The second day of the NATO Lessons Learned Conference was not only extra lucky because it was St Patrick’s Day, it was also a very full one. After a brief welcome to the over 250 attendees, Mr Stefan Olaru, Research Analyst at JALLC and Officer of Primary Responsibility for the conference, introduced and moderated the first panel of the day. This panel looked at Partner Perspectives on Lessons Learned Capability adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic and included presentations from Ms Caroline Trulsson, Branch Head J7 Lessons Learned, Swedish Armed Forces; Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Robert Kiely; Colonel (COL) Branko Ticac from the EU Military Staff (EUMS). 

 

They covered a wide range of topics including how national armed forces provided support to increase medical facilities, improve military-civilian cooperation, and noted a shift in the Lessons Learned culture from a blame culture to a just culture.

 

 

 

The second panel of the day covered Lessons Learned deliverables adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic and saw Rear Admiral Guy Robinson, Deputy Commander of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO), COL Rupert Alers-Hankey, Future Plans and Requirements Branch Head at SHAPE and COL Juan Molina, Lessons Learned Management Division Head at the JALLC each discuss how their organization had successfully adapted its Lessons Learned output to meet the needs of the Alliance and Nations during the pandemic.

 

The third and final panel of the day was moderated by the HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation’s (SACT) Innovation Hub and looked at, “Innovating in the LL Capability to face future similar crises.” LTC Alfred Rosales, head of the Innovation Hub, led the panel which included Brigadier-General Dieter Kohl, Special Advisor and Innovation Champion at HQ SACT, Mr Paul Thurkettle, Training Technologies Branch at HQ SACT, Dr Arnau Pons, Analysis of Alternatives Branch at HQ SACT and the JALLC’s Mr Stefan Olaru.

 

The panelists each presented different aspects of innovation from their areas of expertise. These included an expose of new technologies being developed that could improve (or already are improving) information gathering, communication, training, and logistics. The increasing importance of using artificial intelligence was also touched upon during the panel in the Alliance’s efforts to increase efficiency through reducing monotonous yet crucial tasks. Mr Stefan Olaru highlighted that since the last NATO Lessons Learned Conference, there have been significant updates to the NATO Lessons Learned Portal (NLLP). He also noted that work has continued on the New NATO Lessons Learned Toolset requirements. The New Toolset is intended to replace the NLLP in the near future and will be an innovative Lessons Learned tool for the whole community.

Day 2 of the conference closed successfully with the promise of the break-out workshop sessions which will take place tomorrow and cover four specific topics: Standardization in Lessons Learned; Improvement and Innovation in Lessons Learned; Collection and Exploitation of Lessons Learned in exercises; and Future Leaders’ Perspectives. It looks like day 3 will be a busy end to a busy three days for the NATO Lessons Learned Community.