Busting Myths about the O-4 Board
By Commander Todd Cimicata, U.S. Navy
The results are in, and the standard array of data has been released to show that, in stark contrast to last year’s (Fiscal Year 2015’s) results, the numbers of new lieutenant commanders were within historical norms. Upon closer inspection, however, that does not seem to be the case. There is a large disparity among the unrestricted lines in above-zone (AZ), in-zone (IZ), and overall selection rates, and uncomfortable numbers of aviators have received severances and seven months to “clean out their lockers.” It is clear that something has shifted, that last year was unique, and that there has been little official explanation as to why.
While the process has remained generally unchanged, the last few O-4 promotion boards have sparked increasingly energetic debate concerning overall community talent management, the apparently inadequate population of lieutenant commanders to fill squadron department-head positions, the often opaque board process, and the lack of communication from leadership on the root causes and effects. The following analysis provides raw numbers pertinent to this process, explain their origin and meaning, and postulate why recent outcomes have been so surprising.
Reading the Numbers
For purposes of this analysis, Surface (1110), Sub-Surface (1120) and Aviation (1310/20) board numbers are compared because they represent the three largest unrestricted lines and provide similar data sets needed to answer the most informative questions.
It is a common cliché that numbers do not lie; or do they? The numbers do not, but it is imperative to understand where they come from and what they mean. As an example, the fiscal FY 16 board results as shown in Table I.
It is apparent from the board results in Table I that aviation promoted more AZ O-3s in FY 16. While not definitive, it is an accepted assumption that these records were more competitive during this board because each had one more year of experience versus their peers. This certainly was affected by last year’s historically low selection rates, given that there were 298 AZ aviation-eligible officers compared to 203 from the FY 15 board. Table I also shows percentage of IZ and total O-3s selected for aviation compared with the other unrestricted lines. In fact, roughly 20 percent less overall. To understand the impact, it is vital to determine what these figures delineate, and especially what they do not.
As background, the total percentage selected is based on the total number of O-3s selected, divided by the number of IZ eligible. There is not a scientific reason why the IZ-eligible number is used as the denominator, but it does not matter if it is consistent and you use this data for the appropriate purpose. When normalized, these numbers show aviation has selected fewer O-3s, by percentage, in comparison to the surface and subsurface lines. It does not indicate that aviation did not select enough O-3s, nor does it indicate that the surface and subsurface communities were able to select more than they need. Mathematically, there are two possible reasons this number is lower: Either the number of selected O-3s is lower, or the number of IZ-eligible O-3s is higher. With the exception of FY 15, the ratio was relatively stable over the past few years, but the numbers of eligible O-3s increased substantially beginning in FY 13. Why?
In 2002, the minimum service requirement (MSR) for all 1310s was increased to eight years. The direct effect of this change is that more lieutenants are required to remain in the service through their O-4 selection board window. This has the result of increasing the denominator discussed above, thereby lowering the percentage. The impact was realized fully in the FY 13 board when the overall selection rate was 65 percent versus 83 percent in FY 12. Conversely, the number of aviators accessed between 2005 and 2012 was lower than the predicted requirement—i.e., roughly 950 instead of 1,050. This would have the tendency to lower the number of O-3s eligible. Retention, however, has been better than projected for more than a decade, which offsets the impact of smaller accession groups. It is important to note that since 2013, accessions have increased to roughly 1,050 again. With no other changes in retention, this could increase the number of eligible O-3s approaching FY 22, and decrease the selection percentage accordingly.
Selectivity ‘a Concern’
A further analysis of accessions adds some understanding to the current state of O-4 promotions. In general, a newly accessed officer takes ten years to reach his or her O-4 board depending on a few factors. The different communities’ average annual accessions in 2005–06 and FY 16 selections are presented in Table II.
Again, numbers can mislead, so what exactly does this represent? The MSR and rates of retention certainly have an impact, but the data suggest that for a given officer accession, the best chances of becoming an O-4 are in the aviation community.
Important differences also are noted when the FY 15 O-4 board results are analyzed. Since the outcome was significantly different from previous years and the most contentious in recent memory, it is valuable to analyze the data presented in Table III to determine valid community concerns.
