Planning and the proverbial "Squirrel!"

[TAH]

Quick question-

I have heard that the 5 paragraph order and the MDMP process were developed in case the Big One kicked off vs. the USSR. The story was that if the IRR/inactive reserves were activated the AD cadres could use MDMP as a simple way of leading the not as proficient callups.

Any truth to this? Thanks!

V/R,

Cliff

MDMP is nothing ore then the classic scientific method of problem sovling with different names for the steps.

Two problems/issues with that.

They are both designed to provide the "Best" solution as opposed to a workable solution. Its efficency versus effectiveness. You can be effective and inefficent at the same time. What commanders need in most cases is a workable solution NOW not a better one in a couple of hours.

The other problem is the issue of time. MDMP doe not really account to time. The commander who employs a workable solution NOW will most likely be done and on to the next task/mission before the "Better" guy even gets he order published.

Read a guy named Gary Klein. He defines a much better decision making method he calls recogniztion primed. Much better but assumes a high level of subject matter expertise. Much higher then is commonly found in our Army and it staffs today. Too many people move or change jobs too often to make Klein's method work.

[Tom Odom]

Much better but assumes a high level of subject matter expertise. Much higher then is commonly found in our Army and it staffs today. Too many people move or change jobs too often to make Klein's method work.

True indeed. MDMP is a patch to fix that through process; it fails in that it gets abbreviated to meet time constraints. Meanwhile the personnel system has institutionalized the duality of inexperience and ignorance to create stupidity. Inexperienced people take over new jobs as staff officers and commanders, essentially beginning with a base plate of ignorance that they overcome via experience learning. As soon as they have time to really understand their job, they move on to the next. That system defines stupidity. MDMP is merely a bandaid on a sucking chest wound.

Tom

[TAH]

True indeed. MDMP is a patch to fix that through process; it fails in that it gets abbreviated to meet time constraints. Meanwhile the personnel system has institutionalized the duality of inexperience and ignorance to create stupidity. Inexperienced people take over new jobs as staff officers and commanders, essentially beginning with a base plate of ignorance that they overcome via experience learning. As soon as they have time to really understand their job, they move on to the next. That system defines stupidity. MDMP is merely a bandaid on a sucking chest wound.

Tom

MDMP is a great way for a group of amateurs with alot of time on their hands to use a structured lock-step way to analze a situation and over look absolutely anything, even stuff that should be overlooked.

[William F. Owen]

How is it that men who need something like the MDMP get to be officers?

[Pete]

In all fairness to people who work in the operations research field, they do challenging work and their analyses provide useful points of view for assessing processes. However, the executive summaries of their reports should not be regarded as the revealed truth or as tablets that came down from Mount Sinai, they're merely another way of looking at things.

Operations research is said to have begun when the German army developed its mobilization schedules for deploying units using its railroads prior to the First World War. During World War II in the U.S. the technique was useful for coordinating the delivery of weapons and equipment with personnel accessions and individual training so that units could be activated quickly without lots of "hurry up and wait." That's what I believe MacNamara did during World War II.

However, when operations research is taken outside of organizational and manufacturing processes, such as when it is used for assessing combat operations, it becomes more problematic -- how do you quantify and weight all the different variables? How do you factor in the element of contingency and random events, the "sh*t happens" factor? MacNamara and his Whiz Kids found that out during Vietnam.

[Ken White]

How is it that men who need something like the MDMP get to be officers?

(I've been trying to figure that out for years... ).

[Bob's World]

Don't pin all the blame on MDMP, it's a good process. Blame the CTCs for making the rigorous step-by-step application of MDMP the standard of success.

The problem is not that we codified a logical planning process, but rather that we made the full and rigorous application of it the measure of success over the results of actual operations on the ground. Guys with Patton like talent were deemed "lucky" if the skipped steps but kicked ass. Guys who methodically plodded thru the system but lacked any artistry in vision or execution began to move toward the top.

MDMP is good stuff. Our love of objective metrics, doctrine, and the classis win-lose senior rater profile are the real culprits here.

[Ken White]

Right on the money...