Communications – The Not so Traditional Future

The following report is the first of many to come which is designed to keep communicators up with the play with regard the Communications Branch and its future direction. The report is provided by Warrant Officer Yeoman of Signals Mark Hannah.

After a number of attempts to put something on paper I’m going back to a point approximately nine months ago when I finally left Naval Staff after six years in Capability branch as Deputy Director Naval Communications 4 I (DDNC4i) -the old DDNS position which some of you may be aware of from your days.

I’m hoping most of you who read this will be aware the Navy and NZDF are undergoing a “Transformation”. This is probably understating the fact somewhat. The changes in some ways will be almost unrecognisable.

In May 2010 I posted to a group called the Training and Education Directorate or TED for short. I never thought I would be tasked with leading a team in redesigning complete, the way communications training will be conducted across all three services.

The first three months were spent getting into the space of previous work by a tri service group of SNCO communications personnel who were directed to look at the feasibility of combining communications training conducted by three services into one training stream. This work was initiated under the direction of CDR Roger Ward who was the HQJFNZ J6 (or communications head)

The work identified a number of commonalities and reported back with a figure of about 80% commonality and a number of quick wins. While this work was valuable in being the catalyst for a way forward it became evident that there was a need to follow some robust processes in order to ensure the end product would be “Fit for Purpose” (FFP).

I will not attempt to bore anyone with how we got to where we are, other than say there has been many hours of workshops with a two tier approach. Tier 2 was a group of representatives from all three services at the CPO/WO level who put together the basic plan. The Tier one group was representatives at the LTCDR/CDR level who endorsed the plans and compared this with the intent of each of the Single Service Chiefs.

About November 2010, I received the assistance of SQN LDR Mark Brewer an ex army SSGT Sig and together we broke down all the training currently done and conducted a cost analysis with what was being proposed. The result gave us a clear indication of what was possible.

Of note we were now working to some clear guidance from CDF these were:

• Our motto of Simpler, Better, More affordable.
• What could be Common, Should be Common, and
• Any common training should be conducted in the Manawatu area unless there is good reason not to.

Now taking into account that Air force have only one communication stream for training, Navy have two streams (Radio and V/S) and Army have three streams, I believe we have managed to finally recognise the benefits for all services in training a more versatile communicator. We have divided all the courses from the three services, looked at what is “Actually Common” (More like 60%) and are pretty confident we can deliver the necessary training required to meet the needs of the wider NZDF.

As with all change, this is not going to be easy. There is a need for all three services to change some of its traditional thinking, noting that we will not drop the Visual and Fleetwork components of training. This will mean that there is still a requirement to have some communications training conducted in the Auckland Region. Everything else though is up for grabs.

There is going to be formal training that will remain single service orientated however there is likely to be, overtime, Naval/Air instructors training army students and vice versa. Also to note is the ability for army to identify selected students to work alongside their Navy counterparts on Canterbury or likewise send Navy or Air students who want to, on land missions if they have completed the prerequisite courses we are developing.

In the next few weeks the final four options (of which there were 18 original options) are being presented to the Monthly Management Group MMG which is headed by the Chief of Navy. The MMG will make a final decision on the way forward and then I can move on to planning the implementation.

So the big questions that I’m always asked. Will it work? Well the simple answer is, it has to. There is no question that in the current climate we need to do things that continue to make us relevant and more efficient. The road to this point has been rough and we have shed some blood letting but I believe this has been an important, if not the most important part of the journey.

Training and Education is being centralised across all trades and not just communications, I’m working alongside Warrant Officers from Army and Air who have already completed the amalgamation of Ammunition and Explosives training, Driver training, and are in the middle of Electronics training (that will encroach into communications) as well as Catering. There are some 40-50 other areas still to be started and in the end no one will be untouched.

I hope to post more as this year progresses and the final training option is selected but you can rest assured there are huge changes in the pipeline for 2011/12.

Yours Aye
WOYS Mark Hannah

Thank you Mark for bringing our members up to date and we look forward to future updates as your work progresses.