Obviously, the AZ, IZ, and total percentages in FY 15 were extremely low given historical norms and compared with FY 16 data. It also is important to note that the number of selected aviators was 397, well below the FY 16 number of 445. For FY 15, selectivity was indeed a concern, as was actually having enough O-4s to fill the required department-head billets. Selectivity is the term commonly used to describe having enough O-4s to allow the department-head screen board sufficient options to select the appropriately qualified and proven candidates, while not being forced to select all candidates just to fill billets. The existing requirement is 272 department-head billets to be filled. Given personnel losses from factors such as reaching MSR just after an individual’s O-4 board, 397 O-4s were insufficient, and the community was five officers short. This was serious, but not catastrophic, from a human-resource perspective, and with some innovative detailing the community was able to fill all the billets. Historical data show that having approximately 435 O-4 candidates does allow for selectivity. So, all is good this year . . . or maybe not.
A 50/50 Scenario
While the numbers seem to have corrected themselves to a sustainable, although different-looking, pattern, there are conclusions to be drawn from the past few years. First is the impact on trust and morale within the backbone demographic of squadron life—the lieutenants. The Navy as an institution owes each of us absolutely nothing. The leadership within the Navy, however, owes everything. We, as leaders of the community, need to have the foresight to predict that the data we provide to guide career decisions is going to change.
We could have foreseen and should have broadcast that the MSR changes were going to have significant impact on the percentage of individuals selected to be O-4s, thereby noticeably increasing the size of the group that would not. It may not have altered decision making for those individuals, but it would have altered perception. There is a dangerous attitude that aviation is not looking out for its own, and lieutenants determining whether to take the tough production tour after their first fleet tour to increase their promotion opportunities are exploring other options.
With new advanced education initiatives and lucrative severance options, some qualified individuals are choosing to increase their marketability outside the Navy based on a simple risk analysis; it is a 50/50 scenario. While that logic is somewhat parochial and could be better informed, it is an understandable and invasive attitude that only weakens the community. It also is something we can fix with good, insightful communication.
Another highlight of this analysis is the board process itself, which year after year has given us quality people to continue in leadership positions. It can be improved, however. The statistics previously discussed are provided by the Bureau of Personnel in Millington, Tennessee, and are compiled without access to what is discussed in the board. With the FY 15 O-4 board as an example, however, there still are no concrete explanations for why aviation had such significantly diminished selection rates. It may be worthwhile to institutionalize a process that allows a detailed examination of a board that produces lower selection rates up to 25 percent lower in one year. This transparency, while difficult, will provide relevant insight into and understanding of the Navy’s human resource process and guide changes to improve it. At the least, it will eliminate the questions that breed distrust in the process and the negative perceptions that are generated in the group affected the most: the lieutenants determining whether to make naval aviation their career.
For War-Winning Innovation, Fix the Process
By Captain Arthur H. “Trip” Barber III, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Large, distinguishable military systems and hierarchical decision processes, the hallmarks of the industrial age, have disadvantaged the U.S. military in its efforts to adapt quickly enough to new-age warfare. This new age incorporates and is facilitated by global connectivity; networking of large numbers of small “brilliant” entities; pervasive visibility of wide geographic areas by non-military-unique means; and operational practices by adversaries to mingle closely among the innocent. The current acquisition system must be fundamentally changed to field new capabilities at the speed that this emerging threat environment demands. The number and diversity of processes that have been conceived to bypass this system have been truly innovative. Multiple budget line items with tens of millions of dollars have been established by the Navy and Secretary of Defense to fund increased prototyping.
Our leadership’s priority on innovation in emerging operational capabilities has led to a proliferation of prototypes, experiments, and technology demonstrations being sent to sea or to the field for evaluation. While the current level of innovation activity is significant, the operational challenges being addressed are not always sharply defined and matched to the innovative activity, and the level of implementation and wide-scale fielding of new capabilities remains poor.
Our current approach to innovation and prototyping in hardware is not producing fielded solutions at a rate and in quantities that pace the number and quality of the threats we face. There are two problems with the current process. The first problem is the failure to focus resources on a short list of the most pressing operational demands. Such a list would establish a framework for identifying future capability-enhancement areas to be pursued above all others. The tie between a commonly agreed-to framework for future capability requirements and the potential capability output of a prototype is rarely directly substantiated by quantitative analysis. Such analysis can be a powerful argument for getting a project’s funding supported; or it can show that the project’s operational employment may be infeasible or ineffective in improving an important future capability. Both are important to know and are seldom rigorously determined before a prototype project is initiated.
