Why Large Organizations Struggle With Disruption, and What to Do About It

[Kirkhill]

Stovepipes and their consequences.

Steve Blank Why Large Organizations Struggle With Disruption, and What to Do About It

Seemingly overnight, disruption has allowed challengers to threaten the dominance of companies and government agencies as many of their existing systems have now been leapfrogged. How an organizati…

steveblank.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Experimentation is not unknown.

"Experimental Corps of Riflemen"
"Experimental Mechanized Force"
"2 R Yorks"


....

Canadian Context

4 Brigades -

1 Armoured Brigade under the auspices of the RCAC (Embodying all the skill sets of heavy manoeuvre)
1 Arty (CS) - SPH
1 Arty (GS) - LRPF-AD
1 Eng (GS)
1 Tank
2 LAV (Mobile Infantry-ISR)

2 Infantry Brigades
2x Arty (1 per brigade)
2x LAV (1 per brigade)
4x Inf (2 per brigade)

1 Airportable Brigade
1x Arty
2x Inf
1x Inf (experimental)

Reserves
Captain led sub-units

 

[daftandbarmy]

Stovepipes and their consequences.

Steve Blank Why Large Organizations Struggle With Disruption, and What to Do About It

Seemingly overnight, disruption has allowed challengers to threaten the dominance of companies and government agencies as many of their existing systems have now been leapfrogged. How an organizati…

steveblank.com

Paradigm paralysis enters the chat....

The Challenges of Paradigmatic Change​

Lessons for top managers

Top managers have an extremely important role to play in creating paradigmatic change. They can take measures to make their companies' cultures much more change-friendly. By encouraging showcases and experimentation, rather than rigid adherence to standard practices, they can accelerate innovation.

Organizational culture tends to reflect the actions and attitudes of the leaders. By being open-minded about the need to experiment with fundamentally new ways of doing business, and by viewing small setbacks as learning and not failure, top managers can condition their company's culture to respond positively to paradigmatic change.

The Challenges of Paradigmatic Change

10/4/2004 Paradigmatic change has the potential to create major new value in a business, but is difficult to pull off in the absence of a business crisis, says Jonathan Byrnes. by Jonathan Byrnes I recently received an e-mail from a former student who is working on changing the supply chain of a...

hbswk.hbs.edu

 

[Kirkhill]

From the 2 R Yorks playbook

Members of the Recce Strike Group (Quebec) deployed to America on PANTAX – an international navigation exercise to test how the UK and our allies can best operate in a GPS denied environment and how we would overcome Electronic Warfare.

On Project VERTUO (Defence Command Paper Refresh) in Lulworth, Combat Team 2 (Burma) took part in a Tri-Service capability exercise demonstrating to Ministers and senior Defence leaders the capabilities and tactics required by the Army to fight and win tomorrow. Using new weapon sights, UAS and armed UGVs the Combat Team demonstrated its manoeuvrability, survivability, and lethality. Supporting the exercise were AJAX ground reconnaissance vehicles, Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks, Wolfram (Brimstone missiles), Boxer, Apache helicopters and F35 fighter jets. This presented the soldiers of the Burma Group with the opportunity to better understand the systems which will support them in the future as the Army continues to mobilise and modernise.

Current, competent, capable, and credible, 2 R YORKS is developing and rapidly incorporating more and more hi-tech systems into our soldiering. The men and women rise to the occasion cognitively and physically every time. We have trialled new MESH radios, and electronic battlefield tracking and data messaging on every soldier. We are developing the integration of Uncrewed Arial Systems (UAS), armed and un-armed Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs), Loitering Munitions and exciting new vehicles like the MRZR (light weight, hybrid, mobility vehicle) and WOLFRAM (PM vehicle with BRIMSTONE missile), to enhance manoeuvrability, survivability, and lethality. This has seen a massive increase in the systems to manage by the soldier, but our people prove time and time again that they are masters of managing complexity with agility, which is fantastic to see. They are every part the sensor, decider and effector, speeding up the Kill Chain for the wider Army.

