Delivering innovation at the MOD

James Gavin is the Senior Civil Servant in charge of the Future Capability Group within Defence Equipment & Support, part of the UK Ministry of Defence. He shares his experience and lessons from delivering portfolios and programmes focused on innovative outcomes.

The role of the Future Capability Group (FCG) – part of the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MOD’s) capability procurement arm, Defence Equipment & Support – is to explore and deliver better and more innovative solutions for operational advantage. FCG’s mission statement is to “iteratively explore and develop new technology and novel ways of working into exploitable capability for operational advantage”. Capability that can help front‑line commands (FLCs) be prepared to fight and win has never been more important than it is today, and this needs to be done quickly to remain relevant.

In early 2021, FCG developed a better strategy to deliver its FLC customer needs. Using Richard Rumelt’s ‘Strategy Kernel’, as published in Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, the team identified the most important blockers, opportunities, policies and strategic actions. The team were only allowed a few things in each category. While it is tempting to write a long document that is never consulted again, it was a key lesson learned that having a few policies and actions to focus on is far more effective to energise teams and customers.

Best practice

In creating the strategy, FCG conducted an MoP (Management of Portfolios) health check, based on the useful but often overlooked MoP book Annex A: Portfolio management health check assessment. This review helped inform the four areas of the ‘Strategy Kernel’ and helped focus the team upwards on MoP and MSP (Management of Successful Programmes) benefits and outcomes best practices, rather than getting bogged down in over‑detailed project‑level thinking.

Key blockers and threats that were identified included the time‑consuming nature of some MOD processes, a lack of exploitation of low TRL (technology readiness level) science and technology, and increasing competition on the global stage. It was felt that addressing these challenges mapped well onto the opportunities category, keeping the strategy even simpler.

New ways of working

The use of agile values and principles, and governance derived from MoP/MSP, formed the core FCG ways of working. Customers are now tasking FCG to work with them to deliver better benefits and outcomes, whereas in the past customers were tasking on technology‑focused projects. Projects can now ‘fail fast’ with funding and resources, then focus rapidly elsewhere, or projects can be tasked to develop better capability more iteratively.

In the old model, over‑detailed project requirements did not allow iterative development or the refocusing of resources onto new areas that will deliver more value. It was hard for customers to turn off legacy projects and to refocus tasking quickly onto new areas.

It has proven a perfect match for FCG to work with its customers to blend MoP and MSP governance based on enabling and assuring benefits and outcomes, with agile values and principles. The bottom line is that in FCG’s innovation scope area, project and programme outcomes work better and deliver better results if they:

focus on customer benefit and outcomes;
use ‘agile by default’ governance and ways of working; and
have a collaborative narrative and mindset.

Creating a collaborative narrative across MOD innovation stovepipes (i.e. where information flows up/down through lines of control) is also seen as a key opportunity, particularly FCG working with FLC innovation teams, where each can play their roles to best effect. Modern innovation is all about networking and collaboration – sharing ideas and best practice, and teams playing their best part in overall outcomes. Innovation for FCG means “getting novel ideas and capabilities into practice”, not ‘innovation tourism’, which has gripped the western defence innovation ecosystem.

One piece of advice is to focus project, programme and portfolio assurance on the core benefits. Will the work deliver the highest ‘bang for the buck’? If not, refocus onto other things at pace: operational advantage, efficiencies and meeting government policy.

Speed to value

As a result, FCG is a more efficient and effective team, with a clearer identity and stronger mission message. It is delivering more project and programme outcomes with fewer resources per project, at a faster pace. FCG has stronger relationships with key customers, who are jointly embracing the adoption of agile governance and a focus on benefits and outcomes. FCG’s engagement with the wider defence ecosystem is more collaborative, and a positive communication campaign means FCG acquisition competitions are more widely known to supply chain bidders. Overall, by blending past best practice with new, FCG is better able to deliver ‘speed to value’.

3 top tips for innovation portfolios and programmes

Use best practice models such as MSP (Management of Successful Programmes) and MOP (Management of Portfolios). Focus on the customer’s benefits and outcomes, and work with them to build agile‑based portfolio and programme governance mechanisms.
Establish the right foundational culture. Create and nurture a team and stakeholder culture based on agile values and principles.
Running the team should be just ‘table stakes’. More effective leadership requires a strategy that looks outwards to create a collaborative narrative with the wider innovation ecosystem, as modern, effective outcomes depend on collaboration and working with others.