Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/61383
The current world climate requires military organizations with as much prowess in the boardroom as on the battlefield. To help form leaner, meaner militaries, education principles are coming front and center. B almost an illusion. They were modern only in comparison to everyone else's weapons," Frank says. "The truth was that there was a ten-, 12-, even 15-year acquisition process for new technology, so that by the time you actually acquired a new weapons system, it was long ago obsolete." However, during this same period, the word the director of the Information Technology Office with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. From 1993 to 1997, Frank learned that the best way to get something done in the DoD was to go not through it, but around it. "The fact that the DoD had such modern weapons was efore he became dean of the RobertH. Smith School of Business at the University ofMary- land inCollege Park,Howard Frank served as Adapting Best Practices In an April 2002 statement to the U.S. Senate Armed Serv- ices Committee Hearing on Military Transformation, Secre- tary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz emphasized that the private sector might have the methods that the military needs in its transformative process: "We want to inculcate in [ourmilitary leaders] an entrepreneurial spirit and an understanding of howmilitaries have been transformed historically, as well as an awareness of how private companies have transformed them- selves in the face of discontinuous change," Wolfowitz said. In his speech,Wolfowitz emphasized that theU.S.military by Tricia Bisoux illustration by Scott Roberts technological perspective, but also from a procurement man- agement perspective. So, DARPA began to pioneer a number of methods to get around obsolete procurement regula- tions," explains Frank. "We invented phrases like 'advanced technology demonstration,' whichmeant we would get prod- ucts out to the field ostensibly as experimental projects.How- ever, the technology wasn't just demonstrated; it was left in the field permanently." In that way, DARPA was able to turn a ten-year acquisi- "transformation" began to enter the U.S. military nomencla- ture. Military organizations were coming to the realization that their management techniques needed to be upgraded to emulate those that private industry had been developing for years. DARPA, for example, started to create its own, more effective procurement systems to get new technologies in the field as quickly as possible. "The goal was to transform the military not just from a is entering a new phase that requires a different, more busi- nesslike approach to its operations. It is shifting its attention to areas that any large organization depends on for success and survival: integrating advanced technology, streamlining communica- tions process into a six- to eight-month turnaround time. For instance, DARPA had an entire communications system up and running during the BosnianWar in the early 1990s using "advanced technology demonstration." Had it relied on the military's old procurement methods, however, it's more than likely that the system would still be on the drawing board, rather than in the hands of military personnel. That's more than innovation. That's innovative manage- ment, a business skill that military organizations worldwide are adapting to streamline and improve their day-to-day operations. they "need to operate more like business," explains Col. David Berg, director of Army programs at Syracuse Univer- sity's Whitman School of Management in New York. "Syra- cuse and the U.S. Army have been partnering in our MBA program for 51 years, but the most radical changes have occurred over the last two years," says Berg. For instance, in the past, students in the Army Comptrollership Program received only an MBA. Now, they receive both an MBA and a master's in public administration from the Maxwell School of Public Administration at Syracuse. "It's become apparent that the public policy side is as important as the business side, so we merged the two," Berg explains. Berg adds that the military's interest in business manage- agement courses seems to be on the rise. For example, eArmyU, the U.S. Army's online educational provider, was established in 2001 as one of a number of initiatives to "trans- form the Army," according to eArmyU literature. Enlisted soldiers can enroll in business courses froma variety of higher education institutions to receive associate's, bachelor's, or master's degrees in business. The number of students enrolling in MBA programs alone has steadily increased to more than 360 in September 2003 from just 20 at eArmyU's inception. Military organizations the world over have realized that tions, improving supply chain management, and responding to changing competition. As a result, the enrollment of military personnel in man- BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2004 ment practices has also surged over the last decade. "The cur- 53