Breaking down silos: the power of technical ecosystems

After 15 years of watching technology solutions come and go within defence, it’s clear that building isolated solutions from the ground up each time is hugely inefficient. We've all seen how when a new requirement comes in, teams immediately dive into building a complete solution from scratch, implementing their own platform services, creating new data stores, and developing duplicate application components. While this approach might seem faster initially, it creates "digital islands" – technology solutions that share similar capabilities but can't easily communicate with each other, and are therefore unable to leverage each other's strengths.

Think about it like this: when you're building a house, you tap into existing infrastructure for power, water and telecoms, rather than creating each from scratch. The same principle should apply to our technical solutions: a technical ecosystem focused on a platform-first approach provides the shared infrastructure, common components, and standardised approaches that every application can build upon.

What does this mean in practice? Instead of each project implementing its own version of platform services, data management, and application components, we create horizontal capabilities that span across these layers of our technology stack. This means creating a unified platform layer providing common services for all applications, a single source of truth for data, eliminating duplicated and inconsistent information, and reusable application components that ensure consistency and reduce development time.

The real power comes from what this enables:

• Speed to value: When teams can focus on solving unique business problems instead of rebuilding basic components, they deliver value faster
• Consistent experience: Users shouldn't have to learn new navigation patterns or authentication processes for every application. An ecosystem and standardised approach ensures consistency across solutions, reducing cognitive load and training requirements
• Shared innovation: When one team develops a new capability or solves a complex problem, that solution becomes available to everyone.

Building an ecosystem isn't just a technical challenge, it requires a fundamental shift in how we think about development. It means moving from "my solution" to "our ecosystem." This wasn't an easy lesson for me to learn, but it's been transformative. The key is understanding that your contribution to the ecosystem is as valuable as your individual solutions. When I first embraced this approach, I was amazed at how much faster our teams could deliver by building on others' work.

The shift to an ecosystem isn't always smooth sailing – arguments about unique requirements and special cases are inevitable. But I've learned that these challenges often reveal opportunities to make the ecosystem even more robust and flexible. I like to say if I cannot figure out a problem in 10 minutes I should ask somebody. In a well-designed ecosystem, the answer is probably already there. You just need to know where to look and who to ask.

As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, the ability to rapidly adapt and deliver value becomes increasingly crucial. The future belongs to organisations that can break down their technical silos and create platforms that enable rather than constrain. It's not just about technology; it's about creating the conditions where innovation can flourish and value can be delivered at pace. The choice is clear: we can continue building digital islands, or we can create continents of capability that grow stronger with each new addition. From where I stand, the ecosystem approach isn't just better – it's essential for our future success.