Digital defence - delivering military advantage through agile procurement

John Drever discusses how collaboration between project managers and systems engineers will need to evolve, to achieve an agile approach in Defence procurement.

In 2021, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) launched its Digital Strategy, with the goal to ‘persistently deliver transformative digital capabilities to enable sustainable military and business advantage’. As part of this strategy, it is promoting the adoption of an agile approach, to keep up with the pace of technology change. But how will this work in practice within such a hugely complex organisation? How will the relationship between Defence project managers and systems engineers need to change, to achieve true agility and to support the delivery of activities at scale and speed? What new problems do they need to solve, to enable the persistent delivery of digital advantage?

The lifecycles for many of the MOD’s assets are lengthy – perhaps as much as thirty years for a platform such as a ship, or five years for the hardware on that platform. As the use of autonomous, artificial intelligence and synthetic environment technologies increases, however, the software for Defence assets is likely to need a much quicker refresh: possibly every twelve, or even six, months. Within today’s challenging global political climate, the UK must ensure it evolves its Defence systems and capabilities as fast as those who might pose a threat to the nation.

To meet such a rapid pace of change, the current V-model systems/project lifecycle structure – which undertakes feasibility studies and concept exploration, before defining specific requirements, designing these and implementing, testing and deploying them – may not be appropriate. While larger platform or sensor/effector procurement projects are likely to still take this approach, for software-based capabilities a more continuous, cyclical process and architecture will be needed. And to deliver that, the project manager, systems engineer and user will have to work much more closely together: they will need to build a different relationship that creates the environment for a more agile and responsive development lifecycle.

This, of course, will bring its own challenges and the questions that project managers will ask systems engineers will change.

A systems architecture for persistent procurement

Foremost amongst the architectural challenges will be to ensure and demonstrate safety – for clients, customers and the public. Testing will still need to be rigorous, and users will need to provide feedback throughout the software’s development – this will place a resource demand upon MOD across all functional areas, from engineering to project management, to make sure subject matter experts are available to offer support, verification and validation. The provision of software from specialist companies, while allowing MOD to take advantage of expertise not available in-house, can lead to complications at the point where it is integrated with in-house Defence systems.

To smoothly assure this integration, the project manager will need to ensure that the project scope includes the appropriate systems’ architecture requirements and feeds in and out. At the start of the project, the project manager must seek to understand future needs – asking the systems engineers to advise what will be required to make new and legacy software seamlessly integrate into evolving systems. Failure to keep a very keen eye on future technologies could significantly impact the threat and symptoms, leading to the loss of critical information systems. This will include an understanding of what the interfaces will look like, and how to integrate with those interfaces throughout the multiple iterations of new software. To avoid future integration problems, the project manager will need to ask the systems engineer to devise ways to maintain design coherence through-life, especially if multiple suppliers are involved.

The project manager also needs to ensure that the right commercial mechanisms and governance are in place, to allow the user, systems engineer, the original equipment manufacturer, and the suppliers to collaborate to evolve the system architecture in a controlled way. This approach requires the project manager to be aware of systems thinking, knowledge retention and skills augmentation.

An ecosystem for transformation

The key challenge for MOD will be to achieve persistent procurement, through contracting for large or small increments. For an organisation that is geared up to deliver major long-term projects – buying ships, planes and tanks, rather than small, but regular technology increments – this will necessitate a shift in procurement focus. The present approach to business cases, for example, can be time-consuming, requiring lengthy scrutiny at senior levels before sign-off. Building a provision for regular software updates into the initial business case will help speed up the process.

The potential safety and security implications of not keeping pace with the evolution of technology, as well as the risk of missed opportunities for innovation, give the need for transformation greater impetus. A collaborative approach is required, which recognises that procurement is an interconnected ecosystem, and that partnerships with the UK technology industry, including small- and medium-sized enterprises, can help deliver this transformation. Academia, such as Shrivenham College and the Open Data Institute, also continues to work with defence procurement to help solve real-world problems, and has a pan sector and market view. In 2022, for example, the Defence Academy launched its ‘DARE’ project – a searchable online environment for its research papers and portal for proposed research topics that will enable it to act as a problem solver and academic powerhouse for defence. Defence is not alone!

So, how will the relationship between project managers and systems engineers working on Defence projects need to change? They will need to become much more integrated in each other’s worlds, to both collaborate with each other and to understand each other's drivers and domains. With project managers looking to reduce risk and cost – some of the biggest risks around requirements – they will be seeking input from engineers. But engineers may not be able to detail the specific requirements until they start engaging with the user: the classic chicken and egg scenario. Finding ways to manage this uncertainty, and building opportunities to identify and address it into the project, is essential. Because both project managers and systems engineers are shooting for the same goal: both want a successful project to be delivered that helps Defence ensure its people, processes and data keep pace with best practice.