Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch

Technology development is flourishing, but deployment amidst various cultures can of go unattended.  As technologies like virtual reality, artificial intelligence, gaming, and others evolve, initially there is usually a focus on development rather than deployment or sustainment.  Ideally, this development is tied not only to overarching requirements, but also to the end user.  That is, the end-user is involved in technology development early in the design cycle.  However, eventually – and sometimes too late in the deployment process – the organization in which a product or technology is used becomes a critical consideration.  This consideration and inherent challenges that go with it can be especially apparent with games-for-training, as noted in the following article:

https://mwi.usma.edu/why-gamers-will-win-the-next-war/?mc_cid=e5615d628d&mc_eid=9673d94ce1

When new technologies are deployed within the context of large organizations, cultural acceptance and expectations can be slow to change.  This challenge increases exponentially when technologies are deployed for use by various international partners.  If we still grapple with adjusting cultures of single organizations, how do we approach resistance to technology deployment on the scale of multiple disparate countries?  Culture and the deployment environment must be incorporated early in the design process, especially for technologies like gaming, which often involve collaborative use with many players.  The field of human-centered design now must extend to culture-centered design.

via Tim Marler