An Introduction to Inzpire's Collective Training Operational Business Unit
06 Jul 20
Collective Training and Services OBU
Before about two years ago I had never heard of Dunbar’s Number. And why should I have? I’m certainly no anthropologist. But now, largely thanks to Professor Robin Dunbar’s work on primate social relationships and relative neocortex size, I have the opportunity to lead one of Inzpire’s new Operational Business Units: Collective Training and Services.
In the 1990s, Professor Dunbar concluded that humans can maintain a social network of up to approximately 150 people. According to Dunbar and the many researchers in this field, the magic number 150 applied to successful early hunter-gatherer societies and 11th Century villages in England just as it does in today’s groups: communes, factories, residential campsites, offices & military organisations.
Inzpire saw this coming. As we approached 150 people it was clear we were heading for a common stumbling block for growing businesses. We knew that no one person was going to be able maintain situational awareness on the whole business or look after our people as we had in the past. Not even Hugh Griffiths, who probably has the largest neocortex of anyone in my social network. But how do we configure for future growth without losing our flexibility and coherence? We establish four Operational Business Units or OBUs for short: Collective Training Services, Platform Training Services, Technical Services and Products.
In the short term, these OBUs will be delegated some independence and autonomy but, as they continue to grow, this will increase until the point that they are fully fledged business units in their own right.
Our new OBU - Collective Training Services - contains four divisions: Collective Training, Intelligence & Cyber, ISR and, last but not least, Training Services. All four are headed up by highly talented and experienced former military experts. All four contain an amazing and, in many cases, an unrivalled collection of former operational military specialists. We work together to design and deliver the very best services to our customers, both in the U.K. and overseas.
Inzpire's Al Allsop and Mark Doney - our aviation experts embedded within RAF Coningsby's 29 Squadron.
Collective Training Division contains Inzpire’s White Force experts. Through our contracts with the Royal Air Force, we design and deliver exercises for all three UK Services in the live and synthetic environments. We have also carried out extensive research, alongside DSTL and QinetiQ, into the challenges of Live, Virtual and Constructive training design and delivery.
Intelligence and Cyber Division contains the majority of our experts in these disciplines. We provide a team of intelligence and training experts trusted to work at the heart of Defence Intelligence. We also provide significant intelligence training packages to overseas clients in disciplines such as basic intelligence, imagery analysis, GEOINT, OSINT, information operations and critical thinking. Our Cyber team delivers Cyber vulnerability investigations, receiving universally excellent feedback from the MoD customer that we are delivering the ‘gold standard’. We also deliver Cyber training to help organisations protect against the inevitable human behavioural vulnerabilities.
ISR Division is populated by the majority of our large QWI:ISR fraternity. We provide training and services for UK and overseas clients in every aspect of manned and unmanned ISR.
Training Services Division is our newest area, but has enormous potential both within defence and in the wider training sector. We have provided training services for the UK MoD, such as training needs analysis work for the Protector programme, and for customers outside of defence such as network rail.
Trainees participating in Exercise STEEL DRAGON, designed and delivered by training experts from the company's collective training division.
The real strength within our OBU is its capability to provide solutions for our customers which are stronger than the sum of their parts. The benefits of having expert training analysts with the ability to reach into a deep pool of military operational expertise are clear. Similarly, having an unrivalled team of QWI:ISR working alongside an experienced team of Cyber and Intelligence experts allows us to provide a holistic intelligence service. When we add the complimentary capabilities contained within Inzpire’s other OBUs, we can add simulation technology or technical expertise too. There will be more to come from my fellow OBU heads on those capabilities in the near future I’m sure.
In the meantime, we wish all our customers a safe recovery from the current pandemic and hope to have the opportunity to reenergise our social networks soon!
Dan Simmons is Inzpire's Head of Collective Training OBU. You can find out more about Dan here.
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