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Executive Summary

The intent of this paper is to offer perspectives on the opportunity available from using this enabler for the Department of National Defence (DND) and the related challenges in gaining acceptance in executing complex projects such as the acquisition of weapon system platforms. In a nutshell, strategic relationship management can speed up such procurements by avoiding the time lost confronting project crises. Over the course of a decade advancing weapons systems platform acquisitions, influential individuals on both sides of signed contracts have sometimes refused to work in a positive manner with parties they were in contract with. In some cases, adversarial positions lasted years and harmed acquisition project outcomes. Since 1990, a new approach has emerged to facilitate long-term strategic business arrangements across organizational boundaries where the goals are challenging to achieve: relationship management in a collaborative manner when clients and their suppliers are pursuing complex projects. As with most new business techniques, the comprehensive employment of collaborative relations is still in the ‘early adopter’ stage of acceptance. In Canada’s recently released defence policy entitled ‘Our North, Strong, and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defence’, a new vision for procuring major defence capabilities for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) was acted, focusing on moving away from transactional approaches for acquiring capabilities to sustained strategic partnerships founded on transparency and trust.

About the Author

After retiring from the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) as a Rear- Admiral, Ian served for a decade (2007-2017) as a Director- General in the Department of National Defence, responsible for aspects of the launch of the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS), and for guiding DND project managers for three RCN shipbuilding projects and four vehicle projects for the Canadian Army. Since leaving government, he has offered shipbuilding and project management perspectives in many papers and in person. Ian is a Fellow of the International Centre for Complex Project Management, of the World Commercial and Contracting Association and of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.