The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[selil]

Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

Simply yes.

The abandonment of simplicity (Frank Lloyd Wright buildings) for complexity (Toyota Camry drive by wire throttle) has led to disasters of implementation regardless of design. I know I'm mixing the two areas of consideration but the analogy should stick.

The issue IMHO is still that complexity begets uncertainty. Wilf has a good point on the inherent problems of making things more difficult than they should be... He almost is channelling Einstein in "things should be as simple as possible but no simpler".

[Bob's World]

The author's main problem was that he tried to say "employ operational design" and describe at the same time what operational design is.

As to examples, the major headquarters that has been employing this the longest is USSOCOM, and all of those products are quite intentionally unclassified.

The purpose of design is to promote understanding; but perfect understanding that is then locked up in a vault is not of much value. They don't lend themselves to publication very well though, as the design diagrams require a guide to lead one through them; and if a picture tells a 1000 words, a design diagram often tells 1000 stories.

I can't speak for others, but ours work best in small groups with 2-3 of the designers providing a short tag-team brief, followed by a much longer tag-team Q&A.

To simply hang the picture on the web, or to write up an explanation leaves most thinking "what's the big deal," or "I disagree." But most walk out of the tag-team presentations with fresh ideas and perspectives and a deeper understanding of the problem they face, and that is the point of the process.

[Global Scout]

The useful design produts that SOCOM designed are classified for good reason. What your talking about that is unclassified is SOCOM's visual version of the JOE inappropriately labeled design. it shows the convergence of trends and does trigger some interesting questions. The actual design prodcts facilitate a deeper understanding of a specific problem in depth and how it interacts with other systems and actors globally. It has nothing to do with Seliel or Cole's interpretation. Selil is focused on design from an engineer perspective, and Cole from a tactical perspective. Wilf agee the definition provided was useless. The real design products are manpower intensive, involve the interagency and a large commitment of the intell community, plus academia. Once developed a tactical unit can provide input based on their view of ground truth, but the initial product is not produced by 3 staff officers. It can be useful for some problem sets, but the wat it was presented clearly led to confusion which isn't useful.

[William F. Owen]

3-9. A commander‘s experience, knowledge, judgment, and intuition assume a crucial role in understanding complex, ill-structured problems. Together, they enhance the cognitive components of design, enhancing commanders‘ intuition while further enabling commanders to identify threats or opportunities long before others might.

...and here we go again.
The first sentence is essentially says that being smart helps you solve problems. The second sentence then extrapolates that and that smart people will use "Design" better than dumb people?

I really am trying hard not to be a pedant, but this FM is one of the most badly written documents I have ever seen. The definition of Design takes 6 paragraphs, most of which spout rubbish. If anyone wants to leap in defend this, then let's hear it.

[William F. Owen]

2-1. Planning is the process by which commanders (and the staff, if available) translate the commander‘s visualization into a specific course of action for preparation and execution, focusing on the expected results (FM 3-0).

OK, so primarily a way of translating a "visualisation," into action. So it's NOT a way of producing orders!
So :

2-4. A product of planning is a plan or order—a directive for future action. Commanders issue plans and orders to subordinates to communicate their understanding of the situation and their visualization of an operation.

Planning IS about producing orders. Really? Apparently the Plans and Orders "communicate their understanding of the situation and their visualization of an operation."
So we now have

"The measure of a good plan is not whether execution transpires as planned, but whether the plan facilitates effective action in the face of unforeseen events. Good plans and orders foster initiative.

GARBAGE! The measure of a good plan is if it works so achieving the desired end state via the plan! The execution does matter! That is why you do planning! Good plans tell you what to do and when to do it. Initiative is for when no plan exists, or the plan is inadequate or failing!

