COP of the Rock: 3ID's rollback to improve communication platforms

BOLESŁAWIEC, Poland - In an era of modernization, the 3rd Infantry Division has embraced new ways of communicating efficiently and effectively, exploring the latest information technology the Army has to offer.

In preparation for Task Force Marne's current deployment to Poland, Maj. Gen. Christopher R. Norrie, commanding general of 3ID, expressed interest in maintaining better communication between forward and rear teams while the unit was deployed.

"When the new CG came onboard, he directed staff to [unburden] leaders," said Maj. Kevin Quigley, 3ID's Operations Research and Systems Analyst (ORSA) Assessment Officer and principal data analyst for 3ID.

Quigley explained that Norrie desired a system that reduced the man-hour requirements of building traditional staff products like PowerPoint slides and emailed reports to improve productivity and communication.

"Our digital transformation has not necessarily led to better analysis," said Maj. Daniel DeNeve, another 3ID ORSA, explaining that many digital advancements have resulted in an ever-increasing burden for leaders to gather data from different systems of record and report them through inefficient meetings presented through slide presentations.

Producing a solution to this problem prior to 3ID's deployment to Poland was placed in the hands of a small team of peers. This small team structure ran counter to the typical staff processes where a senior member manages the staff and guides the plan or products to meet their vision.

The team aimed to create a central communication platform to view Division-level data in a structured format, whose purpose is to replace or supplement traditional reporting requirements.

One of the team members, 3ID's Chief of Operations, Maj. Patrick Glazebrook, proposed the name "COP (Common Operating Picture) of the Rock," a play on one of 3ID's mottos, "Top of the Rock."

"The COP of the Rock provided a centralized platform for shared understanding that [can be easily read] like a daily newspaper," DeNeve said.

DeNeve explained that staff sections have ownership of various pages within the digital COP and are responsible for applying their subject matter expertise to ensure the analysis present is timely and provides information needed by fellow sections working within 3ID.

With staff members and commanders spending less time updating presentation slides or writing emails, more opportunities arise in meetings for thoughtful dialogue and critical thinking about the implications of data.

"The COP helped transform the organization into a data-focused unit with a hunger for more data to enable better, more informed decisions," Quigley said. "We are operating in a command climate that encourages learning and innovation while accepting small failures on our way to better processes."

Since its conception, the COP of the Rock has undergone many changes to better adapt to 3ID's constantly growing needs. Quigley states that he believes similar products would certainly benefit other commands across the military.

"We built the COP of the Rock specifically for 3ID, but the architecture could be easily applied to other units, assuming similar access to data from systems of record [like] Digital Training Management System (DTMS) and the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army (IPPS-A)," Quigley said.

The return on investment for the COP of the Rock has been best measured by assessing the cultural shift and changes to 3ID's business practices.

"As we [continue to] realize the benefits, we continue [the] momentum that leads to an organization that is better at warfighting and better understands how to take care of our people," DeNeve said. "I cannot say that our approach should be [copy and pasted] across all our formations, but I do feel that the Army is overdue for changes in how we leverage data and conduct our business."

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