A road map for evolution of military ICT operation models

Abstract

This paper defines a road map that military ICT service production has drawn over last decades. It starts the natural individual tendency of closed system, which evolves to ability to manage a network of systems as functions. Gradually networked system gets better connection to its users and defines more process structure. As organisation is recognised more a service provider a networked business model starts unfold and finally it becomes fully featured value chain model with appropriate governance. The ICT service production model road map is defined to help improving the information enabled Armed Forces.

Introduction

In this paper the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) models and Telecommunications Network Management (TMN) methods are studied in a framework of transforming military ICT service production witnessed in the Defence Forces of Finland 1990 - 2010. Service process maturity model (CMMI-SVC) is used when different model and maturity level is differentiated.

Based on experiences from Finland, paper defines the major evolutionary path of ICT service production models and their neighbouring process frameworks. Paper also describes short cuts or downshifts that some military organisations have faced either when reaching for more revolutionary goals or allowing the entropy to have effect on their organization. Paper provides tools for strategic diagnosis by describing possible paths on map, where interrelations, challenges and opportunities may be identified. This is to support strategic planning of Information and Communications Technology for supporting the military core business.

Orientation to road map of Military ICT operation models

There is a possibility to create a description of general road map of ICT operation models used in military organization in particularly the Finnish Defence Forces. This hypothesis is based on experiences and lessons identified when developing the Defence Forces Automated Data Processing and Telecommunications operations 1990 – 2010. 

Author has identified these lessons as he was:

• The head planner for C4I operations in Leijona exercise 1994, the largest joint military exercise in Finland since WW II.
• One of the planners and implementers of Communications and Information Systems operations structure transformation by 1997 in the Defence Forces.
• A client for previous CIT provider. The designer and pilot for new C4I operations structure early 2000 when head of J6 of Northern Command.
• The program lead of C4I transformation in Defence Forces 2004-2006.
• The chief of C4I operations in C4I Agency in Finland 2007
• A client for previous C4I Agency. The head of G6 in Land Forces while the transformation of Army fighting was planned and implemented 2008-2012.

The hypothesis is based on the following evolution in general ICT business models:

• Telecommunication operation model development from TMN  to eTOM  versions.
• IT operation model ITIL  development through versions 1 to 3.
• IT Governance model CobIT development until version 5 (2012) .
• The Services operation maturity model CMMI-SVC v1.2 (2009) .
• The Supply Chain model developments CSCMP .
• Some military ICT operation organization transformations in Finland.

There is a generic evolutionary path as models mature and environment appears more complex. There are also some revolutionary roads that are skipping phases of evolution. Similarly one may find downshifting roads on the map pointing the fact that systems also decline, close up and disintegrate or choose to reverse as described in figure 1.

Figure 1: the hypothesis for a road map for ICT operation models in military organizations

In road map there are five stages for ICT operations model: technology oriented my device – my way, network oriented my system - vendors way, service operator – best practice way, service provider – business model way and more overarching value chain way. These stages are described further in the following chapter.

An Evolutionary Path for ICT Operation Models in Military Environment

My Device – My Way

It is a very natural way to start operating new device with “handicraft” or “craft” principle . One worker takes the whole responsibility to operate and maintain the device from start to end of the life cycle in unique way. This is the most effective way of operate devices, if there are no similar systems in operation or there are no interrelated functions between different devices that manual management cannot execute. The quality of administration is defined by the expertise of one worker and may vary from high master ship to novice blunders. The service  in this context is maintained device.

This per device approach does not allow more effective division of labour or improvement of productivity through specialization.  Workers assigned to take care singular devices feel responsibility and sometimes associate themselves with device and its importance to organization. Changes in this established socio-technical structure are often strongly opposed. Military are also facing challenges to sustain skilful staff in business continuity or survivability situations.

Some organisations continue this principle of handicraft when devices are integrated to systems, networks and domains. They continue assigning more people to take charge of increasing number of devices. As long the devices remain unconnected, there is no trust relation or confrontation between different ways of operating separate devices. This is particularly the case when military enterprise itself remains a loose consortium of functional parts that remain disconnected both from their environment and from other units as described in figure 2. 

Figure 2: an example of distributed and non-interrelated ICT operations

Later this craft principle has been changed to more standard way, but vendors still tend to prefer their proprietary solutions for element management. LME, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and IBM delivered their proprietary management solutions included in their system (server or network node) delivery.

All coordination within this model is done at higher levels of hierarchy and issued by orders down to each function or device operator. It takes long time to react to any incident and even longer to build anything new in connection to existing technology or services.

My System – My Vendors Way

With telecommunications digitalization it become possible to integrate element managers to higher level network management system. A first layered structure was introduced by CCIT as M.30 1988. Further it evolved to Telecommunications Management Network, TMN M.3010. It included layered structure that described how network elements are managed by element management layer. Element management is connected by network management layer, which is support service management and business management layers as depicted in figure 3.