The second problem is the fiscal gap—often referred to as the “valley of death” —between the funding for a prototype project that succeeds and the follow-on funding needed to transition the project through full-scale development and production. The prototype’s success typically is not proved until the last year of its funding. Sponsors of follow-on development and fielding often are reluctant to request the future funding without proof of a successful prototype. Within the budgetary process timelines for getting funds appropriated by Congress, this leads to a two-year gap between project success and initiation of funding for any follow-on effort. A few “game-changing” projects have such potential value that they can, and sometimes do, bridge this valley by building enough support to secure at-risk funding. Prototyping projects, however, are spread too thin and the numbers are simply too large to make this type of bridging affordable or bureaucratically realistic. Many critical opportunities for technological innovation are slowed or lost in the crowd.
The acquisition system used by the Department of Defense (DOD) is famously ponderous. Layers of staff and checkpoints in the process have accumulated as the result of past mistakes. The risk of criticism from Congress or the media about cost or schedule growth is weighted more heavily than the risk of not delivering capability quickly. It is an industrial-age process, perhaps matched to the procurement of large long-lived systems such as ships and aircraft (platforms) but lacking in the speed and agility to procure their rapidly outdated combat capabilities (payloads).
When the time line for a major program’s development from idea to fielding is deconstructed, what stands out as an area ripe for change is not the amount of time spent on actual development by engineers, but rather the amount of bureaucratic time and effort required to get to that point. This precursor process involves circulation of papers through multiple levels of meetings that first document that there has been a study to prove there is a capability gap; then to document that there has been a study of what ought to be done about it; then finally to document that multiple competing industry proposals for how to deliver a solution have been submitted and studied. Each of these steps can take a year or more, during which time no progress is being made on developing and fielding a solution.
During times of war when U.S. troops are dying as a result of an adversary innovation and money is no object, rapid innovation and implementation happens. Under these conditions innovation typically is focused on a specific local threat capability in response to an “Urgent Operational Need (UON)” from a commander at war. In this case, DOD Instruction 5000.02 of 7 January 2015, “Operation of the Defense Acquisition System,” clears a path by forcing acquisition-regulations bureaucracies largely to get out of the way. Congress appropriates or permits reprogramming of funds on the basis of urgency rather than perfect documentation. Capability gets to the field in a hurry—a maximum of two years is permitted under this authority. The fielded system generally is not supported with a logistic and training pipeline because the steps to develop this were bypassed in the interest of expediency, but the system normally is used up or retired quickly anyway. This kind of process, however, is insufficiently rigorous for broad application in peacetime.
An intermediate model, however, could work to deliver selected capabilities with enhanced speed. It would involve moving directly from an operational prototype that proves to work into immediate noncompetitive acquisition justified by actual field-testing results of the prototype rather than relying on paper studies to characterize acquisition requirements. This would require a more rigorous standard than is universally applied to current prototypes. Prototypes would be selected with careful leadership attention supported by some analysis to indicate that if the project is successful it likely will offer an operationally effective solution to an operationally critical problem. This approach would sustain competition, but only during the prototype phase. Manufacturers whose prototypes meet immediate critical needs would simply be awarded sole-source contracts for production.
This process change, while permitted within current acquisition regulations for “rapid acquisition,” is virtually never used. Current acquisition practices generally use prototypes simply as technology demonstrations to inform acquisition requirements documents. These documents are then used to initiate a follow-on round of studies (where additional unproven capabilities usually are added), and another from-scratch and politically popular full and open competition for the contract to develop and produce the final system is awarded. Years pass and the capability gaps remain unfilled while the process churns along. Both the Long-Range Anti-Surface Missile (LRASM) and the Large Diameter Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) three-year prototype programs delivered fully usable and successful systems in 2014 that could easily have been produced rapidly, delivering critically needed good-enough capabilities to the fleet. Both were limited by current acquisition practices to a small operationally-insignificant fielding quantities. A full-competition follow-on program was required with all the normal process steps and documentation, thereby leading to full production of exquisite capabilities—delivering up to a decade later.
