Winston Churchill's Decision-Making Environment, Part 8: Preparation for Testing the Complete Solution

InfoManagement Direct, April 2007

Mark Kozak-Holland

The first lesson-from-history article looked at how in May 1940, within Winston Churchill's administration, a real-time decision-making environment was created.

The second lesson-from-history article examined the Bentley Priory decision-making environment, at the center of an integrated air defense system, and part of an overall sense-and-respond system used by Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighter Command under Air Marshall Hugh Dowding.

The third lesson-from-history article examined the supply chain run by Whitehall and how Lord Beaverbrook introduced the concepts of agility to improve the efficiency of the supply chain.

The fourth lesson-from-history article examined in more detail the third area, Bletchley Park, the role of intelligence and ultimately knowledge management.

The fifth lesson-from-history article examined in more detail the fourth area, Storey's Gate, the Map Room and the executive dashboard for Churchill.

The sixth lesson-from-history article examined Storey's Gate and the Cabinet War Rooms, a collaborative environment for decision-making environment and its relationship to the Map Room.

The seventh lesson-from-history article examined how the basic components of the solution came together and were integrated into a sense-and-respond solution.

In May 1940, Churchill, faced with an imminent invasion, ran a project that integrated four areas into an "adaptive" solution. These were all at different levels of development and maturity, and included Bentley Priory, the Whitehall supply chain for fighter production, Bletchley Park and Storey's Gate (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Churchill's Solution Consisted of Four Integrated Areas

This eighth lesson-from-history article examines more closely the interfaces for information exchange and how the solution was integrated and prepared for testing and operation, in readiness for the forthcoming air battle.

Part 7 looked at the information exchanges between the four areas (see Part 7, Figure 6). The information was from multiple sources and in different formats, like paper, image, electronic and voice. The main interfaces or channels for exchanging information were through the telephone or teleprinter, as shown in Figure 2. The same channel was not always used in both directions because of the security of certain information.

Figure 2: The Interfaces or Channels for Information Exchange

Some of the integration within the solution was particularly challenging because of these security implications. For example, information provided by Bletchley Park, was very problematic and great caution had to be taken in handling Ultra (see Part 4) so that it was not disseminated through an insecure interface into an organizational hierarchy prone to security breaches.

As a solution, Bletchley Park created Special Liaison Units (SLUs) under the auspices of RAF Captain Fred Winterbotham for the sole task of security and distribution. These were connected to Storey's Gate and Bentley Priory, and information from a top-secret source would be distributed to the Director of Intelligence located there, as shown in Figure 3. The dissemination of information performed by the SLUs was done through different secure channels, such as isolated teleprinters, courier bags and scrambler phones.

Figure 3: The Dissemination of Information through SLUs

Eventually, following Churchill's concerns about security leaks, the list of recipients for Ultra was strictly limited to a grand total of nine people. SLUs were located at Bletchley Park and then later overseas in Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus and Egypt to be closer to the front lines.

In a complex adaptive solution, the areas requiring integration are typically at different levels of development and maturity. The approach to build, integrate and test needs to be driven by a release strategy which is prioritized by the criticality of events within use cases. With Churchill's solution, there was little difference in approach. For example, an imminent enemy raid on RAF airfields (high) was by far more critical than an enemy raid on towns or cities (low); as callous as it may seem, knocking out the primary defense mechanism would be more costly in casualties in the longer run.

Figure 4 outlines sample events, the area(s)/sub-areas involved in identifying or sensing these, the area(s) involved in responding to the events and the types of actions taken.

Figure 4: Areas Responsible for Sensing and Responding to Events

Each event had to be carefully considered to determine how it would be sensed and the area(s)/sub-areas targeted to respond to it, as there could be several. From this the if-then conditional logic could be determined to create the action and response to the event based on the overall complexity. Also, thought had to be given to the test cases required for testing this logic.

Churchill's architects, under tremendous time pressure, had to look at what could be delivered in a very short timeframe, what needed completion and what could be put off. The priority of completion and deployment related to completing the sense and respond solution at Bentley Priory and Bletchley Park so high-priority events could be responded to (events 1, 4, 5, and 8 from Figure 4). Although not obvious in Figure 4, another priority was the integration of Storey's Gate, Bletchley Park and Whitehall, as shown in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5: Release Model Macro View

At a more micro level, within each release there were build cycles, and within these, programming cycles, as shown in Figure 6. The sequencing of this was driven by the events from Figure 4. For example, at Bentley Priory for cycle 1, the build sequence was radar, observers, and Ultra, as this was the order of readiness. Bentley Priory was a higher priority than Whitehall, so resources were prioritized and there was no clash over these.

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