18 Nov 2025

In defence transformation, you get what you measure

Guest blog by Enrique Oti at Second Front Systems #DefTechWeek2025

Enrique Oti

Second Front Systems

In the business world, the adage “you get what you measure” is both advice and a warning to leaders and managers to focus on the outcomes you really desire, because if you measure the wrong thing, you end up optimizing for something that doesn’t really drive value to your business. This is often called the One Metric That Matters (OMTM). This concept holds true for the Ministry of Defence as well, as the changing geopolitics dictate that the MOD moves quickly to transform the armed forces into a more efficient and lethal fighting force through the use of existing and emerging technologies.

As the MOD manages its transformation, the conversations and writings around “digital adoption” and “innovation” often devolve into discussions of agile procurement and budgets, and while these topics are critical, they are not sufficient. If finding and buying new technology becomes the OMTM, and the MOD optimizes to achieve goals based on measurements of procurement timelines and money spent on SMEs, then the MOD will become expert on spending money very quickly, but may not actually achieve the outcome of a force equipped for the modern battlefield. The true metric of military transformation must relate to operational outcomes, which means that the transformation has not fully occurred until an operational force has changed its concepts of operations (CONOPS), and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) to better execute its assigned missions. The One Metric That Matters is that, when looking at a specific mission against an assessed threat, is the military better organized, trained, and equipped to fight today than it was yesterday?

While conceptually this may sound simple, the focus on CONOPS and TTPs as the basis for transformation turns traditional innovation cycles on their heads and moves the focal point away from technology and onto the military operator. Rather than innovation organizations following a linear path of scouting technologies, executing pilot programs, finding potential operational customers, and then measuring success with speed and size of contracts to SMEs, a new innovation cycle focused on operational outcomes necessitates that responsibilities are pushed to lower levels of operational units, where they are empowered to build or buy capabilities as they constantly iterate on how they execute their mission. As new operational concepts emerge from organizations around the military, best practices can be shared among units, with enterprise scale solutions being adopted as a new baseline. If implemented correctly, this new methodology could mirror the rapid innovation cycles being seen in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, where the high number of technologists in front line units, combined with the urgency of combat, has created an ecosystem that encourages locally optimized innovations, while also enabling the concepts and technologies to scale across the wider force.

Exploiting this cycle to the maximum extent will require the MOD to grow a cadre of digital warriors: combat proven operators with a deep understanding of technology, enabled through digital platforms and tooling, and empowered at lower operational levels to integrate and adopt new defense tech. These operators must be experts in their mission, but at the same time must be up to date with changes in the commercial technology landscape, always looking for new tools that would give them an advantage in the fight. As they find those tools, they should have the authority and budget to buy at a small scale in order to conduct operational experiments. An important aspect of this experimentation is that enabling functions must also be brought to bear at the same speed and with the same urgency shown by the operator. Whether this includes ranges and test equipment, networks and compute infrastructure, safety and security, or assurance and compliance, placing the operator at the center of innovation necessitates that enabling functions also focus on the One Metric That Matters as they organize, train, and equip themselves to conduct their portion of the mission. This will require digital transformation in each of these enabling functions to emphasize speed and flexibility through automation, as well as an increased appetite for risk, understanding that the real risk is faced by the military operators on the front lines if they cannot iterate to outpace their adversaries.

The need for transformation is clear and the requirement for the military to operationalise new technologies is understood by all, but as a defence ecosystem, we cannot simply focus on solving procurement challenges. These are critical to transformation, but are not sufficient. To be successful in the next warfight, we must ensure that the goal we are striving for, and measuring, is a military force that is constantly evolving and improving, able to adopt and discard technologies and concepts when needed to meet the changing threat. If we measure the correct outcome, we will be able to build the proper defence ecosystem.

Operationalising DefTech campaign week 2025 #DefTechWeek2025

techUK has launched its Operationalising DefTech 2025 campaign week, highlighting how emerging technologies can strengthen defence capability and accelerate innovation across the sector. The campaign showcases member insights, practical use cases, and opportunities to collaborate on the future of defence technology.

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Operationalising DefTech: Defence campaign week launch

Launching techUK’s Defence Campaign Week, Operationalising DefTech, techUK is pleased to welcome John Cunningham, the Director of UK Defence Innovation within the Ministry of Defence to brief members on MOD’s evolving approach to new technologies, alongside the co-founder of Anduril Industries Christian Brose, and Sara Sharkey from Prolinx.

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