant that numerous annexes, appendices and just plain stuff could be added to documents, which tended to grow in thickness, if not depth of intellectual content. Then the whole scale showering of desk tops allowed the staff to bury the world under a pile  - electronic or otherwise - of trivia, redundancy and maybe even the odd bit of useful stuff.

 

[McG]

I have split off the double-dipper tangent.  While many individuals within the HQ bloat are double-dippers many are not - and many double-dippers are not part of the HQ bloat problem.  The tangent is now here: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/87805.0.html

The question needs to be which permanent full time reserve positions are supporting the reserves.  Those reserve positions which are not supporting the reserves need to be removed and the reserve pay re-invested back the the reserves.

Consider that CTC HQ is nearly 1/3 Class B/A and the majority of these pers are concerned on a day-to-day basis with regular force topics.  Most of these positions do not belong where they are being used.  If the work is really that important (a legitimate question in itself), then Reg F PYs should be assigned and the B/A positions re-assigned to where they are concerned on a day-to-day basis with reserve force topics.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Let me make a comment that probably has more than a grain of truth to it.

A major cause in the growth of the paper burden and bureaucracy was first the appearance of the photo copier and then that was exacerbated by information technology. Before, when staff officers had to prepare drafts by hand and then proof and edit copy typed on duplicator paper, the aim was to cut down the bumpf as much as possible. However, staff work by photo copier meant that numerous annexes, appendices and just plain stuff could be added to documents, which tended to grow in thickness, if not depth of intellectual content. Then the whole scale showering of desk tops allowed the staff to bury the world under a pile  - electronic or otherwise - of trivia, redundancy and maybe even the odd bit of useful stuff.

I couldn't agree more. I have seen more and more of this especially being the IT guy having to establish, sustain, and fix the equipment required for this cycle to continue.

Everyone and their dog feels the need to have their little empire in cyber space because "the Commander needs to access this information." I'm sure if the Commander wanted to know about Visits (or any other information), he'd come and ask you, or someone would tell you to inform the Commander. More and more I feel as though the tail is actually wagging the dog, meaning that these staff positions try to justify their existence in the structure in order to stay in the inner information circles.

Powerpoint has crippled our ability to effectively convey and relay effective, concise and timely orders. Instead there is an incredible appetite for COPs, Red SA, Blue SA, AOR, SIGACTS etc. These take time to prepare and therefore require planning to be made on when it should be presented. If theres a rocket attack in the woods and its not in the CUB, does the Commander hear about it?

Like the sign says above my shop :

"How on Earth did we win wars without computers?"

Just my  :2c:

 

[daftandbarmy]

Of course, what we're really talking about here is reengineering the organization. Tons of research has been done in this field, mostly in the 80s and 90s. I wonder if we're ready to learn from the mistakes of others?

How to Make Reengineering Really Work
by Gene Hall, Jim Rosenthal, and Judy Wade

In all too many companies, reengineering has been not only a great success but also a great failure. After months, even years, of careful redesign, these companies achieve dramatic improvements in individual processes only to watch overall results decline. By now, paradoxical outcomes of this kind have become almost commonplace. A computer company reengineers its finance department, reducing process costs by 34%—yet operating income stalls. An insurer cuts claims-process time by 44%—yet profits drop. Managers proclaim a 20% cost reduction, a 50% process-time reduction, a 25% quality improvement—yet in the same period, business-unit costs increase and profits decline. In short, too many companies are squandering management attention and other resources on projects that look like winners but fail to produce bottomline results for the business unit as a whole.

What is going on here? The promise of reengineering is not empty: it can actually deliver revolutionary process improvements, and major reengineering efforts are being conducted around the world. Why then can’t companies convey these results to the bottom line?

Our research into reengineering projects in more than 100 companies and detailed analysis of 20 of these projects have revealed how difficult redesigns actually are to plan and implement and, more important, how often they fail to achieve real business-unit impact. Our study identified two factors—breadth and depth—that are critical in translating short-term, narrow-focus process improvements into long-term profits. First, the process to be redesigned must be broadly defined in terms of cost or customer value in order to improve performance across the entire business unit. And the redesign must penetrate to the company’s core, fundamentally changing six crucial organizational elements, or depth levers: roles and responsibilities, measurements and incentives, organizational structure, information technology, shared values, and skills.


http://hbr.org/1993/11/how-to-make-reengineering-really-work/ar/1