TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference

[SWJED]

SWJ / SWC’s Dave Dilegge, Robert Haddick and Dr. Marc Tyrrell will be attending the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Senior Leaders Conference, 18 – 20 August. All three will be live-blogging on SWJ and posting in this forum concerning issues raised and discussed by TRADOC leadership. We will entertain your questions and comments and pass those along to conference attendees. Stay tuned for more background information on the conference.

[jbruha]

Small Wars Journal Community - General Martin Dempsey, CG, TRADOC is excited about this opportunity to partner with Small Wars Journal in telling the story of Army institutional adaptation and the role that TRADOC serves as the proponent for leader development, training, doctrine, initial military training, and concept development and integration.

Our TSLC agenda is built around the following objectives that support the conference's "Next Battles" theme and reinforce our focus on the future as our Army prepares to return to a 1:2 BOG/DWELL:

• Examining and discussing TRADOC’s institutional adaptation progress.
• Discussing how the TRADOC Campaign Plan (TCP) is being synchronized and aligned across the lines of operation.
• Exploring and demonstrating the convergence of the TCP and the Army's Enterprise efforts.
• Demonstrating how we will replicate the richness of soldiers' experiences in the fight to the training base.

Over the coming weeks we welcome your comments and questions and encourage you to monitor and provide comment during the live blogging portion of the TSLC.

"Victory Starts Here"

[SWJED]

RFI - I've searched for the TRADOC Campaign Plan online but to no avail. Request a link or a pdf version to post here as background. Thanks.

[SWJED]

As a starting point - here is the Army Posture Statement 2009.

[selil]

Can we post questions (knowing they may not be answered)?

[Ken White]

hoping they will raise questions? Seriously.

[selil]

hoping they will raise questions? Seriously.

Since it is Training and Doctrine I'm wondering about changing the training methods and better assessment of learning by soldiers at all levels. Where do they see education going? Are they looking at adoption of advanced distance education tools that enhance presence, education objectives, and peer-to-peer interaction? I've got questions like that.

[SWJED]

Please post questions - they could be read and answered here - or we may bring them up at the conference - that is really why we set this up...

[Ken White]

on all that -- the distance learning bit being money dependent...

I think Outcome Based Training is a critical need but will be resisted by many in TRADOC citing cost as a deterrent -- the actual deterrent is that it's not easy, so trainers have to work harder...

[marct]

Hi Ken,

the distance learning bit being money dependent...

I'm pretty sceptical about distance education myself. I've seen some really good examples of it, but I've also seen some really bad ones. There do seem to be some excellent ones in the pipeline.

The money really comes in at the start. Really good online training, depending on what you are training for , costs like crazy at the start, but the per unit delivery cost drops significantly. It's a basic software model that's operating - insane upfront cost and totally insignificant replication costs. Where the real costs come in, IMO, is in the time required to download, install and, most importantly, actively use the material.

I think Outcome Based Training is a critical need but will be resisted by many in TRADOC citing cost as a deterrent -- the actual deterrent is that it's not easy, so trainers have to work harder...

I'm a great believer in working smarter than harder . The USAF Culture, Region and Language Program is a good example of working smarter.

[selil]

I'm pretty sceptical about distance education myself. I've seen some really good examples of it, but I've also seen some really bad ones. There do seem to be some excellent ones in the pipeline.

Spousal accessory unit and myself have built distance learning courses (and now programs) that provide more interaction and better sense of presence than the normal form of on the ground education. The big question being do they want to innovate or not?

[SWCAdmin]

It will probably work best if any questions get asked by launching them as a new thread in this forum with a descriptive short title and articulated in the first post.

Whether they get answered, we'll see.

