Applying VSM within the Defence Enterprise

In 2010, the Secretary of State for Defence tasked Lord Levene of Portsoken to carry out an independent root and branch review of how the Ministry of Defence was structured and managed, to address the legacy of overspend and maximise the use of people and resources. The subsequent 2011 publication of Lord Levene’s ‘Defence Reform’ report, setting a new operating model for the MOD, hailed an unprecedented level of organisational transformation.
Lou will share how Dstl has developed and applied a VSM-based approach to support the MOD in assessing and maturing the organisational and functional health of key systems within the Defence Enterprise, and will discuss the challenge of effective engagement and communication between systems practitioner, system participants and senior decision makers.
Lou is a Consulting Fellow within the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, an executive agency of the Ministry of Defence. Since gaining a PhD in chemistry, she has taken a wiggly career path within the MOD, meandering through chemical and biological arms control, research into development of system skills, programme management, and leading organisational change programmes. For the past three years, she has been a systems consultant, supporting Government in understanding and addressing some of its trickiest problems.