Renamed Thread: Operational Design Discussion

[MikeF]

Dr. Jack,

Sir, is your work to incorporate wicked/ill-defined/un-structured problems going to lead to a new version of MDMP, or are y'all simply providing guidelines for commanders on how to rethink or relook problems?

Mark O'neill / Wilf,

Some of this thread is confusing me, and I've spent two years studying this stuff. I'll try to explain it as best that I can. In the most simplest form, all these folks are trying to do is determine better ways of problem solving. That's it. In most circles, the main strategy to devise better answers is more defined and thorough problem definition.

Wicked, ill-defined, unstructured problems are big ones like global warming, terrorism, failed/failing states, etc....None of this is new, but some of the approaches are.

My favorite is what I call the "Huddle." The Academics will call it "collaberation." On the tactical level, a leader simply brings all his team together and allows everyone to give their assesments and recommendations before he makes a decision. The huddle allows the leader to avoid forgetting something. Many leaders do this intuitively. On the strategic level, a commander brings in regional and specialized experts to advice him on big decisions. GEN Patraeus's "Council of Colonels" is a great example of this.

Out of all the literature, I best enjoyed Dr. James Adams' Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas. As Dean of Stanford Engineering back in the early 1970's, he became frustrated b/c his students were book smart but could not think creatively. So he wrote a book on how to think creatively. It's short, and provides cool tricks to entertain with at a pub.



v/r

Mike

[marct]

Mike, thanks for mentioning the huddle aka collaboration. As an academic, I've seen two ideal types (in the Weberian sense) of this. The first involves collecting people who are "like minded" and will reinforce the "correctness" of what you write, while the second is closer to Red Teaming (I suspect that in academia it derives from the old Advocatus Diaboli position).

Of the two, the first reinforces any perceptual pathologies that are present. In effect, this type of collaboration is worse than useless, it is destructive of creative thinking. The second type, when done properly, identifies holes in one's thinking and may or may not produce creative solutions. Some of the research on organization culture seems to indicate that there is a strong correlation between HR practices (especially rewards and punishments) and styles of collaboration. As a rough rule of thumb, the more clearly laid out HR policies are in terms of ordering (e.g. promotion and pay structures in a linear form), the greater likelihood that "collaboration" will tend towards the first type.

Part of this seems to centre around the organizational culture's formalization of "problems"; i.e. how they are defined, who "owns" them, how the must be approached, what may or may not be considered as a legitimate problem, etc.

Let me take an example of this. Let's suppose that a critical "problem" in gaining support for an HN government centres around a local perception held by the populace that the governor of the area is "corrupt" (in quotes to indicate a level of corruption beyond the culturally accepted limit). Let us further suppose, for the sake of this example, that that condition is true. Gaining the support of the local populace for the HN "government" will be increasingly difficult as the depredations of the local governor go on unchecked. The local governor is, in effect, one of the greatest recruiting tools for the insurgents in the area. How are you going to define the problem in a manner that would allow a local (foreign) commander to "solve" it?

Will this planning process - design - encourage such problem identification and increase the likelihood that such "problems" will be acted on?

[MikeF]

Let me take an example of this. Let's suppose that a critical "problem" in gaining support for an HN government centres around a local perception held by the populace that the governor of the area is "corrupt" (in quotes to indicate a level of corruption beyond the culturally accepted limit). Let us further suppose, for the sake of this example, that that condition is true. Gaining the support of the local populace for the HN "government" will be increasingly difficult as the depredations of the local governor go on unchecked. The local governor is, in effect, one of the greatest recruiting tools for the insurgents in the area. How are you going to define the problem in a manner that would allow a local (foreign) commander to "solve" it?

Will this planning process - design - encourage such problem identification and increase the likelihood that such "problems" will be acted on?

Marc,

Here's how I understand it.

On the tactical level, when forces are attempting to secure terrain, decision making is pretty straightfoward and a commander just has to remind himself to seek advise, feedback, and recommendations from his subordinates (i.e. "huddle" method).

Once the area is secure, one starts working on the really complex problems (legitimacy of gov't, good governance, property rights, reconciliation, etc...) At this point, I believe the introduction of academics, NGOs, and other smart people into the planning process can assist the commander in finding better or least bad solutions outside of his/her expertise.

