Vanguard Magazine

background, but also the way you think. And in this respect, I think that it's very important that we get out of our silos of who we're used to working with and in- clude non-traditional partners. So, I might say parliamentarians and elected repre- sentatives are important partners that we maybe don't always let into the tent until it's a bit late. PAT THAUBERGER: In terms of ISR, as we're talking about this, there is a requirement for all stakeholders to have equal parts to play on that team. You want to establish specific outcomes that you're trying to achieve as a team. And then, through iterative improve- ments, you figure out how to coalesce as a team....There are certain acquisition-type projects or programs where people would see industry as not being part of the team at all....I think when we're talking about interoperability and integration from a C4ISR construct, industry needs to be an integral member of that team. And we can explore throughout the discussion about how industry can help the various stake- holders and practitioners to execute that mission and to win that game. COL STROHMEYER: I think for us, having the one team with industry has been vital in what we are doing, that it's not a more traditional ap- proach where you kind of throw an op- erational requirement over the acquisi- tion wall to an industry partner and then hope that they figure it out. But it's really a day-to-day iteration with them, especial- ly when it comes to software and digital workflows. They have to be connected to the warfighter, and they have to be kind of iterative in the approach they take. So, we consider them one team once they're on contract and moving forward, and I think that's been very helpful. The second thing is, how do you ori- ent the team? What is the purpose of the team? And for us, when we've looked at trying to digitize the US Department of Defense, we have found that it's very ef- fective to take a mission-focused approach. And you might say, doesn't everybody do that? Well, we found that actually no, sometimes we take a process-focused ap- proach. For us, it's what is the war-fighting mission that needs to be accomplished? And then, how can digitizing that not only potentially accomplish that mission better and faster, but how could it help us to rethink our paradigms of how we even do that mission by having a war-fighting focused approach? www.vanguardcanada.com DECEMBER 2024/JANUARY 2025 17 I N T E R V I E W ESTABLISHING, AND EXPANDING BEACHHEAD Wendy Hadwen Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy-Industry, Department of National Defence Pat Thauberger Director, Business Development, General Dynamics Mission Systems - Canada

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