Analysis and the Innovation Imperative

The defense community is recently (and not-so-recently) awash in calls for innovation to ensure that we are militarily postured to meet future challenges and possess the agility necessary to turn toward those challenges we did not anticipate.

For example, we have the Pentagon's Third Offset Strategy and Air University's call for "Airmen to offer innovative solutions to address problems facing the Air Force in a time of increasingly daunting global and fiscal challenges." We also see what B. J. Armstrong describes as a small movement

... growing across the defense community which realizes that the challenges of the new century are going to require innovative and creative solutions. Parts of this movement, inspired from the junior ranks of our services, look to embrace the ideals of innovation and entrepreneurship from the business world. These dedicated women and men recognize that the budget, manpower, and resource challenges in a post-war drawdown mean that new ways of doing things will be required.

The Red Queen and Alice

The ways in which this small (but growing) movement manifests are legion, including formal organizations such as the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum and  CIMSEC, online venues for the exchange of ideas (The Strategy Bridge, War Council, The Constant Strategist, etc.), and the growth of peer-mentoring communities of practice (whether on the model of Scharnhorst's Militarische Gesellschaft or something less formal). I am a huge fan of these efforts, and I think the powers-that-be should support them in any way they can. They will, I believe, be a critical part of creating innovation going forward.

Why should the powers-that-be support such an effort, though, especially in the face of limited resources? In times of plenty, we have the resources but lack the imperatives for innovation. In times of need, we lack the resources but the necessity is much more clear. This is the conundrum.

That innovation (or at least the ability to innovate) is necessary in the abstract seems self-evident (and if not self-evident then compelling arguments can be made for its necessity). The world changes around us. There are adversaries, potential adversaries, allies, and potential allies all about us who all seek to increase their own relative advantage, and every change they make (whether they intend it or we like it) affects the calculus of our own continuing advantage. We are all trapped in a Red Queen Race, and survival depends upon our capacity to find new solutions to new problems, more efficient solutions to old problems, and the creation of new problems for our competitors.

But innovation for the sake of innovation is a mistake. The folks at the Havok Journal make a fine argument that not all "outside the container" thinking is worthwhile. Paraphrasing egregiously, they claim that the container was built by someone for some reason, sometimes the container is just fine, and those looking to operate outside its confines often "don’t really understand the fundamentals of [their] profession and don’t want to take the time to learn." (The full article is well worth reading, and I highly recommend it. My self-serving paraphrasing does not do it justice.)

Art, Science, and Engineering

There is a real and important tension here, described in the fields of expert systems and evolution as a trade-off between exploration and exploitation. If a particular strategy works, it makes sense to exploit that strategy. But we should also explore the strategic environment for approaches that work better and for changes in that environment that might compromise the approaches we've exploited so successfully. A nice metaphor for this tension has been described elsewhere in this space as the interaction between art, science, and engineering. (I won't lie. The parallel with Clausewitz's wonderful trinity and the chaotic dynamics of the three-body problem add an undeniable attraction to the model.)  The balance between these is the difference between evolutionary success and failure.

So, why post this thought in a forum all about analysis? I thought you'd never ask.

We (analysts, mathematicians, statisticians, modelers, computer scientists, etc.) are a part of this environment, too. Our worldviews and tools must be no less adaptable than those of the doctrine writers, planners, and strategists of the world. More important (and a little frightening) is the possibility of reified and static analytic ideas becoming framing concepts for the rest of the strategic world.

Optimality is a favorite and appropriate example. For what do we optimize force structure? A world and a worldview. What is the consequence if either situation fails to meet our assumptions? Something less than optimal. How do we minimize the probability that failures of optimality (or analysis in general) are catastrophic? Welcome to the problem of framing analysis in a way that supports the decision needs of leadership in a way that meets the needs of today, tomorrow, and the future. And welcome to the need for innovation in our own community.

So, what does this all mean? How are art, science, engineering, innovation, expertise, exploration, and exploitation to be managed? Not surprisingly, I have some thoughts on the matter:

1. Expertise matters. The problems we face as military analysts are trivial in neither their costs not their consequences. If military operations research is to synthesize inputs and techniques from diverse disciplines (math, statistics, economics, computer science, etc.) expertise in those disciplines is important. Destruction and creation can produce positive results by accident, but will produce innovation far more reliably if the agents involved really understand the underlying philosophical and technical principles.
2. Diversity is more than important. Without diversity of experience and expertise, it is difficult to find and exploit the skis, handlebars, outboard motors, and tank treads in our experience to create effective snowmobiles. This is an interesting concept for military operations research. Ours is an academic discipline that is inherently interdisciplinary, but an interdisciplinary field will always struggle with sufficient isolated expertise to facilitate effective interdisciplinary exploration.
3. Tolerance for individual failure is critical. Evolution and innovation are bottom-up processes, and there must be room for both exploration and exploitation. In an ecosystem, failure is fatal, but that is a system relying on chance to create the necessary genetic and phenotypic variations that facilitate adaptation to changing environments at a population level. The loss of individuals is not important, since the adaptation is neither social nor volitional. On the other hand, analytic innovation is a volitional act by rational social agents, and intellectual variation leading to dead ends cannot lead to deadly individual ends (unless the objective is abject conformity). This is the primary purpose of a community/institution in the context of organizational innovation. It exists to exploit the known, incentivize exploration, and protect the explorers from censure. We need to be free to disagree, argue, and explore.

