Defence has made it simpler for its 125,000 employees to engage with ICT, documenting who to talk to, the process and the status of the interaction, as part of sweeping changes started last year.
Speaking to the iTnews Podcast, chief information officer Chris Crozier has provided the first in-depth explanation of the transformation of Defence’s former technology function, the ‘CIO Group’.
The structure of the new technology organisation, known as Defence Digital Group (DDG), had been known at a high level, but not the context behind the changes, including its reorganisation around six divisions.
The six divisions are digital capability management, strategy and architecture, military systems, enterprise systems, enterprise resource planning and group operations.
One of the key changes – recommended by last year’s Defence Strategic Review (DSR) – is that operations, including IT support, was split out of the former CIO Group and transferred to the Joint Capabilities Group, which is on the military side of the organisation.
DDG was then set up to handle the design and build of IT systems up to the point of handover for day-to-day military use.
“This is the 24×7 break-fix type of work. You want that in military hands because it’s the military that needs to be operating these systems. So, before I arrived, that team was transferred into the Joint Capabilities Group.
“What we’ve done since is make sure there is absolute clarity around their accountabilities versus ours.
“Defence Digital Group, which went live on November 1 [2023], is accountable for the design, build and enhancement of all of the ICT systems from core to edge. We then hand those systems across to the Joint Capability Group, which they then operate on a break-fix basis.
“If something’s then required to change, it comes back to my team, we effect the change and hand it back.”
A second major change under DDG is the establishment of the digital capabilities management division as essentially DDG’s “front door”.
Crozier said this was important because there had been internal confusion about how to engage ICT under the previous CIO Group structure.
“When we stood up the digital capability management division, we made it very clear that that is the ‘front door’, so all demand for our organisation needs to come through that division.”
DDG “actively highlighted” that the door was open to anyone wanting to engage technology resources and has added structure around “specific names” of personnel to talk to, supported by a “golden thread” construct that details who is involved in an engagement, and – soon – its active status.
“In the past when you tried to connect [to ICT], it was not an easy organisation to navigate,” Crozier said.
“Now, people know exactly who to go talk to. We’ve made it very clear.
“We’ve also implemented what we call the ‘golden thread’, so not only do you know how to get into DDG through the front door, but we also now have the ‘golden thread’ to walk you through the process to actually get you to a point where we can ultimately implement [what you want], whether it’s a change, enhancement or a major project.
“We’ve embedded that within ServiceNow. We’re in the process of rolling out and embedding that to make sure people have got clarity through the process.”
In addition to opening the door, Crozier has led the establishment of an incubation capability within the strategy and architecture division to take an idea and test it out.
“When people have a good idea and there’s technology available, we can rapidly test it, and if it becomes part of the requirement going forward, we can then progress it,” Crozier said.
“We’ve seen some really substantive shifts quickly by doing this.
“That’s building confidence and momentum internally within the [broader Defence] organisation.
“It’s also removing shadow IT because people are now going the right way to deliver at scale and at speed.”
Workforce rebalance
DDG’s work is supported by Australian Public Service (APS) staff and contractors in a 60:40 ratio, down from 80:20.
The transition away from a contractor-dominated workforce has resulted in faster decision-making as well as improved accountability and output.
Crozier noted that best-in-class contractors were still needed, but that these resources are now more “prescriptively managed”.
In addition, the rebalancing of the workforce, combined with investment in cloud and application ecosystems, is creating opportunities to attract new staff, and for existing APS staff to upskill.
“I need best-in-class people to help support [our activity] moving forward, and I need 60 percent of them to be Commonwealth employees,” Crozier said.
“The great thing that we’re seeing is that because we’re now pivoting to adopt best-in-class platforms, we’re seeing people want to come and work in Defence in this environment.
“In the past, some of our technologies haven’t necessarily been ones that people want to put on their CVs. Moving forward, we’re using technologies that are exactly the ones people want on their CV.
“We are now in the process of attracting talent and uplifting the capabilities of the talent that we have.
“We are investing heavily in training and education so that they’ve got the capabilities to be able to work with the new technologies.”
Defence Digital Strategy and Roadmap
DDG launched a three-year Defence Digital Strategy and Roadmap at the end of August – a three-year plan with nine simultaneous streams of work aimed at significantly upgrading the technology and platforms underpinning Defence’s operational capability.
The existence of the roadmap, which will be updated yearly, is something that Crozier has previously used in organisations including BHP and Orica.
“We need a strategy to provide the ‘why’ of what it is you want to be doing – but the roadmap then works on the what, the when, and the how, and I think that’s a clear differentiator,” he said.
“This is something that I’ve utilised very effectively in private industry in my prior employment, where it’s had a material impact.”
“It’s about identifying the key outcomes that you’re acquiring.”
Crozier added the benefits of the roadmap were not only limited to Defence but were also felt “across the ecosystem of companies that support us”, from multinational operators to sovereign players and small-to-medium enterprises that Defence increasingly is wanting to engage.
“What’s important is the alignment that this drives for delivery of both the strategy as well as the outcomes through the roadmap,” he said.
Attracting sovereign small-to-medium enterprises
Partners – and increasingly sovereign small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) – have a role to play in supplying skills and resourcing to the execution of the strategy and roadmap.
“We want to encourage the growth of an active and flourishing SME ecosystem,” Crozier said.
“To be able to do that, we need to move away from large monolithic programs of work where we’re looking for a singular systems integrator to engage with and have them subcontract out. That’s the typical mechanism that’s been used in the past in the CIO Group days.
“What we’re doing 1730066862 is moving to unbundle those programs of work to be able to actually provide smaller contractual elements, where Defence is effectively acting as a systems integrator, so we can engage more readily and more directly with the SMEs to be able to have that direct relationship.
“I’m very passionate about building out our SME cohort and about being able to provide the funding to support that on an ongoing basis.”