Rapid innovation in operational hardware capability for a Navy with global scale and major nation-state threats cannot be left to acquisition processes that lack sharp focus. Nor can it wait for some wide-scale reform of the acquisition system to occur that miraculously enhances the speed of all programs. During the first decades of the Cold War—when technology was changing rapidly and there was perceived to be a significant threat to the nation even in a time of peace—we leaned essentially on a purposeful prototype-based acquisition process to capture innovations and produce key systems that were delivered rapidly on our platforms as payloads. We are in such times again today. We must again rebalance between acquisition policy risk and warfighting capability risk to allow purposeful prototype-based acquisition.
Our efforts must sharply focus on the key strategic challenges of the Navy and use operational prototypes in place of endless paper studies to drive the acquisition process for a small number of critical projects. Implementing this model would require a modest degree of acquisition and budgeting process change and risk, allowing a few promising programs to skip a whole layer of proof-of-need studies and a step of acquisition competition. It would require an appropriation by an often-skeptical Congress to a pool of rapid capability fielding funds to bridge the two-year “valley of death” for promising, yet still unproven, prototypes. Embracing this new model of purposeful innovation would be an achievable step forward in our ability to deliver innovative capability with sufficient speed and capacity to make a warfighting difference in the field and the fleet.
Maintain Maritime Superiority with High-Velocity Learning
By Eric V. Thompson
In January 2016, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson published A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. It depicts the emerging security environment and the changes the Navy will need to make to maintain its advantage and be ready for decisive combat operations. The Design is built along four central lines of effort (LOEs). One of its potentially most powerful components is the high-velocity learning (HVL) LOE. There are actions individual commands and organizations can take to help the Navy build a high-velocity learning culture.
There is a natural temptation to associate high velocity with speed of action. In recent public presentations, however, the CNO has made it clear that high-velocity learning is not just about doing things faster; it is about accelerating improvements in the Navy’s performance. HVL reflects a mode of operating that seeks to maximize the ability of every Navy organization to reach and maintain its full performance potential by adopting a culture of continual improvement and problem solving.
HVL is not limited to the sort of learning that takes place in the classroom. While formal training pipelines, schoolhouses, and professional military education can help generate a workforce that is well tooled to operate in a high-velocity organization, the focus of the high-velocity LOE is not primarily the Navy’s educational and training centers. The most powerful effects of HVL are generated in the execution of real-world processes and procedures. By applying a “learning engine” approach, commands and organizations across the Navy rapidly can inculcate a culture of continual learning and assessment as they operate and interact with their environments.
Reaching Performance Potential
The Design’s basic premise regarding performance is that the Navy is not currently on a trajectory to keep pace with changes in today’s world. The Navy’s pace of improvement in performance lags the private sector and is at risk of falling behind that of adversaries. Whether it is Moore’s Law of increases in microprocessor speed, the rate of growth in the importance and exploitation of the maritime environment, the expansion of networks available to states and individuals, or increases in efficiency in private-sector businesses, the natural “potential” pace of increases in performance in the modern world is exponential (i.e., the rate of improvement in performance increases exponentially over time).
According to the CNO, the Navy’s current pace of performance improvement tends to be linear. In his public presentations on the topic, the CNO often shows the accompanying chart (see Figure I) to depict the Navy’s current trajectory of improvements in performance (the blue line), compared to the Navy’s true potential (the black line), set against the context of the pace of adversary improvements in performance (the red line).
A core premise of the Design is that by achieving HVL at every level, the Navy has the potential to markedly improve (bend upward) its performance curve to approach—or even achieve—its plausible performance potential. That is, by changing the Navy’s culture, the way it operates, and the way it learns, the service can rapidly and persistently change performance outcomes.
The Navy is a large and complex organization, with distributed functions and a workforce made up of active-duty professionals, reservists, civilians, and contractors. How, then, can the Navy quickly make the sweeping changes needed to become an HVL organization and achieve its full potential? The answer, according to Admiral Richardson, is “stunningly simple, and exceptionally rare in execution.” It lies in the consistent application of a construct he refers to as a “learning engine.”