[Bob's World]

The useful design produts that SOCOM designed are classified for good reason. What your talking about that is unclassified is SOCOM's visual version of the JOE inappropriately labeled design. it shows the convergence of trends and does trigger some interesting questions. The actual design prodcts facilitate a deeper understanding of a specific problem in depth and how it interacts with other systems and actors globally. It has nothing to do with Seliel or Cole's interpretation. Selil is focused on design from an engineer perspective, and Cole from a tactical perspective. Wilf agee the definition provided was useless. The real design products are manpower intensive, involve the interagency and a large commitment of the intell community, plus academia. Once developed a tactical unit can provide input based on their view of ground truth, but the initial product is not produced by 3 staff officers. It can be useful for some problem sets, but the wat it was presented clearly led to confusion which isn't useful.

But that's all news to me. Come see me in my office at the J56 Strategy Division when I get back from Afghanistan and we can discuss.

[Infanteer]

I just read some of the excerpts from this manual to my NCOs and the one comment was "I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."

What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....

[Ken White]

..."I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."

What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....

The first is the well phrased sensing of many NCOs...

Those few -- but still too many -- today who are guilty of such efforts really ought to consider how their actions reflect on themselves. Condescension is not a military virtue.

Today's troops are capable of doing far more than many are willing to permit them to do. Among other things, that failing drives good people out (while fostering not so good people staying in) and is extremely wasteful.

On the brevity comment, spot on. Even more accurate on the clarity aspect. The production of any manual of over 100 pages should be immediately outlawed -- simply because the larger ones lose so much in translation...

[IntelTrooper]

On the brevity comment, spot on. Even more accurate on the clarity aspect. The production of any manual of over 100 pages should be immediately outlawed -- simply because the larger ones lose so much in translation...

B-- But Ken, are you saying that military service members aren't reading hundreds of pages of manuals every time they get a new position, are trained on a new piece of equipment, or have to carry out some task? That they just want to most important details, and don't need paragraphs of over-complicated gibberish? That said information should be easy to find?

Why, if what you're saying is true, then there's thousands and thousands of pages of manuals gathering dust that no one reads! That's patently absurd, sir!

Heretic! Furcifer! (Okay, that one was a little too far.)

[marct]

I just read some of the excerpts from this manual to my NCOs and the one comment was "I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."

LOLOL - And at least the "nobility", and since you're from Canada, that means the colonial aristocracy crowd (ah, for the good old days...), had the good sense to know when they should freakin' well shut up and let the troops get on with it .

Honestly, nothing PO's competent people as much as some pissant spewing buzzword diarrhea (if one wishes to be academically prissy about this, I would recommend the term "logorrhea"; it means the same thing ).

What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....

Hunh, I'm reading a "document" right now that makes FM 5.0 look like a model of clarity, brevity, insight and nigh-on God touched brilliance. the term logorrhea is much on my mind of late.....

[Cole]

The useful design produts that SOCOM designed are classified for good reason. What your talking about that is unclassified is SOCOM's visual version of the JOE inappropriately labeled design. it shows the convergence of trends and does trigger some interesting questions. The actual design prodcts facilitate a deeper understanding of a specific problem in depth and how it interacts with other systems and actors globally. It has nothing to do with Seliel or Cole's interpretation. Selil is focused on design from an engineer perspective, and Cole from a tactical perspective. Wilf agee the definition provided was useless. The real design products are manpower intensive, involve the interagency and a large commitment of the intell community, plus academia. Once developed a tactical unit can provide input based on their view of ground truth, but the initial product is not produced by 3 staff officers. It can be useful for some problem sets, but the wat it was presented clearly led to confusion which isn't useful.

The way you have seen it is used in practice may differ from the way the TRADOC Operational Concept and now doctrine describe it, but Commander's Appreciation and Campaign Design indicates that Selil's description is pretty accurate...at least if you are going to use the term "design" when some other term might be more appropriate:

http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pams/p525-5-500.pdf

The first chapter helped me understand design much better. Particularly liked this quote:

(3) Every ill-structured problem is essentially unique and novel. Historical analogies may provide useful insights—particularly on individual aspects of a larger problem—but the differences between even similar situations are profound and significant. The political goals at stake, stakeholders involved, cultural milieu, histories, and other dynamics will all be novel and unique to a particular situation.