Figure 3: Main features of TMN model 1996

Telecommunication system vendors design their own products for TMN compliant management and often military were buying together management with transportation layer (like PDH management) or private branch exchange systems (like LME). 

Service level was not as mature as technical levels, but a call centre supported with customer management applications was established. First Network Management Centres were established where more than one type of system was controlled. First incident management processes within that centre were implemented and trouble ticketing system normally supported this incident management.

Centralized control reduced complexity of coordination and reaction times were reduced. As incident were forwarded by element layer, specific applications to collect incidents and correlate them were installed. First dashboards for network availability was presented.

As the Finnish Defence Forces reorganised their Communications and Information System structure 1997, the first CIS management structure was also launched at element and network level and later at service level. This included the first architecture for CIS services management. It included the functional, physical, information and logical illustrations of architecture. There were both end user service catalogues and agreements between development organizations and CIS operation organizations. Network Management Centres were established according line command so they inherited authority from their reference level although they had service agreements along client-provider lines as defined in figure 4.

Figure 4: an example of network management organization

Later due some rotation of personnel service agreements were forgotten by provider, trust of clients were lost and only network management processes sustained.

ICT Operator – A Best Practice Way

Information Technology Infrastructure Library books has been published since 1989. ITIL version 2 was consolidated into nine sets of books 2001. ITIL version 3 was published 2007 and updated 2011. ITIL become a best practice for Information Technology System Management and was copied also by military ICT system operators as they were reaching towards service operator model. ITILv2 framework and its core processes are illustrated in figure 5.

This was the first vendor or technology agnostic operator model for ICT service operators trying to align with their customers and end users. It replaced TMN parts with Service Support processes and introduced Service Delivery processes. TMN remained at element management level and in telecommunications network management systems. ITIL started also improving application management together with IT assets management. As the first processes were implemented the maturity assessment with key performance indicators was also established.

In Finland ITIL was added over the existing TMN model starting from 2003. The first ITSM was implemented and ITIL v2 core processes established. Trouble ticketing was changed into event management and call centre to help desk. The first ITIL gap analysis was done 2004. Service Desk was assessed to be at the best level of capability and service level management at least. Process implementation faced opposition from system specific operators and administrators and was gradually halted because of lack of will for reformation. There was only slight understanding of service operations connection to military business at J6 level but no initiatives were launched. Nor there were service level agreements existing between operator and end user organizations. Also operator level agreements had been withering because the lack of understanding of supply chains and authority of line command.

Figure 5: A basic model of ITIL v2 framework and core processes

ICT Service Provider – Business Model

ITU published Business Process Framework (eTOM) as a standard on 2003. The framework quickly adopted ITIL core processes within its operations block. Besides introducing customer interface for ICT development processes and improving client relations management, the eTOM framework also introduced better model to manage vendors/suppliers both for operations and development of ICT services. eTOM model was a basis for organization of an ICT Service Provider with all essential business process blocks described. The basic eTOM framework and applied implementation is described in figure 6.

Since there are seldom finance transactions inside military force, eTOM customer relations management was divided into four levels: 

1. Service Desk was managing daily relationships with end users by receiving their re-requirements, supervising service fulfilment and managing end user events. They also in-formed end users of changes in service availability and conditions of use.
2. Regional C4I service unit had liaison officer that was collaborating with units Chief In-formation Officers for quarterly services and managing perception at service agreement level by delivering monthly reports to each unit.
3. Operations liaison officer resided in the Command of each Service managing changes in annual agreements and delivering quarterly reports on delivered services and used resources.
4. Development liaison officer rotated between Services, process owners and J6 division in managing future capability development issues by maintaining development agreements and reporting of the proceedings of development programs.

Billing and revenue management processes were sustained, but only at production costs level for military clients. There were paying customers in other market segments that were billed in open market manner. Performance was assessed also with cost-efficiency indicators transparent in resource management view.

Supply Chain Management was managed both by operations and development. The Supply Office for operations managed all operations contracts with partners, sub-providers and suppliers. All operations supporters were annually included into planning process for following year as new requirements and services were to be realized. Asset management was managing both in-house and out-house resources and process improvement extended to vendors. The Procurement office of development managed all development contracts. Development had always 2-5 years focus and they had annual workshops with existing and possible developers.

Figure 6: eTOM model applied to military enterprise closed market with extension to vendor networks

In Finland Defence Forces were facing major change in 2008 thus a major transformation of C4I (including former CIS and all ICT functions) was launched 2004. From 2004 to 2007 the operation model was changed gradually from national J6 level down to units. A C4I agency was established in the beginning of 2007  that took the responsibility of providing all common ICT and C4I services for Defence Forces and some Governmental Agencies over Internet, over Support net (HALNET) and over Mission net (OPNET). All but tactical C4I was collected under one service provider. 

