CCRP - Education Materials
Welcome to the new CCRP Educational Materials section. A variety of educational C2 materials will eventually be posted here. The first such offering is the Network Enabled Command and Control (NEC2) Short Course. Additionally a preview of the Knowledge Superiority Certification Program at the Naval Postgraduate School is provided.
NEC2 Short Course
C2-related educational objectives of this course include providing students with the understanding necessary to answer the following basic questions:
- What is “command and control”?
- What is NEC2?
- What is the value chain that links C2-related capabilities to mission success?
- Is there a “best” approach to C2?
- Why are 21st century missions “complex endeavors”?
- Is either traditional C2 or NEC2 well-suited for complex endeavors?
- Are there other approaches to accomplishing the functions associated with command and control?
- How should organizations approach C2 in order to be successful in complex endeavors?
- What policies, investment strategies, organizational constructs, processes, and technical capabilities need to be developed and adopted to ensure that the functions associated with command and control are implemented appropriately for complex endeavors?
Knowledge Superiority
C2-related educational objectives of this course include providing students with the understanding necessary to answer the following basic questions:
- Why does C2 depend fundamentally upon slow-flowing, experience-based tacit knowledge, and conversely, why is dependence upon fast-flowing, technology-driven explicit knowledge and information futile?
- What is “knowledge superiority,” and how does it subsume and extend “knowledge management”?
- How does knowledge function on the critical path of competitive advantage?
- How can leaders, managers and executives identify and treat knowledge clumping, clotting and hemorrhaging?
- What should leaders, managers and executives do to promote the flows of knowledge through their organizations?
- Why must tacit knowledge be understood and managed differently than explicit knowledge?
- Why are technical approaches such as intranets, portals, document repositories, search engines, taxonomies and the like wholly inadequate?
- Why is it futile to rely upon explicit knowledge (e.g., lessons learned, after action reviews, standard operating procedures)?
- How does one integrate people, processes, technologies and organizations to promote rapid and reliable knowledge flows through the organization?
- How can knowledge and its impact on organizational efficacy be measured and managed?
- How can the severe knowledge flow problem associated with workforce retirement be addressed effectively?
Applying Network Science in C2
The disciplines of network-enabled C2 and modern network science both emerged in the mid-1990s. Network science is a branch of mathematics that can be applied to biological, physical, technical, information, cognitive, social, and organizational networks. Despite the obvious connections between the two disciplines, they developed separately with their own research communities, conferences, and journals.
A new book, entitled “Network Topology in Command and Control: Organization, operation, and evolution” combines C2 and network science in a form accessible to commanders, controllers, operators, and other practitioners, as well as researchers and students. With a Foreword from MGen (retd) Koen Gijsbers, the General Manager of the NATO Communications and Information Agency, the book comprises 12 contributions from Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Case studies range from engaging citizens in finding missing children, through a major fire in a chemical factory and an insurgency scenario, to military operations in Libya and the events of September 11th, 2001. The book advances beyond the work done by West Point’s Network Science Center, the Network Science Collaborative Technical Alliance, and the UK-US International Technology Alliance into organizational and coalition applications.
Full details can be obtained here.