British Military Decision Making

Tuesday 13th July 2010, 6:30 pm.

Speaker: Scott Maxwell

University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB - map (click on Informatics Forum in the list of buildings).

Synopsis

The British Military decision making process has been developed to equip commanders to make the most critical of decisions, often under extreme time pressure. The complex and vast array of information needed in these situations is delivered by the Military Decision Brief. As a tool the Brief is designed to feed a complex matrix of time-critical technical information to decision makers in order for them to make the right decision.

For the last two years Royal Navy Information Systems Specialist Scott Maxwell has developed Military Decision Briefs for Ministers of State and Senior Military Officials in Whitehall as part of the UK Nuclear Firing Chain. In this lecture he looks at how Decision Briefs can be applied to the modern IS Operational and Business Decision Making Process.

About the speaker

After graduating in 1993 from Edinburgh University with honours in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Scott Maxwell worked for Dundee Computer Games firm DMA Design before moving to VIS Entertainment as VP of Development. In 2001 Scott applied his technical and project management expertise to the design and building of an advanced and innovative digital TV facility for VISiTV and Telewest. In 2004 he joined the Royal Navy and subsequently served aboard HMS ILLUSTRIOUS and HMS CUMBERLAND before being given operational control of IS Service Provision at the RN's Primary training establishment at HMS RALEIGH in Cornwall. In 2008 he was given the position of UK Targeting Officer and IS Specialist at the RN's Nuclear Operations and Targeting Centre in London. Scott is currently working as a consultant in IS Architecture and Operations.