The Engine That Could
A high-velocity learning organization is one that innately seeks to improve its performance by questioning and being self-critical, by swarming to problems to identify root causes, and by driving improvements and innovation through the consistent application of this “learning engine” approach. When one applies it, improvements in ideas, concepts, and processes are iteratively posited, tested, assessed, refined, reposited, and retested, and the organization rapidly translates and transmits both positive and negative lessons learned from the process. Figure 2 depicts the cycle.
The learning engine can be conceived of as a relatively simple process that can be repeated continuously over the entire range of activities of even the most complex organization. The rigorous and consistent application of this process creates a cycle of learning that feeds on and shares knowledge in ways that increase the velocity of learning across the organization and eventually creates opportunities for exponential increases in performance.
The critical steps of the learning engine are:
1. Define the problem
2. Predict the environment
3. Formulate a plan
4. Articulate the expected result
5. Act (i.e., execute the plan in the operating environment)
6. Assess actual results.
Once step six is completed, the insights derived from the process are then folded back into step one, and the cycle begins again. In the subsequent iteration of the learning engine process, however, all six steps are informed by what was learned during all the activities that took place in the preceding iteration. This allows for gap analysis of what was and was not known at each step of the process and the consideration and dissemination of what was learned during each step. As such, in subsequent iterations an organization is not limited to simply improving “the plan.” From this gap analysis it becomes possible to refine and improve the definition of the problem, better define the environment, adjust the plan, more specifically define expected results, and improve the assessment process (see Figure 3).
This approach creates the potential for multiple simultaneous areas of learning and improvement and can lead to “jump shifts” in the improvement of performance—a marked change from the rather slow, evolutionary and linear improvements in performance the Navy historically has seen. As such, iterative, progressive, and reinforcing improvement of performance through consistent application of the learning engine process across the Navy’s activities can cumulatively produce exponential improvements in performance.
Learning and Spreading the Word
Whether the problem has to do with shipboard maintenance, personnel policy, warfighting operations, weapon-system integration, or any challenge the Navy faces, the learning engine provides an iterative framework for applying HVL principles at every level.
To get the most out of the learning engine, it is important to pay particular attention to some critical enablers. They help turn the learning engine into the “power plant” for high-velocity learning.
Establish Short Time Lines. The first of these enablers is the application of a relatively short time line to the execution of the learning engine cycle. Development of problem statements, assessment of the environment, implementation plans, execution, and assessment must take place on a relatively short time line to generate the benefits of iterative learning. If the cycle cannot be concluded in days, weeks, or months, it is unlikely to increase the velocity of learning. For example, for large acquisition programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter or the Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, traditional time lines for maturation can be years or even decades. To get the most out of the learning engine, problems and hypotheses must be bounded in scope and time so that meaningful exploration and experimentation can take place repeatedly over the course of the program. This kind of thinking currently is being reflected in the development of the Navy’s carrier unmanned aircraft program. Rather than designing an acquisition plan focused on initial operating capability in five to ten years, the unmanned aircraft program has been designed as a series of multi-month development and testing phases. Testing—and potential failure—of technologies, systems, employment concepts, and the like, several times during the first two years of the program, rather than waiting for final delivery of the first airframes can begin the operational-evaluation process.
Specify Expected Results. The second enabler is applying adequate effort to spell out expected results in detail (rather than in generalities) and to develop an assessment plan that produces measurable, relevant, and understandable data for analysis and honest assessment. If one cannot articulate a detailed description of expected results from an activity, it is essentially impossible to conduct meaningful analysis of the actual outcomes. If one says, “We planned to do X, and we expected results Y,” it becomes possible to learn from both successes and failures. If “Y” is the actual outcome, progress is made on the path to proving the original hypothesis and learning something new. If Y is not the outcome, it creates the opportunity to examine all the steps of learning engine implementation to learn more about the problem, the environment, the plan, the execution, and the assessment process.
Disseminate Knowledge. The third critical enabler is the dissemination of what is learned along the way to others—both inside and outside the command or organization that is working on the problem. If the results of the learning engine process are held within an organization, no one else facing a similar problem gains any benefit from the application of the learning engine cycle. As a result, that particular application of the learning engine may contribute to improvements in a particular program or activity, but it makes little or no contribution to creating a culture of high-velocity learning across the Navy. Similarly, if each turn of the learning engine cycle does not start with an understanding of what has been learned in the past, then the efficiency of the learning process suffers from expending time, energy, and resources relearning what already was known “somewhere.”
