Results tagged “5GW Operationalization”

Are any of our regular readers familiar with "Open Space Technology"?

I just stumbled onto that link and the initiative today, while working a sideline but important (?) initiative of my own in my ongoing Blogshares virtual corporate war.  I stumbled onto it via another interesting site, Siona.com, who described Open Space by quoting Sustainable Sonoma County,

Open Space Technology is a method for conducting meetings based on principles and values that enable innovation, problem solving, creativity, teamwork and rapid change.

In Open Space, participants self-organize based on what is important to them, and as a result, are committed to implementing the changes they envision. Open Space may also be used as a tool for ongoing organizational learning.

In Open Space meetings and events, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme or question of strategic importance. With groups of 5 to 1000—working in conferences ranging from one to seven days, or in regular weekly meetings—the result is a powerful, effective connecting and strengthening of what is happening in the organization: planning and action, learning and doing, passion and responsibility, participation and performance.

From Sustainable Sonoma County

-- and then going on to describe a self-organizing meeting, which might include a facilitator who would describe the type of meeting to the participants:

A chime rings; someone stands. This is the facilitator. She begins to speak.

“I know you might be confused, or curious about what's going to happen,” she says, “But don’t worry. By the end of the Open Space meeting, this mass of people will have enthusiastically organized themselves into dedicated committees. Everything that needed to be addressed will have been addressed. The necessary task forces will have been created. Not only will the group be positioned to again move forward, it will be enthusiastically inspired to do so.“

I facilitate people in connecting to themselves, the organizations of which they're a part, and to the communities in which they live. I'm committed to the dream of a saner and more abundant world —starting from within.

My professional philosophy is based on the premise that prosperity and peace— both personal and collective—are brought about by the cultivation of responsibility and love.

There is an unfortunate lack of attention paid to the value of radical responsibility. Nearly all of us desire change, be it in our lives, in our relationships, in our business practices, or in our financial positions. In order for any change to occur, though, it is necessary to take responsibility for making that change, and taking responsibility involves first accepting, fully, the situation as it is.

Such acceptance is rarely easy.

It's necessary, though, and while it may not be easy, it's certainly possible. And the results are transformative.

I'm obsessed with systems thinking, the evolution of community, open space technology, organizational development, and the brilliant beauty of individual subjectivities. Presence capitvates me; I take solace, and delight, in the insane intensity of immediate experience. I'm enthralled by complexity and I'm fascinated by people.

My theme for this year is engagement.

I'm  Zaadz's Synchronicity Coordinator; I work in the area of business development, community building, media relations, and corporate communications. And best of all, I write. Consider me the resident speaker of our shared vision—and future. (Yes, that 'our' includes you.) My weekends are often consumed with my organizational development, community building, and facilitation work, which you can learn about at my web site. And I love conducting “unconferences;” if you're looking for an unusual experience to make your next gathering more memorable, drop me a note.

While the mechanics of Open Space provide a simple means to self-organize, it is the underlying principles that make it effective both for meetings and as a guidepost for individual and collective effectiveness. The Law of Two Feet (also known as the Law of Mobility in settings where participants don't necessarily have the use of both feet) -- a foot of passion and a foot of responsibility -- expresses the core idea of taking responsibility for what you love. In practical terms, the law says that if you're neither contributing nor getting value where you are, use your two feet (or available form of mobility) and go somewhere where you can. It is also a reminder to stand up for your passion. From the law, flow four principles:

* Whoever comes are the right people
* Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
* Whenever it starts is the right time
* When it's over, it's over

The organizing theme of an Open Space meeting is that people who care about the subject will come together. The initial meeting notice takes the form of an invitation, thus the people who have attended have chosen to be there and are willing to contribute. The objectives for the meeting and the time available affect design decisions such as whether action planning is included in the Open Space or not.

What is the nature of the secrecy or invisibility of Fifth Generation Warfare?

I have been thinking lately about the idea that 5GW will be secret, or invisible because it is hard to distinguish what is 5GW and what is not. I have also considered, at length, the concept that a 5GW campaign will function at a strategic level that by nature will also be hard to observe, while operationally and tactically it will appear to be acting at a lower rung on the XGW ladder (if at all). I have seen this type of security described before as security through obscurity. Fundamentally speaking, I am not completely happy with that approach. While it may be effective in most cases security through obscurity is essentially a passive defense. Such passive defense is most similar to camouflage or mimicry and while blending into your surroundings, or resembling something you are not, may be effective at some level once that veil is pierced the organization is no longer able to operate. This is why I feel an active defense is something that should be an essential component of 5GW theory.

