ASD’s capabilities enable it to deliver on its purpose and strategic goals. For the duration of this corporate plan, ASD will place special emphasis on building and enhancing the capabilities needed to meet the challenges of the evolving strategic environment, including changes in technology and data analysis. It will invest in improving leadership skills and building a culture that leverages the strength of a diverse and capable workforce. It will build and foster partnerships to deliver value in this complex operating environment.
People and culture
ASD’s people are its greatest resource. The skills and experience of its people are in high demand across private industry and government. To ensure its success, ASD must continue to attract, develop and retain a diverse and highly skilled workforce.
In the period of this corporate plan, ASD will:
- expand and mature its dedicated human resources, and learning and development functions
- develop ASD’s first dedicated strategic workforce plan to achieve the optimal future workforce to deliver against ASD’s strategic objectives
- develop and deliver a comprehensive attraction and recruitment strategy, focused on growing a diverse and capable workforce
- enhance its training and development programs, underpinned by a comprehensive capability framework
- establish a wellbeing program to safeguard the physical and mental health of its staff
- review its remuneration framework to remain an employer of choice.
Partnerships
ASD’s partnerships are critical enablers for its success in an increasingly complex operating environment.
In the period of this corporate plan, ASD will:
- foster its existing relationships and develop new approaches to deliver mission-related outcomes
- enhance its ability to work with key stakeholders and partners across multiple classifications
- enhance partnerships with industry and academia – particularly in the fields of data science, cyber security, and technology
- strengthen relationships with key foreign counterparts, focusing on delivering outcomes of mutual benefit.
Tradecraft
ASD’s foreign signals intelligence, cyber security, and offensive cyber operations missions require a highly skilled workforce, equipped with the right skills to operate effectively at the cutting edge of technology. The pace of technological change increases ASD’s opportunities to develop new tradecraft, but also increases the challenge of keeping ahead. Meeting this challenge is a critical enabler for ASD’s future capability. ASD is conducting a detailed review of the analyst ecosystem. The review is called CAPRICORNUS and is designed to ensure that analysts are able to deploy modern tradecraft against ASD’s toughest analytical problems.
In the period of this corporate plan, ASD will:
- conduct a multi-year change program to implement the recommendations of the CAPRICORNUS review
- redesign its training framework, focusing on equipping its people with key skills to develop modern and innovative tradecraft
- evolve data and technology systems to support contemporary analytic requirements
- build a culture that enables analysts to flexibly adapt as the tradecraft environment changes, and as technology and target norms evolve.
Technology
Technology is at the heart of ASD’s capability. Mastering and adapting to technological change is crucial to enabling ASD’s ongoing success in delivering foreign signals intelligence, cyber security, and offensive cyber operations.
In the period of this corporate plan ASD will:
- complete a comprehensive review into the technology that underpins its mission, delivering a new strategy for its enterprise and mission systems
- mature its portfolio management capabilities, ensuring its technology investment delivers the capabilities needed to meet its strategic goals
- deliver contemporary technology platforms that provide an enhanced user experience to its workforce
- optimise its technology investment portfolio to effectively strike the balance between current requirements and future capability.
Governance and risk
ASD’s new status as a statutory agency has given it the autonomy to build enterprise governance and risk frameworks that are tailored to the unique nature of ASD’s work. As part of this work, ASD is also strengthening compliance and oversight processes, which provide assurance that ASD acts within the spirit and the letter of the laws that enable us.
In the period of this corporate plan, ASD will:
- mature its risk management frameworks
- refresh its security functions
- grow its compliance and oversight functions, ensuring ASD maintains the highest standards of compliance with the laws that govern our actions
- continue to develop a fit-for-purpose financial management system.
Leadership and influence
The leadership skills of ASD's people - at all levels of the organisation - are vital to its success. ASD's leaders are at the forefront of delivering our strategic initiatives, and supporting and developing our workforce.
In the period of this corporate plan, ASD will:
- invest in developing new leadership capability training, initially focused on enhancing the collective leadership skills of our senior and middle managers
- develop a leadership training pathway for all levels of the organisation.
Diversity and inclusion
ASD’s workforce operates in the slim area between the difficult and the impossible. Solving the toughest problems in foreign signals intelligence, cyber security, and offensive cyber operations requires teams of clever, curious people with diverse and complementary skills. ASD’s strength, resilience, and creativity is derived from the different ages, backgrounds, genders, cultures, neurodiversity, physical abilities, religions and sexualities of its staff. ASD is committed to providing a respectful and inclusive workplace.
In the period of this corporate plan, ASD will:
- deliver ASD’s first diversity and inclusion strategy
- develop an evaluation framework to monitor progress in achieving ASD’s diversity and inclusion goals.