A closed market structure pictured in figure 7 was created within the triangle of customer-provider-client. Service Catalogues were established to each market segment. Service Level Agreements were signed between Provider (C4I Agency) and each military unit (clients). Between Customers (Service Commands) and Provider a specific SLA was defined for both service development and operations.  The business model for C4I services was based on eTOM framework with ITIL replacing Service Support and Delivery processes. eTOM was further framed with Customer-Provider-Client closed market governance model adopted from municipal level transformation in Finland.

 

Figure 7: a Customer-Provider-Client model for closed markets applied to C4I service production inside Defence Forces

Major challenges were faced in service transition from development to operations, process driven operations versus line command authority, customer driven culture versus order driven culture and cost-efficiency. They were mostly unfamiliar to military organizations.

Value Chain Model with Governance

ICT was recognized more and more a main enabler of military force as information become main asset and force digitalization proceeded. From C4I service provider ICT business model evolved towards value chain model with enterprise governance and management by implementing ITILv3, Supply Chain Management, managing complex capability development and change, improving enterprise level governance and management by CobIT 5. This enhanced model is described in figure 8.

ITIL version 3 was published 2007 with model to manage complex system of systems service design and transition. This approach was used together with three different development models:

• Waterfall development model  for simple and known parts for system of systems
• Iterative development model  for unknown parts for system of systems
• Spiral development model  for complex parts of system of systems.

The eTOM vendor management was extended with Supply Chain Management processes as ICT Service Provider generally extracts over 50% of its value from external sources. With continuous replenishment  supply chain Provider may improve reliability at the same time as stocks become more cost-effective.

Figure 8: C4I service production business model within military enterprise

Since military C4I structures become more complex and IC-technology together with information become greater enabler for force utilization, more emphasis was put into creating capability out from intertwined system of people, process and technology. This large structure was called System of systems implicating that there are several subsystems interconnected or interrelated within larger structure.  As digitalization of military force proceeded, the fighting, supporting and production systems become more integrated with each other and people. This called more systematic approach for training and exercising the troops while operating technical systems and introducing new subsystems in the field. U.S. DOD JP 1-02 dictionary of Military and Associated Terms defined 2001 the DOTMLPF analysis to assess all components of military capability (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel and Facilities) together. 

Gradually a permanent testing and evaluation (T&E) process was created. For ongoing testing a reference environment  appeared as “small world” and all new features are tested and evaluated before fielding. Often before a major fielding one also pilots the capability change to finalize the interoperability of all capability components. Only after this two phase testing and evaluation, new feature is migrated to operations. System of systems development is mainly fielded as migration (data migration, system migration, software migration) rather than roll-out since it is often a change that moves through the existing structure replacing some legacy parts. ICT development adopted similar method for experimenting  with different solutions together with long term research and development arm.

ISACA  published CobIT 5 in 2012 to create one framework that includes all IT related processes, methods and controls to promote enterprise wide governance over IT functions. CobIT 5 reaches to close the gap between business and ICT operations. It consists of into enterprise IT governance part and IT management part. CobIT 5 has become a good framework to assure that major parts of ICT business are in place within enterprise.

In Finland the C4I business model 2007 was improved further by implementing systems design and transition process within C4I Agency. As Land Forces were proceeding in digitizing their forces, a programmable electronics development and support method was established to improve strategic flexibility of the force. C4I Agency went further to develop supply chain and mature their ITIL, eTOM and SCM processes to be able to outsource centralized application services for support and administrative IT by 2015. 

Simultaneously all fixed military telecommunications networks are also under transition towards one governmental operator. C4I Agency is planned to migrate the networks and connectivity operations to TUVE operator  that is planned to provide services to all governmental and adjacent agencies. This division of all ready integrated technologies is a good example of system but not service oriented thinking.

Currently there is major transformation in Finnish Defence Forces that achieves to integrate all development under new logistics centre.  It includes also ICT and C4I development, which is extracted from current C4I centre. This reminds the change that UK MOD did some years ago, then learnt that it does not work and 2013  started to transform their ICT operations and development more close to operations and got rid of the standard logistics procurement/development method.

Leaps, downshifts and revolutionary paths on map of possible roads

Process holds the service operation system together.  Without process there is no possibility to mature operations towards better capability but remain functionally isolated (CMMI-SVC level 0) or just reactively putting down fires (CMMI-SVC level 1). Only connecting providing services with technology and further connecting users together with services enables operator to start improving his maturity. Thus the first leap is in implementing best holistic service process framework like ITIL and changing the culture of traditional functional line command organization to client driven process centric matrix organization. There is natural opposition in military organizations towards this support process approach although it is invented originally in branches of military logistics and field artillery. There needs to be evident and tangible reason/goal to get everyone leaving their comfortable device or system ways and adapt unfamiliar way of working together. 

