On Powerpoint

[Tom Odom]

One other curiosity is the need to print read ahead and table slides for the group. I might understand read ahead slides if there was something to read and I especially love the use of embedded video and sound to make the main point--that really jumps out of a paper slide.

As for table slides, the big guns get full color single frame; the lesser lights get double slides as an eye test. The non-players of course have to look at the damn screen--which is what everyone is supposed to do.

The tragedy in this is that it is killing written communications skills in the military and that in turn is killing verbal skills. I hear and see mission statements that are so garbled and jumbled with gerunds, passive voice, and useless helpers such as IOT (in order to --which means "to" and should be used sparingly for emphasis) that the actual mission gets lost.

A mission statement in passive voice with no "by whom"...from SAMS grads!

[Schmedlap]

This reminds me of the mercifully short stint that I did as a staff weiner. I was doing IO plans for a TF and had a PA guy who worked with me. He seemed unclear on what exactly he should be briefing to the commander during the daily update brief. My advice to him to was to write a succinct summary of the days events and put it into a draft e-mail, just in case. By "succinct" I meant only those items that the commander would care about and only in the depth that would not lose his attention, meaning less than one page. Then, add in a few blurbs about other stuff in case he asks. Then, during the brief, tell him the gist of it. If he wants the full in-depth version, the go back to your laptop after the brief, open the draft, and press "send." IF you need a slide or two as a visual during the brief, to get the point across, then go ahead and use one. If you don't need it, then don't bother. There is no rule (at least that I'm aware of) that says you NEED to make a slide in order to brief something (at least not in that task force). I think he made a grand total of 3 slides in the 5 or 6 months that we worked together. If that had any impact on his NCOER, it could only have been positive.

I, on the other hand, used slides as a tool to keep people's attention. To many people, "IO" was just some weird staff billet that nobody knew much about that occasionally issued talking points. I had to not only brief the commander, but also educate the rest of the chain of command and staff. I was continually trying to convey what perceptions were out there among the populace, what this meant to us, and how to act upon them. But none of this is of any use if people don't pay attention or care. And when you're the 8th guy to brief out of a group of 10, people are not really in listening mode. So my slides were half content and half humor. After a month or so, you could actually see people kind of wake up and lean forward in their chairs when I began to stand up for my portion. Some of the humor may have been borderline unprofessional, much of it politically incorrect, but people paid attention and it helped me to get my points across and educate them. And the content on the slides really was necessary. Most people didn't even know what IO was prior to the deployment. I genuinely had to paint a picture for them.

[davidbfpo]

An illustrated article 'The problem with PowerPoint' :http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8207849.stm and comes with nine slides.

davidbfpo

[Infanteer]

This is an excellent thread, if for anything because it highlights the subtleties of how communications affect our ability to command and control units and soldiers.

Hammes is on target, but also cursing a hammer for people using it as a screwdriver. That's his choice of approach, a cautious one that avoids (beyond implying) placing blame where due. Much of what he describes (too many slides, too much data crammed onto one slide, etc.) is a mark of a bad briefer.

However, I am seeing the other Office tools be used in similar fashion. Access Databases and Excel files are being created because we have failed to keep systems up with the enemies pace. Excel is being used for funding because we don't know how to make work compute formulas. Microsoft designed each tool for a purpose, and the DoD has taken each and whored it to the maximum extent possible.

Agreed - having suffered through messing around with a 97 page ConOps brief and watching a very good LCol get caught up in silly little parts like the width of boxes left me with a bad taste in using power point for any part of operational planning process.

However, as a Platoon Commander, I utlize Powerpoint to good effect as a tool to bring out discussions on somewhat dry doctrine. Finding good images and videos brings a discussion on "Ambush/Counter-Ambush" alive. However, I try to leave out words to simply the key points, so that Privates and Corporals can remember the fundamentals.

The problem is when the program is abused. As Jason Port has highlighted, the entire suite of Microsoft Office is being pushed in a manner that simply creates nugatory staffwork (my new favorite word drawn from a Storr article). I've seen countless man-hours lost due to myself and my NCOs being caught up in filling Excel spreadsheets (my new nemesis) for tracking various things instead of training soldiers. Instead of being used for a simple calculation tool, it is used as a giant white board leaving the end user to sift through hundreds of cells to find the right ones to fill in (as opposed to simply saying "2 Pers have yet to submit their documentation....").