How it should work:

Fundamentally speaking the 5GW organization should operate by proxy at every possible opportunity. Ideally, there should also be one or more levels of cutouts between the proxies and 5GW organizations. At every opportunity the 5GW organization should be isolated from its operations with its directives and orders moving through highly specialized and designated channels that, brutally and bluntly speaking, when eliminated will leave nothing but dead ends for anyone seeking to unravel a 5GW campaign.

Why it needs to work this way:

An organization using fifth generation warfare undertakes operations in order to provoke a specific reaction or result. It does this best by influencing the opposing aspects of a situation. In short, it works on the offensive and defensive (perhaps also on the neutral) sides of a conflict and plays all ends against the middle. Remember, the result is the goal of the 5GW organization. To best accomplish this the various sides must never realize that they are being manipulated much less that there is an organization working on both sides of a conflict. They must believe they are acting of their own will. They must believe their responses are in their own best interest and must not realize that interest and the reaction to that interest has been carefully conditioned. Secrecy is essential to reach the most optimum conclusion.

After I described how we will lose the war of ideas to al Qaeda and therefore must search for a better way of winning, Curtis asked that I be more precise. Specifically, how would I build a 5GW that can lead America to victory even after conceding the 4GW battlespace to al Qaeda? And how should the centerpeice of our 5GW to shrink the gap, the Military-Industrial-Sysadmin-Complex, look like?

The Military-Industrial-Sysadmin Complex (MISC) is a broader version of Thomas P.M. Barnett's "Department of Everything Else (DOEE)." While Barnett's DOEE takes on, the "miscellaneous" functions of the federal government involved in processing politically bankrupt states, the MISC is the broader structure which keeps the long war going.

The Military-Industrial-Sysadmin-Complex must be built around an Iron Triangle of Congress, the Department of Everything Else, and Sysadmin Contractors.

A Typical Iron Triangle

Each edge of the MISC supports each other. The Virutal Department of Everything Else funnels money to contractors. The contractors provide jobs for voters and therefore votes for incumbent Congressmen. Congressmen fund the Virtual Department of Everything Else.

The Iron Triangle that will Shrink the Gap

Just as the Military-Industrial-Leviathan-Complex that won the Cold War existed in all its pieces before the National Security Act of 1947, each part of the Iron Triangle can be assembled from politicians

The Congress

• 435 Representatives, of both parties


• 100 Senators, of both parties

The Department of Everything Else

• FEMA


• The Army and Marines


• US AID


• &c

The Sysadmin Contractors

• Lockheed Martin (especially their integration unit)


• Blackwater (and related security contractors)


• Enterra (and other provides of development in a box)


• &c

In shrinking the gap, as in most of politics, principles are fine, but steady cash flows are better.

Defeat al Qaeda. Win the Long War. Shrink the Gap. Build the Military-Industrial-Sysadmin-Complex.

As discussed in Part 1 of this series, sequential design, also known as the Waterfall model, provides a framework for a 5GW campaign where the goal is focused, its requirements are known and fixed, and the timeframe for the 5GW operations is of a known length. If the 5GW effector is confronted with a goal that is broad in scope, with requirements that aren’t fully known or understood and may, in fact, be subject to change, then the Waterfall model is unlikely to be as effective. Iterative design, however, offers a great deal more utility.

As far as software design is concerned iterative design works much better than sequential design. As a result a number of design models have been created. Some of the best known of the iterative models are Rational Unified Process (RUP), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Rapid Application Development (RAD), Agile and Spiral. Each model offers a slightly different process that addresses problems found in software design. Some of these refinements may also have application for 5GW iterative design but for the purposes of this discussion of 5GW I will use a basic iterative process as illustration.

Updated: With Graphic by Curtis Weeks

Re-Updated: to give credit where credit is due -hat tip to TDAXP-

While searching the internet for others who are working on 5GW or its equivalent, I ran across an article on Phil Jones’s ThoughtStorms wiki where he was plucking interesting bits and phrases from Dan TDAXP's Dreaming 5th Generation War.

“5th Generation Wars will be created with Waterfall Development? We can see what 5GWs will be like by looking at what Waterfall Development is like:

· Requirements must be known a long time before fighting begins
· Requirements will be rigid and non-adaptable
· Long Time between proposal and victory “

While at the time I didn’t know what Waterfall Development meant in this context the Wikipedia soon enlightened me.

“The waterfall model is a sequentialsoftware development model (a process for the creation of software) in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration, and maintenance.”

Wikipedia, Waterfall Development

What does this mean for 5GW theory? Well, along with its sister Interative Design (an article for another day), this provides a framework by which 5GW may be organized and executed.