Video
Royal Canadian Air Forces Colonel Kevin Whale shares a concrete example of systemic design in practice. Whale realized that RCAF 1st wing squadrons were organized to deploy based on Cold War needs. The fact that RCAF never deployed with full squadrons confirmed this structure as outdated, Whale observed. Building on Senge’s ‘Beer distribution’ model, Whale illustrates how he restructured RCAF 1st wing to be more relevant to current CAF/DND practices and to the global environment: “These theories work, they have applications, and if you help your organization understands them, even at this most basic level .. it’s very powerful.”
Col. Kevin Whale presented at ‘Breaking Down Silos and Connecting Stakeholders: A Symposium on Systems Thinking and Design’ organized by the Centre for National Security Studies and hosted by the Royal Military College at St-Jean on April 11, 2017.