For our community these observations result in some imperatives for action. Simply put, a structure that prizes expertise and diversity in that expertise (not expertise in that diversity) while facilitating exploration of new ideas and analytic approaches is what we should seek. 

Commission for Military
Reorganization at Konigsberg, 1807

This blog notwithstanding, I'm left wondering why there aren't analytic equivalents of CIMSEC, The Strategy Bridge, War Council, The Constant Strategist, the Militarische Gesellschaft, etc. I'm left wondering why so many of our analysts attend the same school (singular) to receive the same graduate education. I'm left wondering if we will find a way to be relevant in the face of a future that looks decidedly unlike the world in which our "discipline" emerged.

Art

A Child's Artwork

Some children are happiest when they have a marker in their hand and a large blank sheet of paper on which to explore whatever is in their imagination. Why would we as analysts wish to abandon the creativity of our children? We should have the ability to finger paint, if we so desire. We should have the ability to use play dough to sculpt a fictional creature, or have the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to paint our masterpiece. In addition to neglecting the science, the artistic side of analysis is often forgotten.

We have heard in our office many times that analysis is part science and part art. The science part is most often mistaken for the engineering. But the art side is also not what they are thinking and is a catchall phrase used to explain soft things that are not well understood. Art as it is commonly expressed is more like black art. Something mystical that can’t be defined that emerges as a result of a “not quite” understanding of the black boxes containing algorithms or procedures to which a problem was committed in order to obtain a calculated solution. Presto a result appears.

We are not talking about this black art, mysticism, or even the fog of war as expressed in analysis. We are talking about true artistic freedom of expression to explore a blank sheet of paper. But unlike science that is methodically seeking answers, the artist is trying to generate questions. And of course, these essays do not take the place of “Finger Painting 101” and are not intended to get you to think like a Thomas Edison. We can, however, establish a few rules to follow which you should consider adding to you tool box.

First dispense with any boundaries. This is the blank sheet of paper and should cut across parochial boundaries and fiefdoms you know already exist. Take their budget; take their programs, what would you do with a million dollars. There are many ways to skin this cat, you can call it brainstorming if you want, but there are rules to brainstorming. Use the ones that work for you and get it done.

Inspiration comes from many places. But unless you seek it, you will never find it. Find your source and cultivate it. Just like putting on your lab coat for your science experiment, you should find inspirational moments to be highly satisfying. For us they have never occurred at the office. They occur bolt right up in the middle of the night, during long runs or soccer games. They just might be the single most satisfying moment of our profession short of proving a Zealot wrong and having him removed from his job.

Along with inspiration be creative. Change the medium in which you work. Change the people whom which you work. If you have a brain you can be creative – that’s the funny thing about our brains – it’s up to you to unlock your creative side.

Now, unlike engineering, which could be executed in larger teams, and science, which should be done with small teams, art should be reduced to the smallest or even single individual. Michelangelo worked alone. You cannot have even two people painting on the same canvas. This will be the hardest thing to do. If it is your art it will be a part of you and you will want to show it off and be as proud as your children are to hang their painting on the refrigerator. However, unfortunately, just as a parent is proud of their child’s artwork, hanging in the refrigerator may be the right place for it. Just because it was your creation and you are attached to it does not make it the Mona Lisa. Some self-control is warranted here. But you will not necessarily know until you host an exhibit. Get your artwork out there. This could be dangerous to your pride – and perhaps why many of us lose the creative child in us. If our drawing of a lion, which our grandmother mistook for a raccoon, embarrassed us perhaps we stopped drawing. If we were embarrassed by our voice, perhaps we stopped singing. Nothing ventured nothing gained here though, so put on a thick skin and hang your ideas on the refrigerator at work. You don’t have to sign your name, but you should allow them to make comments.

But how do you really know if you have created something that can be described as art. How do you know you have created something that resembles the truth or something that will be appreciated by more than just your mom? Here to we believe we can help.

The truth will be self-evident. The Golden Gate Bridge is self-evident to most. Most great works of art indeed are self-evident to many. Why is this the case? Because during the creative and inspired times of an artist, based on all the experience and hard work they had done up until that point, a moment of clarity on the solution shines through. This is the 1% inspiration moment followed by the subsequent 99% perspiration that can be handled by the engineers who will build the project.

Another way you will know if your product has achieved the status of art will be if the senior decision maker to whom your analysis was aimed sees something in the solution that filled in a missing hole in their intuition. They might not have even recognized that there was something missing, perhaps just a feeling. But bang, if you nailed it, they will know it and let you know as well.