For those who want to learn about design, they really need to travel to a little backwater office on the corner of the USSOCOM campus, where a dozen or so guys spit ball concepts around in a little mini think tank of a strategy shop.

No recent manuals on design are going to be found laying around, and no rigid process is either sought or adhered to.

The products produced, however, are sophisticated, professional, and insightful. They are no more and no less than an additional input to the Mission Analysis process; to provide the Commander more than just the threat-centric products his Intel shop produces for him. The role is not a direct one, but rather an indirect one. To provide the commander with additional input to help build his perspective on the nature of the problem, the environment, his mission, etc, to employ in the shaping of his guidance to the planners and his subordinate commanders.

This is at the 4-star level. To employ this process, other than informally, at lower levels is to risk making MDMP even more onerous and dogmatic than it already is.