Rapid Task 42 — Joint Capability Governance

Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation (RPDE), University of South Australia / Defence Systems Innovation Centre, 2012

IGOR was engaged through the Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation (RPDE) organisation to address the governance of a key joint Australian Defence capability. The capability had historically operated within a single-Service structure and required a new governance model to enable access and contribution across Defence Services.

The objective was to identify the roles, authorities and responsibilities required for effective governance of the capability, and to establish how the capability could operate effectively within a more integrated joint environment.

The work involved reviewing the existing capability and its operating arrangements, including visits to capability sites across Australia. IGOR identified the organisational challenges and opportunities associated with moving from a predominantly single-Service structure towards a model that could support broader access, shared resources and greater interoperability.

A central issue was the structure of communication and decision making. Existing arrangements created organisational boundaries around capabilities, resources and information. A more effective joint model required clarity about who was responsible for what, who had authority to make decisions, how information should move between groups, and how resources could be shared across existing organisational boundaries.

IGOR designed and conducted the organisational review, using questionnaires, focus groups and interviews to gather information from the people involved in the capability. IGOR also designed the interview approach and prepared the project team to conduct the fieldwork consistently across multiple locations.

The findings were brought together into a governance model defining the roles, reporting relationships, authorities, responsibilities and communication requirements needed to support the capability as a joint Defence resource.

IGOR then developed a change-management plan to support the transition to the proposed governance structure, identifying the organisational changes required to establish the new arrangements and enable the capability to operate more effectively across Service boundaries.

The work required IGOR to work across Defence, industry and academic contributors while maintaining a clear focus on the governance problem. The technical capability itself was not the subject of the work; the challenge was designing the organisational system around it so that people, resources, authority and information could operate across established organisational boundaries.

What this demonstrates

IGOR can design governance for complex capabilities operating across organisational boundaries, identifying the roles, authorities, relationships and information flows required to turn fragmented or single-Service arrangements into more integrated systems.

The work demonstrates IGOR’s ability to diagnose organisational structures, engage people across a distributed system, translate evidence into practical governance arrangements, and develop the change strategy required to move from an existing structure towards a more effective operating model.

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