The most important thing we could do is demonstrate to commanders how Office could work effectively, and then enforce it. Imagine - read aheads in Word, briefings in PowerPoint, and computations in Excel - Incredible.

Yep - unfortunately all learning of essential computer programs to manage and plan within units is done by simply learning on one's own....

The tragedy in this is that it is killing written communications skills in the military and that in turn is killing verbal skills. I hear and see mission statements that are so garbled and jumbled with gerunds, passive voice, and useless helpers such as IOT (in order to --which means "to" and should be used sparingly for emphasis) that the actual mission gets lost.

A mission statement in passive voice with no "by whom"...from SAMS grads!

No kidding - I had "IOT" pushed into my head all throughout my training - "always remember the "IOT"!" The purpose was good - to have us all remember to explain why you're doing the friggin mission, but the IOT was simply fluff (the antithesis of good SD). My Company Commander has since beat IOT out of me with a red pen.

[Michael C]

I could, and have written, pages on why powerpoint is the bane of Army existence. I have one point to show why it is unneccessary. The Taliban and Anti-Iraqi Forces have fought our coalitions in two countries to utter standstills. Yet, they don't have powerpoint, word or excel!

[Rex Brynen]

I could, and have written, pages on why powerpoint is the bane of Army existence. I have one point to show why it is unneccessary. The Taliban and Anti-Iraqi Forces have fought our coalitions in two countries to utter standstills. Yet, they don't have powerpoint, word or excel!

Well, they certainly have and use Word and Excel, not to mention database programs and others. In the public domain, the CTC has done an excellent of using captured electronic records to tell us some interesting things about both AQ and Iraqi insurgents. Long may they continue to use it!

[Schmedlap]

I could, and have written, pages on why powerpoint is the bane of Army existence. I have one point to show why it is unneccessary. The Taliban and Anti-Iraqi Forces have fought our coalitions in two countries to utter standstills. Yet, they don't have powerpoint, word or excel!

As early as OIF III, I recommended that we distribute bootlegged copies of PowerPoint, in hopes that the enemy would use it and become as paralyzed and bureaucratic as us. The means by which I recommended doing this was leaving 5 or 10 copies with each enemy cache of explosives and ammunition that we find (rather than destroying it). Emplace a team to overwatch the cache. If a guy comes out carrying a bag full of explosives, shoot him. If he comes out carrying copies of PowerPoint, then let him go! Unfortunately, my suggestion went nowhere.

[Bill Moore]

If you have a blackbelt in powerpoint, intellect and the creativity of an artist you can use powerpoint to effectively project your story or points. If however you use powerpoint to dumb down a complicated subject to a few bullet statements which provide on context, then every ill thing said about powerpoint is true.

While I agree with Tom's comment about being able to read a map, there is a powerful new information technology emerging in knowledge management called visual analytics, which I think will take decision briefs to a new level. It allows the briefer (or staff) to present and manipulate volumes of complex data visually in way that permits the audience to grasp complex relations without hours of study.

Of course you'll have to have a graduate degree in this technology to effectively use it, but let's not trip over the mouse turds.

[Ron Humphrey]

Of course you'll have to have a graduate degree in this technology to effectively use it, but let's not trip over the mouse turds.

And here I thought I might have it figured out and you go and point out how I'm not gettin it cause m not edumacated enough

Guess I'll just stick to drawin pretty pictures

[Bill Moore]

The next step (I hope) is to simplify the user-software interface so the user doesn't have to be a software engineer, but rather an expert in his field that can use this software to effectively augment his/her analysis and ability to present the results.

http://nvac.pnl.gov/

“Seeing is knowing, though merely seeing is not enough. When you understand what you see, seeing becomes believing.”
~Pak Chung Wong, PNNL Scientist

I recommend reading the executive summary for Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics at the link below.

http://nvac.pnl.gov/agenda.stm

I know some of the more traditional among our members said to forget producing a better crystal ball in another forum, but with the proper use of science we can produce a "better" crystal ball, but we'll never produce a perfect one.

Back to powerpoint and where I think it may evolve to, let's face it powerpoint is a more powerful tool for presenting information than the old method of using boucher block or briefing off a sand table (though the sand table is still a requirement in my book). Unfortunately, like a lot of things the military touches it became stupid, and some idiots were more concerned with font size, style, back ground and the number of bullets on a particular slide, instead of encouraging their staff to use their imagination to find the best ways to "effectively" present their brief.