Analysis & Lessons Learned

Experience tells us that failure and success are an inevitable part of day-to-day life. However through careful analysis we can identify the reasons (i.e. the root causes) and derive lessons in order to improve future performance – whether it be avoiding repetition of mistakes or benefiting from previous experience.

Undoubtedly this applies also for the military sphere. Lessons derived from operations and training, exercises, or experiments are a substantial basis for ensuring better performance in current and future endeavours only when they are actively exploited in order to remedy a problem and to implement the desired change for improvement.

Consequently the COE CSW is supporting the NATO Lessons Learned (LL) process and thus contributing to NATO’s transformational efforts in the maritime domain. The overall purpose of the NATO LL process is to contribute to the development of Doctrine, Organisation, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities - Interoperability (DOTMLPF-I).

The COE CSW Lessons Learned activities are closely interlinked with the broad field of Education, Training, Exercises & Evaluation (ETEE). We collaborate with the NATO LL Community of Interest which includes entities from the NATO Command Structure, NATO Force Structure as well as national entities. We are also providing Subject Matter Expertise to derive lessons through analysing specified focus areas in exercises and operations.

Many observations gathered by our team from operations and during exercises directly feed back into our Projects and Activities. For instance, doctrine development is systematically validated by the conduct of respective trials at a very advanced level with an increasing complexity every year.

In 2016, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and the Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation endorsed an initiative spearheaded by the Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) and the COE CSW to improve the NATO LL process in the maritime domain. The aim is to reinvigorate the sub-process of collecting observations including the management of that sub-process, and secondly, to streamline the overall coordination of the LL process throughout NATO’s maritime domain.

Our Work | © Deutsche Marine