This type of design and decision making process is extremely helpful on the policy making level. One of the best examples that I've seen is the distribution of water rights in California. There are many stakeholders, every has a legitimate request, but there is simply a limited supply of water. Finding fair or appropriate solutions in this type of scenario requires something a bit broader than the Military Decision Making Process.

I think it is a good thing that we're relooking how we define and solve problems. I just hope that the final product is something junior leaders can easily absorb and use.

As for your example, my solution would be to have the governor removed; however, that COA is typically outside the boundaries of our operations. Additionally, I would add the it is the governments responsibility to provide legitimacy, not ours. My personal thought is that we can assist at security, but we can only provide limited assistance in the other factors of governance (at least in Iraq/Afghanistan). In the future, I think that the governments desire to be legitimate to it's people should be a criteria when we decide to conduct FID/SFA.



v/r

Mike

[marct]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the response. Just a couple of comments / questions.

On the tactical level, when forces are attempting to secure terrain, decision making is pretty straightfoward and a commander just has to remind himself to seek advise, feedback, and recommendations from his subordinates (i.e. "huddle" method).

Once the area is secure, one starts working on the really complex problems (legitimacy of gov't, good governance, property rights, reconciliation, etc...) At this point, I believe the introduction of academics, NGOs, and other smart people into the planning process can assist the commander in finding better or least bad solutions outside of his/her expertise.

On its face, the makes perfect sense - I can't think of any better way to mess up a ground op than to have academics "helping" to devise it ! At the same time, sometimes, I would suggest, the long term tactical solution is not the immediately optimal one. For example, setting up a long term "siege", complete with biometric ID stations and interface with local tribal elders, may prove better than moving into an area. Other times, leaving an area under OPFOR control may prove to be in your long term interests especially if the OPFOR has a nasty habit of beheading people.

Now, I would hope that most current commanders would recognize these options, but I'm not sure.

I think it is a good thing that we're relooking how we define and solve problems. I just hope that the final product is something junior leaders can easily absorb and use.

Agreed ! Personally, I would suggest that two things would help that in junior officer training. First, encourage all junior officers to develop a friendship network outside of the military that they can call on. Second, reward in the HR system innovations that work.

As for your example, my solution would be to have the governor removed; however, that COA is typically outside the boundaries of our operations.

That's why I used that example - it is a truly wicked problem ! As to it being outside of your COAs, hmmm, not in all cases. Even if you cannot get them removed, and you don't have the direct authority to remove them, it is still grist for the IO mill that can be bumped up to the appropriate level.

Additionally, I would add the it is the governments responsibility to provide legitimacy, not ours. My personal thought is that we can assist at security, but we can only provide limited assistance in the other factors of governance (at least in Iraq/Afghanistan). In the future, I think that the governments desire to be legitimate to it's people should be a criteria when we decide to conduct FID/SFA.

Oh, I agree it should be a consideration of future FID / SFA operations. The problem with both Iraq and Afghjanistan is that you (the US) created those governments by overthrowing the previous ones. This is an especially tricky situation as far as legitimacy is concerned and, I would argue, that the legitimacy of that new government is a co-creation of both it and the US. A special case maybe, but still there.

Anyway, I have to run off and sing a concert .

Cheers,

Marc

[William F. Owen]

On the tactical level, when forces are attempting to secure terrain, decision making is pretty straightfoward and a commander just has to remind himself to seek advise, feedback, and recommendations from his subordinates (i.e. "huddle" method).

Once the area is secure, one starts working on the really complex problems (legitimacy of gov't, good governance, property rights, reconciliation, etc...) At this point, I believe the introduction of academics, NGOs, and other smart people into the planning process can assist the commander in finding better or least bad solutions outside of his/her expertise.

In some ways this strikes to heart of my issues with the idea of Operational Design. As far as I can tell, (from the badly written FM) OD essentially attempts to predict outcome in a deterministic and even casual way.
"We do this, so the situation created is this...." - It then basically seeks a set of opinions to predict the second and even third order effects of actions. - cannot be done.

