Photo By David Overson | Lithuanian Army Lt. Col. Viktoras Bagdonas, chief of staff for the Lithuanian Army...... read more read more
VILNIUS, Lithuania- The 2012 Concept Development and Experimentation (CD&E) Conference concluded today in Vilnius, Lithuania, resulting in participants leaving with a better understanding of CD&E methodologies gleaned from a host of creative and intellectual exchanges of information. The focus was encapsulated in the conference’s theme of “Optimizing Joint and Combined Forces for 2020 and Beyond.“
Nearly 200 military and civilian personnel from around 30 nations came together over the past three days to discuss and help develop possible solutions to the challenges facing nations across the globe. The CD&E Conference is truly an international partnership event that all benefit from.
Major General Peter Bayer, Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Policy at Headquarters, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT), reiterated the importance of this international collaboration by saying, “threats to our nations are global. Having the many nations here helps up expand our view and integrate effectively in a global perspective.”
The conference was hosted by the Energy Security Center on behalf of the Lithuanian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and National Defence. The event was co-sponsored by the Capability Engineering Division from HQ SACT and the Directorate for Joint Force Development from United States Joint Chiefs of Staff (USJCS).
The conference’s objective was to create an environment conducive to information sharing and relationship building, and highlight the benefits of CD&E methodologies and practical applications to optimise the development of joint and combined capabilities. Lithuanian Brigadier General Vilmantas Tamošaitis, Chief of Joint Headquarters of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, added “over the years, the CD&E Conference has proven itself as a useful platform for generating ideas that could further evolve into new concepts for addressing capability shortfalls.”
The conference directly supports NATO’s Smart Defense effort to develop capabilities through the use of collaborative efficiencies. It also supports the Connected Forces Initiative which focuses on improving interoperability and understanding amongst participating nations. The conference allowed all participants to be a part of discussions that helped broaden their understanding of how other nations are operating.
A New Approach
The conference was a chance to utilise creative techniques to generate insight that can possibly lead to future actionable solution sets. For the first time, affinity diagramming and electronic polling were implemented to provide a means of extracting thoughts and ideas on the workshop subjects.
Affinity diagramming utilises small group dynamics to generate individual ideas that are written on sticky notes. Participants write their thoughts on the sticky notes which are then grouped into larger subject areas to help organise the effort. The affinity diagrams achieved the objective of increasing participation and helped drive the workshops toward their desired objectives and outputs. Electronic polling was used to help provide additional focus using a prioritised list of capabilities relevant to the topics being addressed. They also helped to assess the ability of the workshops to enhance the audience’s understanding of the subject.
At the end of the workshops, 82 percent of the participants indicated that they had an improved level of knowledge on their workshop’s subject.
The Main Effort - Workshops
The conference provided the venue to foster perspectives on ideas, relevant problems, challenges and potential solutions on a range of topics including energy efficiency, maritime security operations and combined operational access. The participation was dynamic and produced extensive, relevant and valuable insights. The workshops involved a combination of presentations and group participation exercises.
The first workshop, Combined Operational Access, focused on topics related to furthering interoperability between nations. Their focus was to find ways to enable forces and other capabilities to swiftly combine in an orderly, efficient and integrated manner to execute real-world operations.
The second workshop was Implementation Concept for Maritime Security Operations. Their focus was to develop ideas on how to implement the tasks associated with the Maritime Security Operations (MSO) concept. The workgroup results could ultimately help provide advice for the NATO Military Committee.
The third workshop was Military Energy Efficiency. This workshop focused on determining ways to assist the Joint Force in better understanding the technical aspects of power generation and distribution, and to help provide possible solutions to Joint Commanders for improving energy efficiency in military operations.
Concluding Notes
Overall, the conference was successful at bringing together a diverse group of CD&E stakeholders. In his closing remarks, Brigadier General Giovanni Fungo, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Capability Engineering from HQ SACT recognised the significant contributions of the participants and said that “we, all together, delivered actions and not just words.”
Mr Don Morse, Chief of the Multinational and Allied Command Transformation Integration Division, Joint and Coalition Warfighting, U.S. Joint Staff (DD J7 JCW), who spoke on behalf of Brigadier General Brian Beaudreault, Assistant Deputy Director for Joint Development, DD J7 JCW, added that, by cooperating and working together, this conference can enhance the effort to help make a safer and more peaceful future for those nations involved.
The general consensus amongst participants was that this was the most active conference with the greatest output that most had attended.
| Date Taken: | 11.08.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 11.09.2012 10:34 |
| Story ID: | 97551 |
| Location: | VILNIUS, LT |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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