People

6.3.1 Teamwork

The topics discussed in the category people are teamwork, level of competence and customer relationship. Interviewees experienced the need of a bigger diversity of expertise in the project teams for CD&E projects and involving them when necessary. This was shared among most of the interviewees belonging to all the different organisations. The bigger diversity of expertise led to several challenges. ‘The need for a higher variety of expertise from different persons leads to a higher variety in interests’, ‘mixing different expertise makes communication between these people harder’. Flexibility in involving team members with

certain expertise when it is required is experienced as a challenge. An officer stated ‘involving TNO expertise is slow as the process to arrange the contracts is taking weeks’, most TNO interviewees stated ‘a lack

of time for some important SME’s prevents them from joining a project’, a different challenge experienced is involving the industrial partners. Project managers of TNO and several officers

‘Mixing different expertise makes communication between these people harder’

experienced: ‘involving industrial partners in the lower concept maturity levels of CD&E projects is difficult due to rules on public procurement’, while another TNO project manager experienced: ‘industrial partners to be hesitant to join CD&E projects’. All employees of TNO experienced communication to be essential during CD&E projects and more important with respect to conventional projects, both internal as external communication. As one TNO project manager stated: ‘The only thing we can do to involve the end-user or SME’s in projects, is to explain them why it is a good idea for them to be involved. We can’t force them’, a different example from an interviewee: ‘in order to keep all the different stakeholders involved, these stakeholders need to understand each other. This is more of a challenge with such a variety of expertise’.

6.3.2 Level of competence

The subject on the level of competence of employees of the organisations with CD&E resulted in consistent answers from both the Ministry of Defence and TNO, there is a lack of familiarity with CD&E among all the organisations directly involved, let alone the industrial partners. Several interviewees experienced the job rotation of military personnel at the Ministry of Defence contributing to this problem, as some stated: ‘after working

together with a certain officer for a few years on a CD&E project, the officer got rotated and the replacement had no experience with CD&E and was reluctant to using it. Getting this officer to invest time, money and effort of his troops in a CD&E project is a lot harder if he is not knowledgeable with CD&E ’. A project manager of TNO mentioned a vicious circle

regarding the level of CD&E competence: ‘if people are not knowledgeable with CD&E and did not experience it, people are reluctant to start a CD&E project. But if you never start experiencing a CD&E project you will never gain a certain level of competence with CD&E’.

6.3.3 Customer relationship

‘Involving the end-users is essential for CD&E projects’ is mentioned by most of the interviewees, which is a major difference compared to conventional projects in which end-users were usually not involved. The advantage of involving end-users is mainly considered the creation of a support base among the end-users, ‘as the end-users are involved the concepts are developed in capabilities they consider effective. This creates a support base as the end-users experience they can rely on the new equipment. If equipment is not trustworthy, the end-users don’t want to have it’. Involving the end- users is experienced to be difficult for TNO

project managers and one officer. As they stated: ‘involving the end-users is hard due to the budget cuts of the last decades. Their workload is high and participating has to

compete directly with training exercises and deployments’.

Teamwork Communication less

important with respect to CD&E (T2/6). Current: Heterogeneous teams (D4/5, T6/6, N). Communications essential in CD&E projects (T6/6, N). Ideal: Heterogeneous teams consisting of a dedicated core team and flexible involvement of ‘if people are not knowledgeable with CD&E and did not experience it, people are reluctant to start a CD&E project. But if you never start experiencing a CD&E project you will never gain a certain level of competence with CD&E’

Challenge: Collaboration between expertises (T6/6). Wide variety of projects for team

members (T1/6)

Involving team members (D1/5, T5/6, N). Involvement of industrial partners early during a CD&E (D2/5) required expertise’s (framework contracts) (D1/5, T4/6) Co-located teams to improve communications and speed up projects (T3/6).

Level of competence Current: Lot of

stakeholders are not familiar with CD&E (D4/5, T5/6, N).

Challenge: CD&E ability of stakeholders not sufficient at the moment (D4/5, T5/6, N). Job rotation officers D1/5, T2/6, N).

Ideal: Most

stakeholders having at least some level of CD&E ability, with a few CD&E experts guiding project (D1/5, T3/6). Creating

possibilities for CD&E knowledge sharing among TNO and the Ministry of Defence (D1/5, T3/6)

Customer relationship Conventional projects do not actively involve end-users (D2/5, T4/6, N).

Current: End-users need to be involved and are essential in a CD&E (D1/5, T4/6, N). Involving end-users creates a support-base (D3/5, T5/6) Challenge: Involving end-users difficult (N1/5, T4/6, N). Ideal: End-user always actively involved, and leading in decision- making creating a support-base (D3/5, T2/6). Dedicated CD&E battalion is being established (D2/5, T1/6).

Table 10: Experienced differences conventional and CD&E projects (Category: people)