Over fluent service delivery and support, operator is able to add other features like development, supply chain and ICT business model. The biggest challenge for military is understanding the closed market and its controlling mechanism. This fails quite often and military decides to outsource operator and create open market interface that civilians do master. Open market interface between force and main enabler does not always function either because contracts may be too rigid as in UK or civilian operator is not able to adjust to crises requirements as in Finland .

Next leap is when ICT service operation is aligned with military core business in continuous way and service provider matures to act as hub for value chain. This requires two changes in military culture: 

1. Information and after that knowledge becomes an asset like finance, material and hu-man resources. ICT becomes same time a major enabler to military force and contro-versy between buying arms or ICT is replaced with system of systems capability analysis.
2. Military adapts means to lead and control assets that are not under their direct com-mand. This requires ability to align complex networks of value providers and have them working aligned with trust to each other.

It needs time and persistence to mature in service operation but one delusionary leader can take organization quickly back to square one. This happened in Finland when within one year half of the organization that was following TMN model degraded to CMMI level 0 just because new leader was firm believer of centralised planning and neglected all service level agreements. This was enough to dismantle

all trust that took three years to build.  Similar phenomenon happened when one commander with line-staff command ideas dismantled whole customer-provider-client business model which took four years to build.

There is some evidence that organization can succeed with revolutionary path from TMN straight to eTOM business model. This happened partially in Finland during 2004 – 2007 transformation. It was possible since incremental transition was done each year, responsibilities were built gradually towards new processes and transformation was implemented from bottom up.  One major weakness in this approach was the need for strong leader for change. After the transition leader was rotated and some successors and middle level managers were not that enlightened with business model. Kotter (1996) emphasizes this phase calling it "instituting the change".

 

Conclusion

Automatic Data Processing and Telecommunications technology management, service production and IT governance in military organizations has been following the operation models of generic enterprise ICT. It has matured with general maturity models and integrated with business like IT governance usually does. This does not include tactical ICT and C4I service production but services supporting operational, force support and force production.

The stages of ICT service production maturity are same but on the road military peculiarities are providing different challenges and opportunities. On the one side there is military command approach that may accelerate transformation but on the other side there is culture that might be opposing all changes persistently. If there is no clear driver that affects the whole organization, military has tendency to fall back to earlier stages on the map of operation models. All that is needed for reverse gear is to change the commander of the operating unit.

It also seems that military ICT can utilize and learn a lot from general operation models if they are adjusted to fit into special business needs. Only implementing best practices does not give the capability or survivability in crises time. It requires to tailor general models into military organization, processes and culture. It also needs to change some terms to ease communication with military practice, while keeping the base of the model intact to be able to fit it into the culture and behaviour of supply chain.

This paper presents a road map for ICT management, operation, service providing and integrating with military core business. This road map may be used to help in defining ICT strategy or diagnosing the status of service processes maturity. It is imperative to develop service operations capabilities as new technology and information content are becoming more important as enablers for military force utilization, support and production.

Evolution of Military Learning from Knowledge Management point of view

This paper defines a road map for military knowledge creation and learning as organization. It combines the knowledge conversion model with classical educational models and studies different military attempts to achieve better command and control capabilities. The behaviour in military training is explained in each four stages on the map. Some examples of military advance is given on possible roads between stages.

Introduction

“I still learn something new every day. Education and knowledge are the reason behind progress of man, his happiness and stability. 

The path of education and knowledge is the key to building a nation 

that achieves progress in all walks of life”. 

His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

Military Knowledge Management has changed as societies are evolving and now we are questioning the rules of knowledge management of industrial era as opposed to information era. In this paper, a military combat operations process called the OODA-loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) defined by John Boyd  (1987) is studied with the framework of knowing organisation defined by Chun Wei Choo  (1998).

This paper belongs to a series of papers describing the evolution of military competence and C2 (Command and Control) processes supported by evolving enablers in information management. There are three capabilities in military command and control processes from point of knowledge management:

1. Sense making, consisting of observation (sensing) and orientation (making sense), is interpreting the equivocal data by enacting interpretations.
2. Decision making, which is searching and selecting alternatives according to projected outcomes and preferences.
3. Knowledge creating, which is creating new knowledge and improving the whole OODA-loop through knowledge conversion, sharing of information and training.

These capabilities and their effect on OODA-loop are described in figure 1.

