Vanguard Magazine

32 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2021 www.vanguardcanada.com OF INTELLIGENT DEFENCE INTELLIGENT DEFENCE A ccording to the 2021-22 National Defence Depart- mental Plan: "Military and civilian personnel are our most important resource. A well-organized, well-trained, healthy, and motivated workforce enables us to deliver on SSE initiatives and ensures that we are an employer of choice within Canadian society." People join defence organizations for a variety of reasons. What is common is that they do so in part for the challenges and the opportunities. However, many of these challenges are not the ones that the members of the Defence Team expect to still exist in today's world. Challenges with ill-fitting kit, technol- ogy not on par with those in equivalent jobs in the private sector, inadequate fam- ily programs, as well as those related with abhorrent and systemic deficit in human behaviours. The result is an erosion of op- erational effectiveness and resilience, low morale, attrition, and a lack of confidence in the Department's leaders. Many programs have been announced to address these challenges. What is impor- tant is that leaders, and the staff support- ing them, are well equipped to proactively listen and adequately act within their span of control. The way to do it is called Experience Management or XM. XM is the act of de- veloping a holistic understanding of hu- man experience through insights driven by operational data (O-data, telling you what is happening) and experience data (X-data, telling you why it is happening). O-data O-data is the data created and updated during operations. Aside from being used to log what is happening, and to provide auditable trails, it is also typically used to compute unit readiness. It is specific to staffing, training, medical/dental, capaci- ties, and capabilities, but also to equip- ping, sustaining, and de-commissioning of weapon systems, and when aggregated, it represents overall unit readiness. Is a unit fully, partially, or non- operationally effec- tive and resilient? X-data X-data is the sentiment gathered by feed- back or surveys from the members of the Defence Team, and very importantly, their families. X-data (or human data) of- fers tremendous opportunities related to people centricity and can address issues with motivation, retention, inclusivity, and trust. It can serve as an early warning system and combined with O-data it can provide a more complete picture and lead to better decision making. XM On their path to becoming intelligent de- fence forces, military forces are beginning to take advantage of XM. For example, the US Air Force keeps a pulse on activi- ties and services on their bases and has also conducted research into racial dispari- ties. And Canada has begun this journey as well. For example, several bases have started to collect feedback after individu- als interact with specific base services such as the clothing store, the Base Orderly Room, and the mess. Others have polled their workforce during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple other sur- veys have also been taken. But more needs to be done. Better, and secure tools, need to be provided to leaders, and the staff supporting them, to combine human experience data with op- erational data in a consistent and coherent manner across the entire department. To learn how to close the gap in experience management for defence organizations go to https://www.sap.com/industries/defense- security.html?pdf-asset=daf37bc5-ae7d- 0010-87a3-c30de2ffd8ff&page=1 David has 41 years leading and contribut- ing to long-term success and satisfaction of both internal and external customers, more than 20 of those years in SAP-re- lated initiatives as part of geographically dispersed teams. Prior to joining SAP in 2000, David served 20 years as a Royal Canadian Electrical & Mechanical Engineer- ing Officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. He held various positions in garrison, field, and staff positions throughout his career. In his last assignment in the military, Da- vid was the Deputy Project Manager for the Material Acquisition & Support Information System project to provide the engineering and maintenance community of the De- partment of National Defence with an inte- grated information system utilizing SAP. He has a comprehensive understanding of the value of SAP solutions to organizations. He is a pragmatic and results-oriented leader, who can effectively translate market needs and SAP strategic direction into affordable, timely, and dynamic operational solutions to clients' transformational projects and initiatives. The X's and O's BY DAVID LINCOURT

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