The learning engine construct provides a simple, widely applicable approach that can allow the Navy—in all its complexity and diversity—to change behaviors and create a high-velocity learning culture. This approach can help bend upward the service’s performance curve and give the Navy the opportunity to outpace its competitors, reach its full potential, and maintain a margin of maritime superiority.
Food Service as Force Multiplier
By Lieutenant William Tessmann and Lieutenant (junior grade) David Medeiros, U.S. Navy
Morale has been the primary driver for advances in U.S. naval food service for quite some time. Pushes for greater acceptability and, more recently, healthy eating have led to staggering progress in nutrition and quality. U.S. sailors around the world enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables, hard-pack ice cream, and a rotating menu that provides unprecedented variety. Aircraft carriers and large-deck amphibious ships boast Starbucks brand coffeehouses. Yet, despite these advances, naval food service is at risk of losing sight of its primary responsibility: the sustainment of operations at sea. Logistics—in this case food service operations—should serve to empower commanders with options for greater endurance, resilience, and operational flexibility.
The fundamentals of afloat food storage and preparation have remained essentially unchanged since the 1930s, when Freon—a nonflammable fluid that required less pressure than earlier refrigerants—first made refrigeration practical and safe for warships. Despite widespread advances in logistical practices by business in the decades following World War II, Navy food service still suffers from remarkable complexity and fragility.
On any given day there are around a dozen prime vendors serving the Navy’s food needs worldwide, each with their own catalogs, packaging, and practices driven largely by the demands of their primary customer—the private market. The standard core menu implemented throughout the fleet actually is many menus divided by region, platform, and class.
This complexity extends to unit-level operations. Even smaller warships routinely carry several hundred line items of food, requiring a great deal of storage space, temperamental refrigeration systems, and a cadre of culinary specialists and food service attendants trained for inspection, inventory, records, and preparation. Taking on food in port still requires a substantial ship’s force working party or the employment of contract stevedores for several hours. Real progress undoubtedly has been made, but aside from computers, modern Navy food service would be immediately recognizable to the Bluejacket of 1946.
The operational constraints of the current model are widely recognized. It is cliché to note, for example, that food is the only limit on the duration and range of nuclear submarine operations. This state of affairs is neither inevitable nor desirable.
We can and must do better. In increasingly contested anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) environments, replenishment at sea cannot be taken for granted. Future conflicts will require more flexible and robust supply chains. The Navy should provide operational commanders, commanding officers, and supply officers a food service model to meet those challenges. Navy Supply can again apply good logistical practices for a top-to-bottom reexamination of decades-old assumptions. Food service procedures can be streamlined, and research and development can identify and navalize provisions better suited to sustainability at sea.
Enabling technologies may already exist; one prominent mass-market product is Soylent, a powdered food developed in 2013. Soylent is nutritionally complete, cost-effective, fungible, easy to inventory, does not require refrigeration, and can be packaged to fit nearly anywhere. Even without vacuum packing, a meal’s worth of powder is only as large as a smartphone and is shelf-stable for a year. Commanders could dramatically increase the total caloric value of their storerooms while carrying the same volume of stores. Soylent is mixed with water soon before consumption and does not require trained culinarians or even dedicated food preparation space.
When in friendly coastal waters or within reach of reliable underway replenishment, food service need not change; the advantages of fresh and varied food are obvious. There will be times, however, when alternative means of feeding are appropriate. An endurance feeding plan could be used to maximize a ship’s ability to sustain at sea—either as a supplement or substitute for routine food service. This translates into options; by simply replacing a single meal per day with powder rations, a commander could substantially increase a ship’s on-station endurance. The benefits of such flexibility are immediately apparent for ballistic-missile defense patrols and submarine operations, and would be broadly applicable across the fleet.
Naval food service is inextricably linked to shipboard health, morale, and unit cohesion, but ultimately is a means to an end: keeping our ships in the fight for as long as possible. Commanders rightly expect advances in weapons and engineering systems that directly improve operational capability; food service should be no different. Future conflicts will test the limits of our ability to sustain at sea. In food service, as elsewhere, it is time for a renewed focus on providing the fleet with war-winning logistics options.