Figure 1: Orientation for military knowledge management from sense making, decision making and knowledge creating approach

This paper defines the major evolutionary path of each level of Knowledge Management and describes some short cuts or downshifts that some military organisations have faced when reaching for more revolutionary goals. Paper provides tools to do strategic diagnosis by describing possible paths on both separate and integrated road map where interrelations and challenges may be easier identified. This is to support strategic diagnosis within Information and Communications Technology that is supporting the Knowledge Management.

Orientation to road maps of Military Knowledge Management

“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.” William Cowper 1785 

There is a possibility to create a description of general evolution of Knowledge Management in Military Command and Control. A generic evolution is depicted with three roads of Military Decision making, Sense making and Knowledge Creating in figure 2.

Figure 2: Roads for military learning from knowledge management approach

This paper is describing the sub-road map for military learning in more detail. It is combining the organizational knowledge conversion process by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)  with basic education concepts of behavioural, cognitive, constructive and social cognitive by Hergenhahn and Olson (2008)  and applying these together in different military cultures. See other sub-maps or description of all roads in other papers of knowledge management maps.

Description of evolutionary paths in Military Knowledge Creating and Learning 

This paper is concentrating on how knowledge creating, training of skills and competence have been evolving in military organizations. Four different approaches to knowledge creating, training, education and learning are described in figure 3. This paper is analysing learning from knowledge management point of view, emphasising especially knowledge creation . Knowledge creation is essential process to improve military command and control capabilities as illustrated in figure 1 and stated in UK Joint Doctrine for Understanding (2010) as follows:

“Targeting education and training to support the development of understanding is a crucial enabler. …; such training should include self-awareness, critical and creative thinking skills and open-mindedness.” 

Military training has to prepare individuals and collectives to enter into harm's way and perform physically and mentally demanding tasks at the highest possible levels of proficiency. As early as commanders of Greece forces during Persian wars in 480 – 479 B.C. were focusing on team integrity of their phalanxes, history of war repeatedly tell tales of devastating losses after soldiers abandon their tasks, break and run under the pressure of combat.  Military training has a traditional to be more like discipline than a process of creating competence. 

Military skills are learned mainly in team training with progressive challenges tailored to each team of arms. Repetition is a disciplined way to establish team’s behaviour as part of a bigger system. At battle technical level both individuals, troops and weapon systems are trained to be able to act at level of subconscious habit, motoric memory or pre-set programming. In stressful situations and times of fear a part in human brains, amygdala, takes control preferring automatic habits or reactions like reflex over consideration.  To be able to behave effectively under stress requires both individuals and troops to exercise as part of bigger fighting system, obtain skill level of automation and to be able to sense cues  of enemy action and execute ones task routinely with conjunction of indirect methods.

Military understanding has several learning approaches. There is a strong legacy of following the doctrine and thinking by book.  There is also increased request in not educating soldiers what to think but how to think.  This means introducing a combination of three thinking methods: systems thinking, creative thinking and critical thinking. 

The ability of military organization to change is influenced by its culture. Armed Forces cultural norms are influenced by military tradition, social norms and ethical standards. These laws and routines shape the thinking patterns of soldiers when changes must be made. The ability to survive over the eventual situation of being surprised is based on military organisations ability to be flexible  in:

1. Conceptual and doctrine level
2. Structure and organisational level
3. Cognitive, command and control level and 
4. Learning lessons from wars and various military operations and disseminating them rapidly, which is defined by:

• Continuous learning, which calls for culture and mechanism that en-courage learning from mistakes and feed experiments promptly all over organization to be utilized in training
• Real-time learning, which requires capability to devise immediate solu-tions and circulate them throughout stake holders.

Drilling what to do and think with behavioural drivers

Drilling has been a tool for military training as documented lividly in roman army’s training description  or in Prussian army when soldier was made a standardized, predictable and reliable unit to operate the musket. This is the very basic way of socializing tacit skills when instructor (master) shows how to do movement to soldiers (apprentices) and then supervises their proceedings and corrects possible mistakes. 

Thorndike (1911)  defined the law of exercise where he described the law of use as “exercising the connection between stimulating situation and a response strengthens the connection between the two”. He also described the law of disuse as “discontinued practice or non-used neural bond is weakening the connections between situation and response”. After 1930 these laws were discarded by Thorndike himself, but culture has been continuing drilling with another reason. In stressful situations and times of fear a part in human brains, amygdala, takes control and it prefers automatic habits or reactions like reflexes.  For soldier to reach amygdala preferred motoric automation, repetition has been the main means of exercising.

Military training, especially the basic training, has been generalised as repeating meaningless movements on and on in the exercise field instructed by a drilling sergeant. Similar approach has been seen in class room lessons, where instructor is repeating parts of weapon as chorus with classroom of 30 soldiers. 

