New Design Case Study between 75th Ranger Regiment and JSOU to be published Spring 2021...

New Design Case Study between 75th Ranger Regiment and JSOU to be published Spring 2021...

You can get a first look at the introduction of this brand new military design article that will publish in the Special Operations Journal (Taylor & Francis Online) in their upcoming Spring 2021 issue. This article details the establishment of a military design cell inside of the 75th Ranger Regiment (called 'Project Galahad') and how they used design education and applied facilitation support from the Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) since 2018 to build, educate, and implement a working design and innovation cell as a permanent part of the Regimental Organization, reporting directly to the Regimental Commander.

Article title: "Designing at the cutting edge of battle: the 75th ranger regiment’s Project Galahad"

Authors: MAJ John Stanczak, (75th Ranger Regiment, Project Galahad Lead); CPT Peyton Talbott, 75th Ranger Regiment, Project Galahad Operations Officer); Dr. Ben Zweibelson, (USSOCOM Joint Special Operations University, CTR).

Excerpt of article's introduction section:

‘Project Galahad’ was the answer to what I saw as a dire need in our formation – the ability to mass quickly on complex, ambiguous problems without a loss in capacity for the rest of our Regimental staff, already consumed with force generation, force modernization, day to day warfighting, and sustaining readiness for contingencies.

- COL Brandon Tegtmeier, 20th Ranger Regimental Commander

‘Project Galahad’ and design thinking has allowed us to look at emerging challenges in a complex security environment in ways that are unbound by traditional thought processes and planning methodologies.

- COL Todd Brown, 21st Ranger Regimental Commander

“Design is best when organizations need revolutionary, not evolutionary, change to think differently. It’s needed when leaders realize that what used to be ‘success’ may no longer work in the future we face. Design is what bore the 1st Ranger Battalion in the mid-’70s and the revolution of JSOC under General McChrystal. The Design process forced us to stop doing certain things in order to change. Most importantly, Regiment uses the Design process to become relevant by using Design instead of standard doctrine and staff process to challenge why we do everything the way we do.”

- CSM (Ret) Michael T. Hall, Former USASOC, JSOC & Regimental Sergeant Major

Introduction:

The 75th Ranger Regiment’s role in driving change throughout the Army has roots deep within the history of American armed forces. Rangers are known for employing novel, unconventional solutions to complex security challenges, and the recent organizational changes to Regimental staff structure and decision-making processes are no different. In pursuit of maximizing disruptive thinking and organizational transformation, the senior leadership of the 75th Ranger Regiment is forging a new cognitive path better suited for the dynamic, disruptive security demands of tomorrow’s war. This article addresses the formal introduction of military design into Regimental organizational form and function over the last few years by leaders and design facilitators, and how each act of creation first required an act of destruction to create cognitive space for experimentation. That act of creative destruction would become known as ‘Project Galahad.’

This article presents the core concepts behind Project Galahad, including the need for its formation, the context in which it exercises thought and action, and its structure and form. It also includes contemporary examples of military design ‘success’ within conceptual goals such as ‘fostering innovation’ or ‘disrupting legacy systems to provide novel opportunities.’ Furthermore, this article shows how a broader design movement is simultaneously appearing in various incarnations and similar applications across the SOCOM and international special operations community. To explain the rise of Galahad, we first must revisit the original demand for change under the leadership of the Regimental Commander where, despite achieving “success” using the legacy form and function, he would nonetheless take risks to challenge the system within.

In Design, the term ‘reflective practice’ refers to the strong self-appreciation of how and why one thinks and acts in order to generate dynamic alternatives. In late 2017, COL Brandon Tegtmeier, 20th Commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment (RCO), set a planning effort into motion as an exercise in organizational reflective practice. The RCO recognized the risk posed by a legacy paradigm that applied yesterday’s practices to tomorrow’s challenges. He decided to take unconventional action toward his own organizational form and took steps to upend the legacy, Prussian-designed Regimental staff system. The RCO was unable to get the necessary levels of focused effort from his staff when problems did not neatly fit into an Army planning model. The Regimental Staff was not postured to provide the Regiment with what design theorist Buchanan termed, “that which was needed for tomorrow’s battle but did not yet exist.”

Structurally unchanged since its inception, the Regimental Staff (RSTAFF) was based on the standard, industrial-era general staff system that rose to popularity after the Prussian army successes in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871. This staffing model is steeped in a Ranger history as far back as the French & Indian War when Robert’s Rogers and his “standing orders” helped shape infantry maneuver away from formalized, pitched battles into a far more fluid and adaptive form of ground combat. Rangers have seen combat in every American war since, though Ranger units were repeatedly disbanded after the conflict ended. As the Vietnam War left the U.S. Army in disarray, Army Chief of Staff General Creighton Abrams established a new peace-time Ranger Battalion with a charter to be a change agent and exemplar of excellence for the rest of the Army. Successive Battalions were born and in 1984 the Regimental Headquarters was established, marking the beginning of the modern Ranger Regiment and an identity of discipline and excellence: those who do what the rest of the Army does, but further, faster, and harder fought. Decades later, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) would thrust the Ranger Regiment into an era of what some now define as ‘post-conventional conflict’ that would require alternative modes of thought and action in war.

Since October 2001, the 75th Ranger Regiment has been continuously deployed in support of the GWOT; over half of the modern 75th Ranger Regiment’s 34-year existence as of this writing. The resulting evolution of contemporary Ranger identity is inextricable from combat operations in the Middle East and South Asia. The Regiment’s GWOT experience both reinforced historic strengths and presented new, emergent challenges within the context of hundreds of rotations to the same operational mission set. This continuity generates processes and structures that are highly effective at economizing practices and maximizing convergent standardization. The operational demand for continuity leaves little room for those who stray outside time-proven institutional practices. The uncertainty of war makes experimentation, even in conceptual forms, a difficult and controversial undertaking.

