From absurd delays to ludicrous speed: process beats bureaucracy

By early 2022, Scott Rheeder had already spent years navigating complex operations, from the Cyprus buffer zone to the COVID response and multinational validation exercises. Then a problem that should have been simple exposed one of the clearest lessons behind Voetsek Solutions.

3 UK Division began receiving its first electric vehicles as part of the MOD green transition. The intent made sense. The process did not. The vehicles arrived without the basic infrastructure needed to charge them.

A new capability had been delivered, but the system around it was not ready. That is where good people get stuck. They inherit the promise, then spend their time fighting the drag.

The absurdity was obvious

Receiving EVs with no charging infrastructure was like receiving petrol or diesel vehicles with no fuel station. When Scott contacted the Defence Infrastructure Organisation team responsible for charging rollout, the answer was two years because there was no immediate funding.

This was not a surprise. In 2021, Scott had warned the project team that infrastructure had to come first. His point was simple: infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. He even referenced Location, Location, Location to make the message land. The response was that the project had electrical engineers, civil engineers, town planners, and a full team.

The warning still came true. Vehicles arrived. Chargers did not. Staff then had to create wasteful workarounds, including driving EVs between barracks to charge them. Two vehicles and two people could be tied up just to move one vehicle a mile for charging.

A system can look compliant and still be perfectly designed to fail.

The people in the middle needed movement

The heroes were the soldiers, officers, civil servants, and transport staff at 3 UK Division who were trying to do their jobs. They were not resisting change. They were trying to make the green transition usable while the official process lagged behind reality.

This is the same problem many organisations face. A new system lands. A policy changes. A new capability is announced. The people expected to use it are left without the process, training, infrastructure, or decision route needed to make it work.

The guide work was practical, not glamorous

Walking the grounds of 3 UK Division headquarters, Scott spotted an opportunity at the back of the HQ: an old 415V substation with unused, brittle 16A and 32A command plugs.

Unable to get immediate help through the normal infrastructure route, Scott took ownership of the problem. The aim was not to create a perfect grand project. The aim was to get a safe, usable, low-cost route moving.

• +Submit a Low Value Business Case to repair and reuse the existing plugs.
• +Deliver the repair route for about £3,000.
• +Create a second business case to purchase three EV charging leads.
• +Write a clear three-page administrative instruction for private EV charging rules.
• +Build a simple user flowchart and familiarisation register.
• +Set up a practical payment mechanism through the financial staff sergeant, despite initial pushback.

The process around charging rates still took eight months to confirm a simple 28p/kWh cost-recovery rate under Treasury rules. Scott did not sit still while that happened. The practical user route was built in weeks, and the private EV charging solution was operational within one month of the initiative.

Full bureaucratic alignment took longer, but the points were up and running before Scott left the Division in 2024. Staff used them. Staff valued them. Two separate Majors from other units later asked Scott how to replicate the setup.

The cost difference told its own story

Official contractors later charged £15,000 per charging station, with two plugs. That meant £30,000 for two stations. Scott’s route delivered four charging points at a fraction of the cost.

The lesson was not that every workaround is better than a formal project. The lesson was that the right process must fit the problem, the budget, the user, and the urgency. If the formal route cannot move, a practical route has to be designed without losing control of safety, rules, or accountability.

What this sharpened for Voetsek Solutions

This episode made the difference between bureaucracy and process innovation brutally clear. Bureaucracy protects the route even when the route is failing. Process innovation protects the outcome by designing a route people can actually use.

Scott’s early lessons from fixing things with his grandfather, Gramps, in South Africa came back into focus here. Diagnose the problem. Look at what is already available. Build the relationship. Document the route. Train the users. Keep the system moving.

In January 2025, the MOD’s Chief of the General Staff listed EV charging infrastructure as the top absurdity in defence. For Scott, that confirmed what this episode had already shown: good ideas die when warnings are ignored, practical people are slowed down, and process becomes more important than the outcome.

What this means for business

Many organisations are handed new capabilities without the supporting process. A new platform launches without training. A fleet changes without infrastructure. A strategy changes without ownership. A compliance process grows until nobody can move quickly without fear.

Voetsek Solutions helps leadership teams find the practical route through that kind of drag. That can mean rapid infrastructure enablement, cost-effective workarounds that become standard practice, user instructions people can follow, payment or ownership routes that actually work, and relationship-driven execution when the official route is too slow.

The client’s team remains the hero. Scott’s job is to guide the diagnosis, cut through the noise, and help build a process that survives contact with the real working day.

Ludicrous speed is not chaos. It is clear process with the dead weight removed.

If your organisation is receiving new capabilities but still lacks the supporting process, start there. The solution may not need to be bigger. It may need to be clearer, faster, cheaper, and closer to the people doing the work.