For artillery crew drilling with piece of weapon is essential to achieve the degree of automation. Trying to educate thinking in similar way and industrialize the military education as happened in USA military academies before II WW, will end up with obedient but dependent soldiers. West Point was able produce officers, who were able to enforce discipline, but did not know WHY and HOW to adjust their leadership according to situation. 

In behaviourism learner gets positive feedback when his behaviour and learning results are moving in right direction. This is especially effective, when standard of required performance is gradually increased and award is direct and public. 

Behaviourism may be extended with social dimension, where student's behaviour is changing to cope his collective’s behaviour and its consequences. This supports team learning with gradually increased performance requirement and rewarding not as individual but team basis. This is normally utilized in military drilling when platoons are competing against each other.

There is evidence that tangible rewards do decrease intrinsic motivation in situations, when the student already has a high level of intrinsic motivation or given task requires creative thinking. The stress that might build up in problem solving situations from this competition like environment is not always productive and individual's thinking may be restricted and formal. 

Industrial way of educating  soldiers has another weakness. If the doctrine is not suitable in real operations, “fighting by the book” does not produce right results. This was the situation in Iraq, when Donald Rumsfeld was the secretary of defence before 2006 and failed to recognise the dysfunctional doctrine. General David Petraeus went first to renew the Army doctrine on counterinsurgency and when he was appointed 2007 as commander in chief of allied forces in Iraq, he was able to mitigate successfully the confrontations in Baghdad area based on new doctrine. 

Understanding how to think with cognitive drivers

General James Gartwright (2008) called after two changes in officers’ education: learning how to think and improving the pace of learning to meet current speed of evolution of business (3 months), technology (18 months) and war fighting (30 days).  This requires combination which is the ability to create explicit knowledge by bringing together explicit knowledge from a number of sources. Combining different concepts requires systems thinking, critical thinking and operational analyses.

The cognitive learning follows more the way of human, when he creates understanding and processes information in his brain. New things are learned within a familiar orientation model. Especially problem solving is using cognitive approach, where one learns a new way of thinking (schema) and is able to utilize this “tool” further in solving for other similar problems. After learning these schemas, there remains a problem of mapping problem to a right pre-existing schema. This requires logical reasoning like systems thinking or operational analyses.

There is a need to combine three thinking methods to create balance of: 

• Systems thinking: seeing of “interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static ‘snapshots.’” 
• Creative thinking: appreciating and engaging diversity, mixing generalists with specialists, processing information systematically. 
• Critical thinking: “In dialogue, a group explores complex difficult issues from many points of view.  Individuals suspend their assumptions but they communicate their assumptions freely.” 

These thinking tools should be utilized along individually tailored path of learning towards soldiers understanding. The learning path includes a spiral that collects feedback from subordinates, peers and instructors. Spiral curve is accelerated by windows of opportunity to utilize innovative solutions but providing safe environment to make mistakes.  

Military training needs to be divided into two main streams: 

1. learning motoric skills as individual or as team, 
2. learning to understand. 

Training has clear orientation structure that defines WHY coming skills and competence is needed. Orientation also includes iterative introduction to effects in area of operation. Training for skills and understanding advances parallel and progressively providing possibilities for feedback, revisiting, extending further, digging deeper, room for innovation and mirroring with mentor.

Skills are learned mainly by team training with progressive challenges tailored to each team. Repetition is a discipline as a part of bigger system, but utilization of skills in different situations and environment is a driver for successful execution in progressively challenging environment. Although team is a unit in learning, individual support is very important in the first phases of learning. Following the maturity of individual and team instructors support should be decreasing as competence base and team support are increasing.

Understanding is soldiers’ ability to perceive their space of operation, teams and systems, other combat supporters, supported and adversary as huge system where different parts interact with each other and with environment. It requires leaders to achieve synthesis  when processing towards understanding of this phenomena. Leaders should reach a certain level of insight and foresight to be able to innovate and create best ways to deploy and operate one's system as interdependent part of fighting system of systems. Creativity alone should not be emphasized because of human behavioural weaknesses, but it must be balanced with critical thinking together with timely and right decision making.

Experimenting with constructive drivers

The full knowledge conversion process by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) is described in figure 3. Individual shares some experiences of his trials (tacit knowledge) with peers and together they come up (socialization) with hypothesis for causality model of their analysed experience. They publish (externalization) their findings in lessons identified (explicit) board. Someone else faces a challenge, finds these lessons together with few more similar, and fuses (combination) these concepts (explicit) to fit into situation in hand. One learns (internalization) from this successful trial and increases his (tacit) knowledge.

Figure 3: Knowledge conversion process (Nonaka&Takeuchi 1995)

One skill and competence learning process has been described as follows:

1. Seeing some to give an example and describing core causality behind task
2. Doing the task under supervision of mentor and experimenting with variations of inputs
3. Doing the task independently with different variations
4. Showing how to do task to an apprentice
5. Overseeing an apprentice to practice skill.