Despite this legacy frame, the RCO saw the emerging complex security environment of the 21st century as something that required a new way of operating at the Regimental level, starting with his staff’s structure and processes. The rigid, bureaucratic structure of the RSTAFF made it difficult for the unit to address new challenges with old forms; to handle emerging, ambiguous, and complex problems while ‘keeping the trains running on time.’ By disrupting it, the RCO would introduce the space necessary to foster novel military thought and action that was otherwise unattainable in the previous structure. In June of 2017, he directed Regimental planning efforts to address this organizational question of both function and form. He charged a small team to get to work on alternatives options, providing them ample resources and virtually no conceptual restrictions. The multi-month design inquiry confirmed that the RSTAFF’s traditional, Prussian-style structure limited its ability to effectively mass on multiple complex problems requiring expertise from across the RSTAFF. More importantly, however, it was the insular culture arising as an artifact of this structure that drove the human behaviors responsible for these tensions.

Planners proposed two options to transform the Regiment away from the legacy organizational structure. The RCO could re-organize the entire RSTAFF into cross- functional cells aligned to his priorities or establish a standing cross-functional team (CFT) with a sole focus on discrete complex problems determined by the RCO. Whichever choice was made, the Regiment would need to retain the ability to efficiently operate within the larger Army system as well as continue all combat operations ongoing for national security requirements. The re-organize option that flipped the Prussian-style staff structure on its head would be recognized as the superior option, despite the vast undertaking required. However, planners warned that eliminating legacy directorates risked functional chaos in coordinating with adjacent units and did nothing to prevent new silos from taking shape under a different moniker. The CFT, on the other hand, would be independent and unconstrained by existing doctrinal, institutional, or legacy form and function. It would be a dynamic and highly experimental ‘studio for war’ within the Regiment, unlike any other staff function.

The Regiment’s most acceptable option became to add an additional staff entity devoted entirely to the “deeper” issues within the organization. Named PROJECT GALAHAD in a nod to the code name given the Regiment’s WWII predecessors, Project Galahad answered directly to the RCO, whose charter to the newly minted team was simple and direct: Generate quick results through focused effort and be judged by the results produced for the Regiment.  Importantly, the RCO directed the team to develop solutions, not execute them; that was for the staff to do. Galahad acted autonomously and independently of the Regimental staff, in entirely unorthodox forms devoid of traditional staff rules and requirements. There were no limitations and no restrictions on budget, travel, or schedule. There were no requirements to attend daily battle rhythm events or meetings. Galahad took guidance directly from the RCO and coordinated with the Regimental Executive Officer, Regimental staff primaries, and the Battalion Executive Officers. This unique cell was not a ‘shadow’ staff or merely a think tank existing at the “ivory tower” level of an organization as some Commander Action Groups (CAGs) have been critiqued in being.  It was not an industrial “R&D” center either, as Galahad would exist to address the most vexing and convoluted Regimental issues on the RCO’s plate. Rather, Galahad was an experimental complex problem-solving cell at the tactical level for an O-6 Commander frustrated with his organization’s inability to solve them.

Galahad would need to break out of the institutional norms of the legacy Regimental staff structure to critically self-reflect, experiment with alternative concepts, and introduce radical unconventional options that came with their own risks, opportunities, and consequences. Often, design activities would unfold in unfamiliar ways, yet through experimentation and alternative theories the design action would open new cognitive doors for the command team to explore entirely different opportunities for thought and action. Through three years of experimentation underpinned by complexity theory and reflective practice, Project Galahad undertook a new way of thinking far removed from the traditional processes of doctrine. This shift would be from analytic optimization and reductionism towards that of divergent and experimental thinking: military design. The term here is not at all pigeonholed within the narrow confines of Army Design Methodology or any single service-imposed doctrinal template for designing. Instead, Galahad follows a multi-disciplinary design school of thought espoused across SOCOM and beyond by the Joint Special Operations University and other similar multidisciplinary programs.

Want to read more? Stay tuned for the next issue of the Special Operations Journal (Spring 2021) as well as Think JSOU and military design educational announcements.


Grant Rogers

VC Scout | Louisiana’s National Security Accelerator | Dual-Use Tech | Force Multiplier | Building The Louisiana Ecosystem | US Army Veteran 🇺🇸

2mo
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Mike Conklin

Sentinels of Freedom is committed to assisting our Wounded and Injured veterans on their path to successful careers

3y

Watching the evolution of Rangers since 1999 as a non-veteran parent, I cant say I don't totally understand the lingo here, but I do understand the intent and support it. One thing I've seen since 1999 is the ability of the Ranger Regiment to recognize organizational challenges, turn on a dime to face these challenges and solve them. The advantage is in being a small and tight organization. May not work in the larger Army units but Rangers were never designed to get to that point. Mr. Perot told me once he loved small teams and that they could accomplish objectives and react more quickly that larger entities. So, this Ranger father will look forward to watching from the bleachers in support of this initiative. Thank you. Rangers Lead The Way Father Mike Conklin

I served in 2/75th (prior to regimental over site). What I read here is a continuous advancement of the Ranger Creed. Good men, still protecting the country they love. Thank you brothers for your new insights into old problems and new insights into new problems. Sua Sponte!

Nate Williams

VP, Growth at Bounteous

3y

Lance Williams an interesting article on fostering innovation within mature/structured systems.

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