Collaborative planning — The connective tissue for enterprise systems engineering

Complex enterprises face a common challenge of developing alignment and adaptability as symbiotic emergent properties of high performance. The essence of the challenge is in managing tensions daily across the enterprise in three areas: Where to spend their time? Where to spend their money? and, How to optimize the whole enterprise in the action of each and every part. The paper presents collaborative planning as the connective tissue to establish and maintain line of sight from the strategic and operational to the tactical and individual actions. Against the backdrop of reform to maintenance and capability management, the paper considers how this is helping the Royal Australian Navy improve its whole of life decision-making and balance the usage, upkeep and upgrading of its complex capabilities.