This process might be cyclic and spinning around many times a year as it has been done when establishing a continuous training of Network and Security Operations Centre personnel. The willingness and ability to learn from experience and then apply those lessons to succeed in new situations is called learning agility. People who are agile in learning continuously seek new challenges, solicit direct feedback, self-reflect, get jobs done resourcefully and solve problems that they nor anyone else has seen before. This has become an imperative skill for cyber defence working force. 

Constructivism means that new information is learned within social and cultural interaction and understood in relation to prior knowledge, experience or skill. Constructivism is using sociocultural dimension to support learning. Interaction with more capable peers, skilful leaders or cognitive tools do create mental constructs that enables students to recall learned things longer. The support is provided according to students’ maturity and it is gradually withdrawn as subjects become internalized. This is a coach or mentor approach, where instructor is supporting enough to have student over first fears, provides safe environment for student to experiment, fail and learn, and gradually allows student to have more room for independent action.

Contemporary U.S. Field Manual for training guides the Army to educate leaders who accept prudent risks to create opportunities to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.  They should be willing to try and sometimes error. In case of error they should learn from them, own them, fix them and put safeguards in place to ensure the same error will never be repeated again.

This was successfully implemented in German Kriegsakademie in 1930’s, where instructors were experts in their fields, highly perceived, also often veterans of previous war and had to prove their aptitude in instructing. Instructors taught their courses on a primus inter pares basis. This promoted the students to express themselves more freely. There were no optimal solutions for each exercise likewise there is no in war. Solutions of each student were discussed and studied in a group. This internalization armed students with enormous set possible options to be drawn in the future if faced similar challenges. Same time students adapted a behaviour which preferred decisiveness and creativity over long construction of a supposedly optimal solution. This provided an evident competitive edge to German officers over their allied counterparts. 

Military as knowledge creating organization driven by social cognitive learning

Military organizations are trying to mitigate the problem of one man’s constraints in understanding:

“A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.”  

Friedrich Nietzsche.

The competitive edge may be gained from continuous organizational knowledge creation and learning by “start talking and get to work”  as Alan Weber (1993) says. Conversations are the way knowledge workers discover what they know, share it with their colleagues and in the process create new knowledge for the organization.

Knowledge conversion is enforced by social cognitive learning. It means that learner's behaviour changes as a result of observing others' behaviour and its consequences. There are several factors that determine whether observing a model will affect behavioural or cognitive change. These factors include the learner's developmental status, the perceived prestige and competence of the model, the consequences received by the model, the relevance of the model's behaviours and consequences to the learner's goals, and the learner's self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to the learner's belief in his or her ability to perform the modelled behaviour. 

Military mission is not waiting soldiers to learn with curriculum and courses, it needs skills and understanding before patrols are given a mission to accomplish. Unit training during operation becomes, not only possible by advanced C4ISR, but also required as mission complexity increases and pace of change accelerates. CSM Chris Faris (2013) calls for training early to need. He defines the early need as

“An examination across the operational and strategic levels of war and control, not just operationally as applied in joint full spectrum conflict, but also in force generation, training, management and budgeting aspects, and then appropriately applied based upon career progression pertinent to duties and responsibilities”.  

The modern military task force is based on integrated fighting system in which any of the sensors that sees a target can give targeting information to the best weapon platform optimized according to situation. Machines and men are collaborating, sharing information and creating understanding, learning from past experiences and sustaining the asymmetric capability over the opponent.  

The integrated 5th generation fighting system owes its capability mainly to programming and electronics. As military is adapting the continuous knowledge conversion process between people , they also need to include machines  in to the loop of continuous learning. Soldiers and their artificially intelligent systems may learn with same pace as the knowledge between people is converted, information technology enables swift distribution of new knowledge and software defined systems are reconfigured with same pace. Semantic knowledge models that are substituting legacy data models and software defined networks, computing and information security are enabling systems to learn even over night to cope with constant  and accelerated  change in war that both Marshal (1947) and General Cartwright (2008) were requiring. Being able to create organizational knowledge together with organizational and C2 flexibility  are also features for surviving force defined by Finkel (2007).

Figure 3: Road map for military learning from knowledge management approach

This concludes the description of evolutionary path defined by the knowledge conversion process combined with education models and illustrated with military studies of training, flexibility and C2. Next we argue over leaps and short cuts in this map of roads for improved organizational learning.

Leaps, downshifts and revolutionary paths on knowledge creation map of possible roads

Leaps

When following the evolutionary road on the map of knowledge creation and training, there are two distinctive leaps: 1. from what to think to how to think and 2. from team learning to organizational learning. 