....

At the time of writing, the Battalion is participating in LIVEX. A Battlegroup deployment to the South West of England, operating in civilian areas and Salisbury Plain. The scale of this experimental urban exercise has not been seen in the UK since the EMF in the late 1920s. It will be an exciting and extremely different exercise, with soldiers operating in urban industrial estates, functioning breweries, shopping centres and busy highstreets. The soldier of the Next Generation Combat Team (NGCT) must be able to fight and win in demanding multi-dimensional environments similar to those in Eastern Europe.

Why is it no surprise that the British Army included a brewery in their training plan?

...

 

[Navy_Pete]

The innovation cells is a weird thing; they tend to be motivated people who may or may not have actual experience in the areas they are looking at trying to create bright, new disruptive ideas, but the project scope only covers the first 5%.

At best, they work with the actual SMEs in the area, come up with something but then the projects don't follow through for delivery, so it just languishes as soon as it gets to implementation and sustainment, which is 95% of the LOE. So the working concept doesn't actually turn into a capability.

At worst, they don't talk to the SMEs, try and come up with some kind of sexy (but impractical solutions), get a lot of interest from BGHs, but then eat up a lot of resources and distract focus. For a lot of things (like welding) the improvements are pretty incremental, but for new things like additive manufacturing, there are a lot of legitimate material performance requirements they still need to meet if they make metal parts with 3D printing vice casting/machining.

We have a lot of unsexy but common obsolete, cast brass parts that cost an absolute fortune to get castings done (because we get an F U price as they don't really want to do the work) where there are no IP issues, so additive manufacturing would be awesome, but the team workign on the innovation wants to focus on complicated, very large and actually supported items we can get from the OEMs instead, when some of the things we really need would be things like drain covers and scuppers that aren't a big deal until you need to replace one and there is a hole in a deck until you do.

 

[Kirkhill]

Paradigm paralysis enters the chat....

The Challenges of Paradigmatic Change​

Lessons for top managers

Top managers have an extremely important role to play in creating paradigmatic change. They can take measures to make their companies' cultures much more change-friendly. By encouraging showcases and experimentation, rather than rigid adherence to standard practices, they can accelerate innovation.

Organizational culture tends to reflect the actions and attitudes of the leaders. By being open-minded about the need to experiment with fundamentally new ways of doing business, and by viewing small setbacks as learning and not failure, top managers can condition their company's culture to respond positively to paradigmatic change.

The Challenges of Paradigmatic Change

10/4/2004 Paradigmatic change has the potential to create major new value in a business, but is difficult to pull off in the absence of a business crisis, says Jonathan Byrnes. by Jonathan Byrnes I recently received an e-mail from a former student who is working on changing the supply chain of a...

hbswk.hbs.edu

The key element, IMO, is preserving babies and bathwater while refreshing the bathwater, finding new tubs and creating new babies.

Accountants need to allow for slack in the budget, to permit innovation, error and simple play time. Play time is under-appreciated both in terms of developing existing skills and finding new skills and new applications.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The innovation cells is a weird thing; they tend to be motivated people who may or may not have actual experience in the areas they are looking at trying to create bright, new disruptive ideas, but the project scope only covers the first 5%.

At best, they work with the actual SMEs in the area, come up with something but then the projects don't follow through for delivery, so it just languishes as soon as it gets to implementation and sustainment, which is 95% of the LOE. So the working concept doesn't actually turn into a capability.

At worst, they don't talk to the SMEs, try and come up with some kind of sexy (but impractical solutions), get a lot of interest from BGHs, but then eat up a lot of resources and distract focus. For a lot of things (like welding) the improvements are pretty incremental, but for new things like additive manufacturing, there are a lot of legitimate material performance requirements they still need to meet if they make metal parts with 3D printing vice casting/machining.