Believe some miss the point that not every Soldier must read/study doctrine. But instructors/trainers at institutional level must study it to create lesson plans that are doctrinally-founded. Combat training centers O/Cs and other evaluators need some evaluation source based on more than opinion of how they did it in their particular unit under a unique commander/leader/staff officer, in a particular theater and year in theater, and a unique village, valley and ethnic/tribal mix when public opinion and the threat may have differed substantially.

In my solely academic perspective, the lesson plans we create are based on collective tasks which in turn are based on doctrine, task lists, and researched lessons learned. In our particular case, we used the FM 5-0 (and FM 3-0, & previous 5-0.1) "plan, prepare, execute, and assess continuously" as the outline for many lessons on multiple subjects...because it works and helps you not to forget something. That "operations process" and troop-leading procedures are probably most of what your typical NCO must understand where FM 5-0 is concerned.

I'm still not sure from the TRADOC Concept what planning products result from "Design." Suspect they exist in multiple formats and differ based on the nature of the ill-structured problem and command-designated courses of action that may change based on subject matter experts briefings. But as "Global Scout" indicates, many may be classified, many are probably unique to particular commanders, and most "Design" probably involves operational/strategic commanders and tactical units like SOF that have strategic influence.

Also believe many critical of the writing don't comprehend that it is often a team effort with multiple reviewers altering content to leave a hodgepodge of styles and substance by the time it is approved. It may not be pretty, but if it isn't done, you are left relying on opinions of how to do things based on historical experiences/perspectives of particular units/individuals that no longer apply.

[IntelTrooper]

Also believe many critical of the writing don't comprehend that it is often a team effort with multiple reviewers altering content to leave a hodgepodge of styles and substance by the time it is approved. It may not be pretty, but if it isn't done, you are left relying on opinions of how to do things based on historical experiences/perspectives of particular units/individuals that no longer apply.

Hi Cole,

I hope the following isn't offensive, it's just my own biased observation of most military publications:

Option 1: Not writing a paragraph, or manual, and allowing for some ad-lib on the part of the target audience.

Option 2: Include confusingly worded, "hodgepodge of styles and substance" in publication.

Net Effect(Option 2) minus Net Effect(Option 1) = x thousands of dollars used for creating, publishing, and maintaining Option 2.

[MichaelJayy]

Hi Cole,

I hope the following isn't offensive, it's just my own biased observation of most military publications:

Option 1: Not writing a paragraph, or manual, and allowing for some ad-lib on the part of the target audience.

Option 2: Include confusingly worded, "hodgepodge of styles and substance" in publication.

Net Effect(Option 2) minus Net Effect(Option 1) = x thousands of dollars used for creating, publishing, and maintaining Option 2.

I totally agree with IntelTrooper

[SWJED]

MichaelJayy your two post so far resemble those who add one-liners of no substance in order to establish a "post count" to be followed by spam PM to our members or spamming the threads. You have 24 hours to explain why you should not be banned from SWC.

[Ken White]

...Believe some miss the point that not every Soldier must read/study doctrine. But instructors/trainers at institutional level must study it to create lesson plans that are doctrinally-founded.

True -- but those instructors also appreciate a little clarity and concise thought.

Combat training centers O/Cs and other evaluators need some evaluation source based on more than opinion... and the threat may have differed substantially.

That was equally true back in the days when clarity and brevity were not goals but requirements. People fighting wars with high tempo operations do not have time to sort out the chaff.

Also believe many critical of the writing don't comprehend that it is often a team effort with multiple reviewers altering content to leave a hodgepodge of styles and substance by the time it is approved. It may not be pretty, but if it isn't done, you are left relying on opinions of how to do things based on historical experiences/perspectives of particular units/individuals that no longer apply.

Nothing wrong with all that -- BUT someone, not a committee, needs to be responsible and make some hard editorial decisions. These are military doctrinal publications, not high school textbooks; fluff and 'gee whiz' stuff is unnecessary and can be inimical to the doctrine promulgated.