U.S. Armed Forces has been trying to achieve to leap towards how to think since they started follow  Prussian/German military officers training after the overwhelmingly successful wars of German unification 1871. As the Vice chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff 2008 was pointing out  the need to teach how to think, U.S. Armed Forces have been struggling to make this leap. Major obstacles on the way are both doctrine and culture of C2. With armies that are mainly applying dominance of numbers and have tendency to attrition operations, there is an inherited need to follow the book in training and operations. They also do not have to adapt in real life operations since their tactics is based in linear usage of fire and movement. Armed Forces that do not have resources to gain overall dominance are more after timely and local advantage, which requires different training for leaders thinking capabilities. This was the case of German officers training  from 1888 onwards when Auftragstaktik was introduced.

Even longer leap is faced from team learning towards organizational learning. First obstacle is the culture of information distribution by need to know basis only. Together with tactical level information management via push method, military will always face the dilemma of operational security and survivability. Single owner of information does not have full understanding of where information in his possession might be utilized. Culture needs to be switched to need to share before anything happens. This happened with General McChrystal in Iraq operation when he changed the way of sharing information  within Special Operations Task force 2003. 

Second obstacle is the autocratic culture of command and control if it is featured by “shut your big mouth and stop thinking above your rank”  attitude. This disables the systems thinking, critical thinking and creative thinking needed to try and error together with badly needed critique. 

Third obstacle is technology. Information technology systems are still build and maintained based on system boundaries . Data is system constrained because of vendor attempts to maintain market with proprietary solutions. National policy is trying to keep technology dominance  by restraining system integration. Different branches in military are trying to sustain their independency and freedom of movement by abiding interoperability standards.

Fourth obstacle is information itself. Either information is unstructured so it is not searchable or understandable but by human. Or it is modelled in proprietary way that data transfer always requires interpretation. These problems may be managed with improving semantic structures that frame all pieces of information with standard metadata, where data objects and their relationships are explained.  This way information is understandable both to humans and machines.

Revolutionary paths and downgrading’s

As described earlier, U.S. Armed Forces have been trying to leap from what to think to how to think for decades, but they have this far downgraded back to behavioural basics because of the gravity of their doctrine culture and C2 attitude.

Despite of U.S. Armed Forces tradition McChrystal achieved to take his special operations forces from behavioural level directly to organizational learning within couple of years.  Similar short duration revolutionary changes have been observed in troops commanded by H.R. McMaster and John Nagl in counterinsurgency operations. 

The Finnish Land Forces have been transforming from cognitive/behavioural culture towards constructive culture when they have renewed their land tactics and fighting. Three soldier patrols in regular army with situational information handy creates an effective platform to continuous social based learning through organization.  This has changed training, sensing and sense making together with decision making.

Most advanced forces are gradually working their way towards knowledge creating and fast learning fighting system of systems capability. This is approached as strategic capability of forces that has to adopt under dominance of their adversary and still gain advantage to defend their countries. In Finland there is a goal for “Men and Machines to learn new things and procedures overnight”.  The pull of legacy culture is strong as one Brigadier was complaining of frequent updates in the battle management system used by his force. New systems should freeze for 25 years if trained for conscripts according to his liking. 

Conclusion

This paper defines a hypothesis that with combining of knowledge creating organization models and classical educational models one can describe a road map for improving the capability of military command and control. Evolutionary road starts with drilling repetitions by the book enhanced with behavioural targets. Next stage is creating mind models with more cognitive approach of how to think. Third stage is knowledge creation within teams enhanced by constructional education approach. Final stage is achieving flexibility by learning as a fighting system of systems. Most military forces have been advancing and sometimes retracting in their achievement to be more effective, flexible and more ready for next war. 

As in surrounding society military have been affected by improved information technology but also struggled to cope with the pace of change in modern area of operation. This paper proofs that military can remarkably improve their command and control processes with knowledge creation capability even to the level of strategic advantage.

This map of possible roads towards improved knowledge management presents a method for C2 strategy. One may define his current situation by acknowledging the typical features of each stage in training and knowledge creation. There is possibility to set goal stage for improved command and control. As there is a gap between current and future capability, it is possible to define possible roads that organization may proceed along.

This method is not suitable for linear strategic approach. Improvements in organizational knowledge management are not achieved by simple design of a project and then utilizing basic project management methods to proceed towards seemingly clear goals. Many military organizations have either failed to achieve results or rebounded back to starting point. 

This paper provides a frame structure to draft a very complex system of individual, social, cultural and technical interrelationships. They are always dependent on history, surrounding society, current spirit and challenges faced. Strategy should have several parallel lines of operation and more probing-sensing method for transformation. Otherwise complexity should not keep us improving the knowledge creation and C2 since:

"The great end of knowledge is not knowledge but action."

Thomas Henry Huxley