We have a lot of unsexy but common obsolete, cast brass parts that cost an absolute fortune to get castings done (because we get an F U price as they don't really want to do the work) where there are no IP issues, so additive manufacturing would be awesome, but the team workign on the innovation wants to focus on complicated, very large and actually supported items we can get from the OEMs instead, when some of the things we really need would be things like drain covers and scuppers that aren't a big deal until you need to replace one and there is a hole in a deck until you do.

The only "Innovation Cell'' that really matters is the Commander (at all levels) and their immediate staff.

If you have risk averse, hide bound leadership you will not have much innovation.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Change can consume resources to no purpose.

"We're going to organize along functional lines."

"No, wait, we're going to organize along regional lines."

"No wait, we're going to have functional AND regional chains of authority."

"Business units will charge other business units for internal services as if the latter were external customers."

"Business units will not charge other business units for internal services."

Etc.

 

[Kirkhill]

Change can consume resources to no purpose.

"We're going to organize along functional lines."

"No, wait, we're going to organize along regional lines."

"No wait, we're going to have functional AND regional chains of authority."

"Business units will charge other business units for internal services as if the latter were external customers."

"Business units will not charge other business units for internal services."

Etc.

All of those changes qualify, IMO, as middle management buggering around with deck chairs.

Change needs to be focused on the coal face. Resources needed to be expended there, even if a lot of them don't generate immediate advantages. The info alone is valuable, even from failed experiments.

 

[Kirkhill]

The innovation cells is a weird thing; they tend to be motivated people who may or may not have actual experience in the areas they are looking at trying to create bright, new disruptive ideas, but the project scope only covers the first 5%.

At best, they work with the actual SMEs in the area, come up with something but then the projects don't follow through for delivery, so it just languishes as soon as it gets to implementation and sustainment, which is 95% of the LOE. So the working concept doesn't actually turn into a capability.

At worst, they don't talk to the SMEs, try and come up with some kind of sexy (but impractical solutions), get a lot of interest from BGHs, but then eat up a lot of resources and distract focus. For a lot of things (like welding) the improvements are pretty incremental, but for new things like additive manufacturing, there are a lot of legitimate material performance requirements they still need to meet if they make metal parts with 3D printing vice casting/machining.

We have a lot of unsexy but common obsolete, cast brass parts that cost an absolute fortune to get castings done (because we get an F U price as they don't really want to do the work) where there are no IP issues, so additive manufacturing would be awesome, but the team workign on the innovation wants to focus on complicated, very large and actually supported items we can get from the OEMs instead, when some of the things we really need would be things like drain covers and scuppers that aren't a big deal until you need to replace one and there is a hole in a deck until you do.

Just thinking about the difference between issuing an infanteer a new toy to play with and printing a new brass bushing.

The infanteer has a lot of flex room to accommodate the vagaries of a new toy.

That brass bushing, if of the wrong composition, improperly cast, of the wrong dimension, and improperly installed, might end up crashing a 500,000 CAD centrifuge installation and bringing your 1 BCAD ship to a juddering halt.

Care must be exercised. There are enough problems with non-OEM parts being installed by people trying to save money.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Just thinking about the difference between issuing an infanteer a new toy to play with and printing a new brass bushing.

The infanteer has a lot of flex room to accommodate the vagaries of a new toy.

That brass bushing, if of the wrong composition, improperly cast, of the wrong dimension, and improperly installed, might end up crashing a 500,000 CAD centrifuge installation and bringing your 1 BCAD ship to a juddering halt.

Care must be exercised. There are enough problems with non-OEM parts being installed by people trying to save money.

Sure, which is why we would do the same material testing requirements as a casting, but that's something that still needs to be figured out.

That's why we want to start with pretty simple parts (that are also lower risk) so we can figure out the testing. And if a scupper fails, basically just you might not be able to close a drain line off. If a big 10" hull valve fails you now have a major flood 20' below the water line. Those are also parts we can't get anyone to make and the last quote was $20k a unit with minimum part buy of something like 40 of them. We only need a half dozen or so, and they should be about $500 each.