Concept development and experimentation (CD&E) is the application of the structure and methods of

experimental science An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

to the challenge of developing future

military capability Military capability is defined by the Australian Defence Force as "the ability to achieve a desired effect in a specific operating environment". It is defined by three interdependent factors: combat readiness, sustainable capability and force stru ...

. CD&E is a forward-looking process for developing and evaluating new concepts, before committing extensive resources. It helps identify the best solution not only from a technical perspective, but also for possible solutions for challenges involving

doctrine Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief syste ...

, organization, training, and material to achieve significant advances in future operations. Developing and identifying future-oriented concepts allows one to: * test their validity/feasibility; * take advantage of other studies/experiments conducted and * save resources and avoid duplication. The potential impacts on interoperability and increased capabilities by emerging concepts must be captured by some process and exploited. Concept development gives broad and sometimes ill-defined ideas a chance to be examined by groups of experts in a logical process. These ideas can come from different sources: e.g.

ministry of defense {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

, industry, servicemen organizations or partners. They can be generated by staff processes, operational experience, formal analytical work, or published proposals. There need be no boundaries on the types of ideas that enter the concept development process, although some simpler ones that modify techniques or procedures might be ‘fast-tracked’ into practice because they are intuitively sound. Typically, promising ideas with a broader scope are explored and refined through

workshops Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the ...

and larger seminars to the point where more mature concepts are formed. These concepts are further debated in committees or working groups and, if accepted, are submitted to the experimental process.

Kinds of experiments

Different kinds of experiments can be conducted: * Discovery experiments questionable scientific practicereveal more details of the scrutinized problem. *

Hypothesis A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obse ...

experiments validate specific thesis and * Demonstration experiments provide an insight into the realization of the a concept. Once validated and accepted, concepts are incorporated into military organizations – for example, through doctrine and capability development processes.

Literature

*NATO Code of Best Practice for C2 Assessment, CCRP Publication Series, 2002

*Alberts, David S., Hayes, Richard E: Code of Best Practice for Experimentation, CCRP Publication Series, 2002

*Alberts, David S., Hayes, Richard E: Campaigns of Experimentation, CCRP Publication Series, 2005

* Guide for Understanding and Implementing Defense Experimentation (GUIDEx), The Technical Cooperation Program, 2006,

GUIDEx Book

GUIDEx Pocketbook

GUIDEx Triptych

External links

* NAT
Concept Development and Experimentation
Working Group * NAT
Concept Development and Experimentation
Conference * NAT
Concept Development and Experimentation Handbook
United States defense procurement NATO