How do we win in a VUCA world? In case you are not familiar with VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. I wrote about this is 2020 find it here on LinkedIn We Live In A VUCA World.
This is about building a completely new way of handling that VUCA future with a software backbone that enables soldiers to thrive in that VUCA world. Where bringing soldiers – sensors and equipment in near real time with constant updates to assist in out maneuvering the enemy. How do we get the user to want to use the capability fast when it often needs to get worked in real time?
The soldier builds the software in real time, where they can code on the edge...
Hannah Hunt is the Chief Product Officer for the US Army Software factory. She is a member of the Forbes Under 30 class of 2021 and she is leading a process for the US Army to make the future soldier as a coder on the battlefield. This idea and how it is incubating in the army’s software factory maybe the greatest possible force multiplier for the next ten years or more.
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There are three key thoughts and idea from Hannah that illustrate both the Challenges and the new methods for developing a truly agile environment that delivers against an increasingly VUCA world.
· The key idea is how to bring software led capabilities (equipment, sensors, data) straight into the hand of the soldier in real time so that they can orchestrate the support, the impact necessary where and when it matters to them. This is not a dramatic shift in idea, but it is a dramatic re focus on software being the strategic weapon to make this happen. The value here is bringing all that power into the field. In a new world of threats that can erupt near instantly this capacity in the field and in the moment will be key.
· For the idea of Joint Command to be real by 2030 the shift to a software centric intersect between command and the front lines will be critical. Moving that software centric view so that data, decisions and agility can occur in the front is a vital part of this evolution. This is about intelligence and coding at the very edge.
· While the software factory is currently thirty slots, all the soldier coders come from inside the army. There was no need to recruit for the talent externally and each slot in the program was applied for by ten soldiers. The role is a three-year commitment with a very heavy focus on training and then problem solving. The moves software development from the waterfall-based model of traditional development to a truly modern agile method.
An armed soldier polices cyber space.
The idea of a software led future may seem normal for all of us, but to effectively deliver that idea in the defense field needs a radical shift in how those in conflict situations are going to have to use software in real time to learn and adjust their disposition. The history of technology leaps has often been initiated by radical shifts in how defense forces have used technologies. This is the next chapter in that story. This idea of a software led future is changing the way decisions are going to be made outside the operations center and straight into the edge. This id more than changing the way the Army does business. This sets the Army up for a new software centric, edge world of 2030 and beyond as we interact with the world. A far cry from the tea dump of Boston that created one revolution so many generations ago. Happy 4th of July, 2022.
