DyerNeed has worked with a large Australian Government agency to develop complex business scenarios that form a framework for both business and technical analysis.

These scenarios provide a link to the agency’s strategic scenario framework and interpret the strategic outcomes in a form that is useful for both the operational and technical user. The business-level stakeholder can use the scenarios to determine how to effectively use current or potential technical solutions; while the technical stakeholder can use the scenarios to explore potential future environments that will influence evolving requirements.

For context, this work addressed a niche capability domain. The scenarios are intended to address strategic risks, by identifying representative adversarial environments. The extant (provided) strategic scenario framework is, by design, vague and ambiguous to ensure greater flexibility in future planning. DyerNeed considered this flexibility and developed a framework for creating multiple scenarios easily based on the strategic guidance.

DyerNeed’s framework, in its simplest form, uses a menu of nominal adversarial situations that can be addressed within the niche capability domain as well as a menu of potential business effectors (units working together) that could find themselves in that adversarial situation.

These business scenarios will be the basis for future modelling and simulation; which is the mechanism through which relevant stakeholders will derive their key high-fidelity supporting information. The scenarios are also drafted such that they can be ‘table-top gamed’ to provide lower-fidelity but more immediate supporting information and understanding.

In doing the work, DyerNeed faced challenges in ensuring that the scenarios would be of value to both the business and technical stakeholders.

• The vagueness of the strategic scenario framework, by design, provides only limited guidance on outcomes. DyerNeed addressed this by first identifying representative adversarial situations consistent with each strategic scenario and ensuring that these situations were focused on an environment that matches the niche capability domain
• The range of technology that can impact the niche capability domain is broad. DyerNeed addressed this by identify the categories of technology that influence the domain and down-selecting specific current and future technology solutions that represent the full perspective of the domain.
• The business effectors (units) that could be deployed in each scenario will depend on the operational requirements of the day. DyerNeed addressed this by creating a small menu of potential unit groups that covered the full perspective of the potential deployments
• The business and technical stakeholders have different expectations of detail and also use language differently. DyerNeed addressed this by presenting the scenarios as illustrated narratives as well as including tables of technical data at the end of each narrative.

The resultant work is scalable and extensible. Stakeholders may add new unit groups or adversarial situations if the future strategic environment changes.