The Politics and DV Engineering working group analyses current political developments in the defence sector. It provides independent facts and interpretation from the technological knowledge and experience of engineers.
The working group has the following questions and comments on the Defence IT Renewal Progress Report. These have been prepared based on publicly available documents and defence technology knowledge and experience. The recommendations concern technological or related aspects only.
General
Why is IT becoming increasingly centralised at Defence?
The present document gives the strong impression that GrIT is becoming a large and centralised system after all. This does not fit with an adaptive armed forces and is also a counter movement to what we see in other organisations. There, central IT departments provide generic services and manage preconditions such as interoperability and security. Applications are developed or purchased and implemented as much as possible in decentralised parts of the organisation close to operational implementation in short-cycle processes (agile IT). This promotes flexibility and user-friendliness.
We refer here, among other things, to the last two sentences under "Abroad" in Parliamentary paper 31 125 no. 57 (Draft new IT infrastructure) and the "Conclusions" in Parliamentary paper 33 326 no. 5 (Parliamentary enquiry into ICT projects in the government).
Operational effectiveness
To what extent will GrIT support the military operational needs of the armed forces? Is it possible to realise modern military concepts with GrIT, namely networked action with federated mission systems in an international context?
There is nothing in the letter about the operational usefulness, necessity and impact on weapon systems other than the fact that IT has become a main Defence weapon system.
Planning procurement (Pag.1), implementation and "In conclusion" (pg. 4)
Current best practices in the design, development and implementation of IT projects follow an iterative and cyclical process. Does Defence use this methodology and does it fit with Defence's system of procurement and implementation? How are the costs controlled?
With the aforementioned best practices in IT projects, rapid technological developments within the IT domain can be included in the design iteratively. This means that it cannot always be determined in advance how the intended result will be achieved. In this respect, feedback from the successive phases is very important. In the description on page 1 and page 4, it is not clear if, and how, changed insights/requirements from a subsequent phase (e.g. the technical dialogue) are incorporated into the products of the previous phase (e.g. the functional dialogue)?
Tricky is that in the best practices process, development costs also change dynamically. After tight tendering, can Defence effectively control these costs?
European cooperation
GrIT appears to be a purely national system and a uniquely national approach. To what extent is this in line with the repeatedly expressed political view that international cooperation is a necessity?
Among other things, this raises the question of whether foreign units that come about in cooperation (such as the replacement projects for mine hunters and frigates) can be connected to GrIT from a logistical point of view. The question also arises whether other foreign units with which there is operational cooperation (e.g. the German/Dutch Army Corps) can operate via this infrastructure.
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The Hague, 13 May 2018
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Disclaimer: The facts and opinions given are based on open sources and on the knowledge and experience of working group members.
As part of the professional association KIVI, the working group is independent of political parties, governments and companies.
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