FSG News

June 2005 FSG Update

Strategic Planning Doctrine at the U.S. Coast Guard ...

The US Coast Guard, which FSG principals have been supporting since 1998, is adopting scenario planning as the foundational process for long-term strategy development and planning. FSG and a core team of Coast Guard officers and civilians are completing work on a document titled Evergreen: Creating and Sustaining Strategic Intent in the Coast Guard. Evergreen refers to both the long-term strategy development exercise of 2004 and the ongoing process of embedding strategic intent throughout the Service. Strategic intent is defined in the document as “a shared organizational understanding of where the Service is going and why.” Evergreen is born out of the realization that the Coast Guard’s operating environment will continue to undergo significant change over the next few decades. The 9/11 tragedy is only the most dramatic example of the challenges rocking the organization in recent years. In fact, accelerating change has been buffeting the Service since the end of the Cold War, as a result of market globalization, communication and technological developments, and now the threat of global terror networks. The Coast Guard has reacted creditably to all of these challenges, but the Service believes that future success in a more complicated and dangerous world requires world-class capability to anticipate – not just respond to – emerging threats and opportunities. It is for this reason that the Coast Guard is committed to complementing its tactical excellence with sophisticated and flexible strategic thinking. This is at the heart of the Evergreen initiative.

Evergreen is an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking that calls for “a continuous process of strategic planning and strategic renewal.” It is seamlessly integrated into the calendar of each Commandant’s command tenure. Moreover, Evergreen learning and insights are incorporated into budgeting and planning, management practices and the education and training systems of the Coast Guard. Ultimately, Evergreen aims to create a culture of strategic awareness that touches all Coast Guard personnel, and that is shared liberally throughout the Department of Homeland Security and among the Service’s many stakeholders.

Evergreen Scenarios Inform Navy Analysis …

For two consecutive years, the Strategic Studies Group (SSG) at the Naval War College has employed the USCG Evergreen Scenarios as a key analytical component of their work for the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Between the Fall of 2003 and the Winter of 2005, both the Principals of FSG and US Coast Guard officers from the Strategic Analysis Group have supported the SSG in the employment of scenario planning.

Admiral Thomas Hayward established the CNO SSG in 1981 to develop a cadre of future naval leaders well versed in strategic concepts and the implications to naval warfare. In 1995 the SSG transformed into a focal point for the generation of innovative and revolutionary warfare concepts. The SSG is tasked by, and reports directly to, the Chief of Naval Operations.

The SSG used the USCG Evergreen scenarios and FSG support for the portion of their work that was devoted to “red teaming” concepts. However, after that experience, they also recommended to the CNO that scenario planning be considered for a more formal part of USN strategic planning. With support from both FSG and the USCG, the SSG has now incorporated the Evergreen scenarios more formally into all of their work.

Pondering the Future of Flight …

In April, FSG’s Charles Perrottet joined a panel of prominent futurists exploring a large and complex issue: the future of flight. The panel was part of a technical symposium held in Atlantic City and sponsored by the Air Traffic Controllers Association, the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA. Panelists shared a range of thoughts and perspectives on new flight technologies, changing airline industry economics, and the increased demand for alternate doorstep-to-destination air travel services. Charles challenged the group to consider not one but multiple images of what air transportation could look like, given the speed and complexity of change. Drawing on FSG’s 2004 work with for the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) to design a strategy for of the Next Generation Air Transportation System, Charles listed the five air transportation scenarios and focused on one called Markets Rule. He warned that too much uncertainty surrounds flight’s future for us to be comfortable banking on a single future image. The key, rather, is to use scenario planning to craft “robust” plans and strategies that respond effectively to the broadest possible range of future market characteristics. Contingent strategies, Charles emphasized, can also be derived from scenario-based planning work and should be prepared and rehearsed before they are needed. With all the unknowns surrounding the future of flight, contingent strategies are apt to get a good workout over the next couple of decades.

FSG Client Interviewed on “60 Minutes” …

Dr. Bruce Holmes, who directed the JPDO Futures Working Group’s scenario-planning exercise, was recently featured in a segment that aired Sunday, April 17 on the CBS News program "60 Minutes." Bruce is an internationally known aviation researcher at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. CBS reporter Bob Simon interviewed him for the story titled Highway in the Sky. The "60 Minutes" piece explored modern day aviation pioneers who are developing new kinds of flying machines that may permit people to pilot their own personal air vehicles. NASA has been developing technologies for small airplanes that may also be adapted for personalized air travel. Before becoming Langley's chief strategist, Holmes led the Small Aircraft Transportation System or SATS project, a public-private partnership working to make small planes safer, more reliable and easier to fly. Later this year a number of SATS equipped aircraft will demonstrate operating capabilities that will allow these new classes of aircraft, including very light jets and other advanced small planes, to use neighborhood airports to fly people from place to place.

The Making of an Ethical Executive…

Peter Kennedy tells professional-school educators not to beat themselves up when some of their students end up doing the wrong thing.  In a letter to the editor of The New York Times published on February 14, Peter argued that even the most vigorous and thoughtful efforts to incorporate ethics into business and law curricula can’t create personal accountability and social responsibility where it doesn’t already exist. Building that moral foundation is the job of families, schools, and churches. Students who haven’t had their characters formed by the time they enter graduate professional school probably won’t acquire one in a classroom. Peter’s letter was prompted by Professor Robert J. Shiller’s February 8 Op-Editorial, “How Wall Street Learns to Look the Other Way.”