A modern and resilient digital backbone for the Norwegian Armed Forces – critical success factors

A prerequisite for the Norwegian Armed Forces to solve their tasks in peace, crisis and war is access to appropriate information and communication technology (ICT). Investigations and studies show that the Armed Forces face challenges within ICT. Hence, the Armed Forces have identified a modern and resilient digital backbone as a priority. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the Armed Forces’ digital backbone in a holistic perspective. Our research approach is exploratory, with the following research questions: (1) What constitutes the Armed Forces’ modern and resilient digital backbone in a holistic perspective? (2) What are the critical success factors needed to achieve and maintain a modern and resilient digital backbone for the Armed Forces? Our point of departure is a socio-technical framework that we have adapted for our purposes. Social and technological elements interplay and are mutually dependent. Our framework consists of six factors: (1) organization and goals, (2) technology, (3) real estate and buildings, (4) processes and procedures, (5) people, and (6) culture. We describe the current situation for the Armed Forces' digital backbone within each of the six factors of the framework. Furthermore, we describe the Armed Forces’ modern and resilient digital backbone in the form of a set of proposals based on our data analysis. Such a backbone requires an unambiguous description of roles, responsibilities and authority, interoperability, security against intentional and unintentional incidents, effective change processes, overall competence within ICT and leaders who build culture. We have identified six critical success factors for achieving and maintaining the Armed Forces' modern and resilient digital backbone: The Armed Forces need to (1) ensure access to necessary competence (2) establish structured flexibility in management, (3) improve ability and willingness to implement changes, (4) enable a data-driven enterprise approach, (5) develop a flexible and adaptable digital backbone, and (6) establish and maintain an appropriate level of security. For each of the critical success factors, the study presents several recommendations. However, all of them cannot be achieved at once. As a starting point, we recommend that the Armed Forces prioritize ensuring unambiguous roles, responsibilities, and authority, since this lays the foundation for the implementation of processes and procedures and provides a framework that people and culture must relate to. Furthermore, we recommend that the Norwegian Armed Forces establish and maintain an appropriate security level by obtaining an account of its current state, prioritizing areas of effort and allocating resources to risk and security management. We also propose that the Norwegian Armed Forces start preparing unified goals within the various technological components of the digital backbone, as well as for the overall backbone. Finally, we recommend that the Armed Forces prioritize carrying out a systematic competence analysis to uncover the needs that can be covered by internal resources, and identify which competence needs that can be covered by external partners.