Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
None of those questions forces anyone to examine what best practice looks like. What you'll get is data free opinion, which is the primary source of most of the problem.
Moreover your questions supposes that most soldiers/officers actually know what best practice looks like. I submit history shows us that this is extremely unlikely.
The purpose of the inquiry to a core group isn't to discover "best practices" but to articulate ideas about the future. Collison and Parcell (2004) in their knowledge management book, Learning to Fly, regard best practices as commonly "not transferable and slavishly adopting that practice could, and has lead to, worse results" (p. 99).

The purpose of an Appreciative Inquiry approach is to appreciate and value the best of what is instead of identifying a problem. This is done through interviews and developing a protocol of questions, like the ones I listed. The approach involves envisioning what might be, instead of analyzing causes of the problems. It includes dialogue about what could be, instead of an analysis of possible solutions. It means innovating what will be, instead of just action planning. Those are some of the differences between AI and problem solving.

I can only speak to the written framework approach of the capstone. The rest of you are more subject matter experts on the content. I wouldn't attempt to provide feedback on the content.

I'm not sure what is meant by "data free opinion," since data also comes in the form of stories, which may include opinion.