DSTO Renewal — Culture, Change & Implementation

Client: Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), Australian Government
Period: 2006
Focus: Systems analysis, organisational culture, change management and implementation

IGOR was engaged to support the DSTO Renewal Implementation Team (DRIT) during a major opportunity to reshape and renew Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO). IGOR contributed to the design and implementation of the renewal program, with particular responsibility for change management, cultural analysis and the development of approaches to implementing organisational change.

The work involved a comprehensive examination of DSTO’s organisational culture and the implications of the proposed renewal. IGOR conducted workshops, analysed organisational and cultural characteristics, prepared reports and recommendations, and worked with the DRIT to translate the findings into practical approaches for implementing change across the organisation.

A central feature of the work was recognising that DSTO was not a conventional organisation. As a large scientific research organisation, its purpose, workforce and operating environment created distinctive characteristics that needed to be understood if organisational change was to be effective. DSTO’s work was fundamentally concerned with the creation of new knowledge and technologies for future Defence capability, requiring a strategic horizon substantially longer than that of most organisations.

The organisation therefore operated across very different timeframes from conventional operational and corporate environments. Its work could involve research whose value would emerge decades into the future, requiring people to make decisions today in relation to capabilities and technologies that might not be operationally relevant for many years. This long-term orientation shaped how people understood purpose, performance, planning, expertise and organisational success.

The workforce also brought distinctive characteristics. Scientific research organisations attract and retain people with particular professional and cognitive orientations, while scientific disciplines create strong communities of expertise and knowledge. These characteristics can be highly productive for scientific achievement, but can also create organisational challenges when an organisation needs people to work across disciplinary boundaries, share knowledge and form multidisciplinary teams.

IGOR therefore approached the renewal as a systems problem, examining the interaction between the organisation’s purpose, workforce, professional identities, knowledge structures, leadership, organisational arrangements and desired future state. Rather than treating culture as an independent variable that could simply be changed through communications or values statements, the work examined how the culture was produced and reinforced by the wider system.

This required developing approaches specifically suited to the characteristics of a scientific research organisation. IGOR adapted its organisational and occupational psychology expertise to account for the distinctive relationship between people, knowledge, disciplines and the very long-term mission of a research organisation. This included developing tools and techniques to help understand and manage the cultural and behavioural implications of change in an environment where professional expertise and disciplinary identity were central to organisational performance.

The work provided DSTO with a stronger basis for implementing renewal without inadvertently undermining the characteristics that enabled it to perform its scientific mission. It recognised that successful transformation required both changing the organisation and understanding what must be preserved: the professional expertise, knowledge creation, persistence and long-term orientation that constituted important sources of DSTO’s value.

IGOR’s contribution combined cultural analysis, organisational psychology and systems thinking to help the DRIT understand how the proposed renewal would interact with the distinctive human and organisational system of a major scientific research organisation.

The project demonstrated IGOR’s ability to design change for complex knowledge organisations — understanding how purpose, people, professional disciplines, organisational structures and long-term knowledge creation interact to shape culture and performance.