Wide Area Surveillance Capability Improvement Project (WASCAP)

Client: Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)
Period: Commenced 2009
Collaboration: Strategy& (formerly Booz & Co.)
Focus: Systems analysis, cultural change and change management

IGOR supported the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), in collaboration with Strategy& (formerly Booz & Co.), on the Wide Area Surveillance Capability Improvement Project (WASCAP). Commencing in 2009, WASCAP was one of the first initiatives undertaken by the RAAF to address the demands of the Defence Strategic Review and the emerging requirements of the Strategic Reform Program (SRP).

The project formed part of a broader RAAF program to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its capability in response to significant budget pressures. Wide Area Surveillance was selected as an early focus because it represented an area in which the effects of the budget environment were expected to be significant, while also providing an opportunity for the RAAF to demonstrate early, measurable improvements and establish momentum for wider reform.

IGOR led the cultural change and change management component of the project, working as part of a multidisciplinary team alongside Strategy&. IGOR assembled a team including specialist change practitioners and Lean practitioners, while Strategy& focused principally on data, performance metrics and quantitative modelling. IGOR also worked closely with RAAF personnel responsible for communications and change management, providing advice and helping to develop the plan for implementing and sustaining the changes.

A central challenge was that the RAAF’s initial approach placed considerable emphasis on changing the culture directly. IGOR instead applied a systems perspective to understand the behaviours through which the existing culture was being reproduced. The focus shifted from attempting to change an abstract concept of “culture” to identifying the observable behaviours, practices and reinforcing conditions that were preventing the desired changes from taking hold.

This provided a more practical basis for intervention. Rather than asking people simply to behave differently or accept that the culture needed to change, the project identified behaviours that could be changed directly and that, when reinforced across the system, could progressively shift the culture itself. This approach recognised that organisational culture is not independent of the system in which people work: it is continually produced and reinforced through what people do, what the organisation rewards, tolerates and expects, and how work is structured.

The WASCAP work therefore combined quantitative performance improvement with a systems-based approach to human and organisational change. It provided the RAAF with an approach that could be applied beyond the immediate Wide Area Surveillance initiative as it progressed its broader capability improvement and reform agenda.

IGOR’s contribution was to connect capability improvement with the human system required to deliver it — translating cultural change from an abstract aspiration into a practical program of behavioural and organisational change capable of supporting sustained improvement.