So question. Would the US have invaded IRAQ if opinions suggested that it would lead to a six year insurgency and X-thousand dead? - If no one ventured that opinion, then the process is useless. Now the OD guys say "if we had used OD, it wouldn't have been like that." - but OD does not avoid the entirely human desire to pick the information that fits the desired version of events.

Exactly like EBO and MW, the "enduring wisdom" of OD takes credit for success, and denies involvement in failure.

[Ron Humphrey]

Don't take the beating from the "old" guys to hard. They just get kinda tired of things which they have known forever and have assumed should have been common sense having to be approached in doctrine to fix what should have been happening from (training birth). So yes their right there is nothing new under the sun ;except for us(people). Each of us has developed our understanding of the world through the lens of our own experiences and training. For some reason throughout the years it seems that the realization that the primary analyst at any echelon is the CO (or at least should be IMHO) has gone awry. Thus those simple common sense up front requirements in order to facilitate a good analysis of the mission before even trying to apply MDMP has gone by the wayside.

In so far as the COG at least from where I have come to see it is that treating the populous as a Center of Gravity for operations leads one to ask the questions about that particular group which should point out the less apparent what not to do's. Having done that it becomes much easier to define both what the mission is and to gain at least acceptable expectations for how it should be approached by those assigned to it.

An example is that if you have looked at a group through the "targeting" lense of COG then not only have you given yourself more clarity about those with whom you will interact but you have also in the same stroke managed to "red team" the heck out of the enemies probable approaches in that arena that they must survive in.

As Mike noted it really is about how to plan but honestly it is even more about getting the whole orchestra on the same sheet of music and then keeping time. And the pub thing is pretty cool too

[William F. Owen]

Wicked, ill-defined, unstructured problems are big ones like global warming, terrorism, failed/failing states, etc....None of this is new, but some of the approaches are.

OK, I understand the idea of wicked problems, but how does that translate into the conduct of Operations?

My favorite is what I call the "Huddle." The Academics will call it "collaberation." On the tactical level, a leader simply brings all his team together and allows everyone to give their assesments and recommendations before he makes a decision. The huddle allows the leader to avoid forgetting something. Many leaders do this intuitively. On the strategic level, a commander brings in regional and specialized experts to advice him on big decisions. GEN Patraeus's "Council of Colonels" is a great example of this.

So essentially, this is seeking the advice of others?
On the strategic level I can think of many, many times this fails. People seeking advice are often merely seeking approval for their plan, so I'm not sure this is a step forward, or that this is part of the Planning or Estimate process.

[Dr Jack]

Dr. Jack,

... is your work to incorporate wicked/ill-defined/un-structured problems going to lead to a new version of MDMP, or are y'all simply providing guidelines for commanders on how to rethink or relook problems?

Mike - design will complement formal / detailed planning processes, such as MDMP and JOPP - it certainly won't replace these systems. It also won't just look at "re-thinking" or reframing problems, but be the conceptual component that a commander does for detailed planning - that can take place before initiating MDMP/JOPP, during MDMP/JOPP, or doing execution of a mission.

[MikeF]

Mike - design will complement formal / detailed planning processes, such as MDMP and JOPP - it certainly won't replace these systems. It also won't just look at "re-thinking" or reframing problems, but be the conceptual component that a commander does for detailed planning - that can take place before initiating MDMP/JOPP, during MDMP/JOPP, or doing execution of a mission.

Dr. Jack,

Sir, I'm all for innovation and y'alls way ahead, but as I tried to express in my earlier comment, we must keep it KISS (Keep it simple stupid). I always deferred to my PSG test...If after briefing something, my PSG's found what I was saying incomprehensible, then I tried to reexplain it...

In context, and I'm not trying to marginalize what you're doing, if the boys cannot comprehend it b/c your using post-modern buzzwords from acadamie, then your efforts will be as fruitless as Effects Based Operations (EBO).

I hope this is helpful in your planning...I suppose the bottom line is that someone should not need a post-graduate degree to understand the planning.
I only stated this b/c I believe what you and TRADOC are trying to accomplish is important.


v/r

Mike