[jbruha]

Learning methods will progress as we learn more about a burgeoning field of study called the Human Dimension and we develop better means of training and educating Soldiers and civilians using such techniques as Outcomes- Based Training and Education. We realize that the new generation does not learn and retain the same way we Cold War Soldiers learned. For example, rather than read a scenario to a group of AIT Soldiers about to go through an exercise, we will present the scenario in video format using the Army's gaming engine, Virtual Battle Space 2, so that the scenario becomes more realistic. Gaming allows instructors to develop their own scenarios, scenarios that can be changed in real time, to illustrate points in the lesson--with only a minimal amount of training. Rather than using the old range live fire techniques, we are experimenting with Soldiers moving down a firing range to spot and engage targets as a team--building not only marksmanship but also teamwork. We have moved away from the Cold War ways of training and educating, but we still have a long way to go. As for dL, we are investigating the integration of gaming into dL, and we continue to refine our synchronous and asynchronous learning using blended (an instructor is in the loop) techniques. These new techniques and insights on teaching, training, and retaining information will be especially important as we continue to build our capability to conduct full spectrum operations--offense, defense, and stability or civil support--anywhere along the spectrum of conflict. Wherever we can, we are gleaning better ideas on how to train and educate.

[Bill Jakola]

This is really exciting stuff. Never before has public dialogue interacted in this way with the senior TRADOC leaders who are currently building our Army and future leaders.

Here is a preview (the first paragraph) of the Army Stand-To message describing this conference. It highlights the TRADOC senior leaders' desire to interact with the public by engaging in this SWJ discussion board. Transparency and public interaction are critical aspects of the TRADOC mission; and, your perspective is important. Since we need to build highly adaptive leaders who are prepared to execute missions over extended time-frames, this conference will provide the first public discussion of how TRADOC plans to develop leaders.

The Stand-To is available this Friday, 14 August at: http://www.army.mil/standto/

"During the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) semi-annual Senior Leaders Conference (TSLC) TRADOC leaders discuss emerging issues and chart the way ahead. Now for the first time, TRADOC will make the conference transparent and seek public interaction by allowing anyone to follow the conversation, contribute comments and ask questions via a Small Wars Journal (SWJ) discussion board. At the 18–20 August conference, two editors and a moderator from SWJ will blog live, providing readers observations and ongoing commentary about the proceedings."

[marct]

Hi Bill,

Your right, it is exciting ! I must say that I am definitely looking forward to the event. I'm hoping that we will have a really good audience, and I expect that we will be seeing discussion continuing well after the conference itself officially ends.

Cheers,

Marc

[IntelTrooper]

I just can't wait to see Ken's answers, err, questions.

[marct]

I just can't wait to see Ken's answers, err, questions.

............

[IntelTrooper]

............

Hey, they started it!

Never before has public dialogue interacted in this way with the senior TRADOC leaders who are currently building our Army and future leaders.

[SWJED]

This is really exciting stuff. Never before has public dialogue interacted in this way with the senior TRADOC leaders who are currently building our Army and future leaders.

Here is a preview (the first paragraph) of the Army Stand-To message describing this conference. It highlights the TRADOC senior leaders' desire to interact with the public by engaging in this SWJ discussion board. Transparency and public interaction are critical aspects of the TRADOC mission; and, your perspective is important. Since we need to build highly adaptive leaders who are prepared to execute missions over extended time-frames, this conference will provide the first public discussion of how TRADOC plans to develop leaders.

The Stand-To is available this Friday, 14 August at: http://www.army.mil/standto/

"During the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) semi-annual Senior Leaders Conference (TSLC) TRADOC leaders discuss emerging issues and chart the way ahead. Now for the first time, TRADOC will make the conference transparent and seek public interaction by allowing anyone to follow the conversation, contribute comments and ask questions via a Small Wars Journal (SWJ) discussion board. At the 18–20 August conference, two editors and a moderator from SWJ will blog live, providing readers observations and ongoing commentary about the proceedings."

Thanks for the pointer to the Stand-To! article Bill - reposted it at our blog. We are excited too and looking forward to next week. - Dave

[Martin Dempsey]

Thanks for your participation in our recent senior leader conference at Gettysburg. I was struck by the level of interest and the thoughtful conversations that ensued both leading up to and during the conference. I want to especially thank Dave Dilegge, Robert Haddick, and Marc Tyrell for their live blogging efforts that certainly reinforced our goal to articulate the many efforts currently underway at TRADOC in building a 21st Century expeditionary Army. I look forward to continuing the dialogue and partnership with this esteemed community of professionals.