What is your clear desired end state?
Suggested Reading
FM 5-0, Planning and Orders Production
Chapter 4, pages 55-67 based on printed document (PDF pages 67-88)
US Army instructions on when and how to use Army Design Methodology
This week’s Study: Slowing Down to Speed Up
All excerpts below are from FM 5-0 unless otherwise noted
Introduction
4-2. Army design methodology is a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize, and describe problems and approaches to solving them (ADP 5-0). It entails framing an operational environment (OE), framing problems, and developing an operational approach to solve or manage identified problems. ADM results in an improved understanding of an OE, a problem statement, and an operational approach that serves as the link between conceptual and detailed planning.
4-4. ADM is an interdisciplinary approach to planning and problem solving. It combines military theory, writings on the nature of problems, and the challenges of critical and creative thinking. Some of these concepts, such as operational art, have long been associated with planning. Other concepts such as systems thinking and framing have taken on increased emphasis. Key concepts associated with ADM include—
Operational art.
Critical thinking.
Creative thinking.
Systems thinking.
Collaboration and dialogue.
Framing.
Narrative construction.
Visual modeling.
What is your clear desired end state?
How might you apply this interdisciplinary approach in life planning?
Does your plan consider the world it fits in and the actions of others, or is it self-centered?
This Week’s Reading, Abridged
4-20. Planning begins upon receipt of or in anticipation of a mission or as directed by the commander. Upon receipt of mission, commanders, supported by their staffs, determine available time for planning and preparation and decide on a planning approach. An important consideration for commanders is how best to integrate the conceptual and detailed components of planning. When problems are difficult to identify, the operation’s end state is unclear, or a course of action (COA) is not self-evident, commanders may choose to conduct ADM. Some questions commanders consider when assessing whether conducting ADM is appropriate include—
Is there enough information about the situation to conduct detailed planning?
Are problems and solutions generally self-evident?
Is there a clear desired end state?
Is a COA evident?
Are the known unknowns significant enough to distort detailed planning?
Are means (resources and force structure) undetermined?
Are there unexpected effects to actions?
Are actions falling short of achieving the expected impact?
4-21. When problems are intuitively hard to identify or an operation’s end state is unclear, commanders may initiate ADM before their headquarters engages in detailed planning. This is often the case when developing long-range plans or orders for an operation or a new phase of an operation. When using this approach, a complete evolution of ADM is employed with the resulting products (environmental frame, problem frame, and operational approach) informing the development of a plan or order using the military decision-making process (MDMP). This approach is time consuming, but it provides the greatest understanding of an OE and its associated problems.
4-25. A key aspect of assembling the team is considering the knowledge, skills, abilities, work styles, and personality characteristics needed for the team’s tasks. Commanders consider the scope of the problem and personnel resources when forming a planning team. While individuals are often selected for a team based on their expertise associated to the problem (for example, functional or regional knowledge), individuals should also possess these characteristics—
Having an open mind for new ideas.
Having an inquisitive mindset and being curious and eager for knowledge.
Being comfortable with ambiguity.
Possessing critical thinking and creative thinking skills.
Being willing to listen to others and valuing differing points of view.
Being able to take and offer different perspectives.
Possessing an investigative mindset and research skills.
Being able to communicate complex ideas in simple words.
Being not afraid of having own ideas critiqued by others.
Being able to think visually and effectively use visual graphics.
4-33. Red team qualified individuals are typically part of the commander’s staff at higher echelon headquarters. Trained and educated to think critically and creatively, red team members help commanders and staffs think from different perspectives. They help commanders and staffs explore alternatives in plans and orders and see things from the perspective of others. Red team members help—
Broaden the understanding of an OE.
Identify problems and clarify end-state conditions.
Challenge assumptions.
Ensure the perspectives of the enemies, adversaries, and others are considered.
Identify friendly and enemy vulnerabilities and opportunities.
Identify areas for assessment.
Anticipate cultural perceptions of partners, adversaries, and others.
How do you ensure diverse perspectives for life planning without creating paralysis?
How do you create a ‘red team’ for life planning?
When should organizations conduct their own version of ‘red team’ analysis?
4-36. ADM includes interconnected activities that aid in conceptual planning and the application of operational art. There is no one way or prescribed set of steps to employ ADM. However, several activities associated with ADM include—
Framing an OE.
Framing problems.
Developing an operational approach.
Transitioning to detailed planning.
Reframing.
4-38. Military operations occur within a context larger than a single unit’s mission. As such, staffs support commanders in developing a contextual understanding of an OE through framing. An OE is the composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of the commander. It includes portions of each of the five domains (land, maritime, air, space, and cyberspace) understood through three dimensions (human, physical, and information). Included within the domains and dimensions areas are the enemy, friendly, and neutral systems and actors who are relevant to a specific operation. Understanding an OE helps commanders better identify problems; anticipate potential outcomes; and understand the results of various friendly, adversary, and neutral actions and how these actions affect attaining the end state.
4-39. An OE is not bounded by the physical boundaries of an operational area. It is a cognitive tool that helps commanders and staff account for those things that affect their operations within and outside of their assigned area. When framing an OE, the commander and planning team seek to answer questions such as—
What is going on in the OE?
Why has this situation developed?
Who are the relevant actors?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the relevant actors?
What are the relationships among relevant actors?
What is causing conflict or tensions among relevant actors?
Why is the situation (or the projected future situation) undesirable?
What future conditions need to exist for success?
4-44. One way to develop an understanding of an OE is from a systems perspective. To develop this systems perspective, the planning team identifies and discerns the relationships among relevant systems and actors in an OE. Once identified, further research and analysis by the team helps clarify the roles and functions of each actor and how actors relate to other systems and actors in an OE.
How do you distinguish between environmental scanning and true systems thinking?
How do personal assumptions limit your ability to understand other actors' motivations?
What are the ‘domains’ in your operational environment?
4-48. Framing an OE includes an appreciation of how an OE may trend into the future. An OE evolves even in the absence of friendly intervention. If no outside actors influence an OE, that OE will change due to inherent tendencies in the system. Tendencies reflect an inclination to think or behave in a certain manner. Tendencies are not deterministic, but they are models describing the thoughts or behaviors of relevant actors. Tendencies identify likely patterns of relationships between actors without external influences. The natural tendencies in an OE have the most momentum, and therefore they are difficult to change. Tendencies can be positive and encouraged or viewed as obstacles that become the focus for change. Friendly actions or activities that reinforce (or at least do not conflict with) natural trends may have the best chance to succeed. Appreciating the natural tendencies in an OE assists commanders and staffs in better defining the desired end state and development of an operational approach to promote or alter identified tendencies.
4-50. The commander and planning team envision the desired end state based on higher echelon guidance, the current state of an OE, and alternative future states of an OE. The operation’s end state is a set of desired conditions that, if achieved, meet the objectives of policy, orders, guidance, and directives issued to the commander. A desired condition is a sought-after future state of an OE. Conditions are tangible or intangible, military or nonmilitary, or physical or psychological. When determining desired end-state conditions, the team also considers available resources to ensure end-state conditions are feasible.
4-51. Time is important when determining desired end-state conditions. How time relates to the desired end state influences the expectation of higher authorities and influences how commanders use forces and capabilities to achieve desired conditions. The commander and planning team use diligence during the planning effort to account for the time expected to achieve desired conditions. They qualify whether the desired conditions are intended to be lasting or transient. This temporal dimension helps commanders and staffs develop an effective operational approach and manage expectations.
4-52. Commanders describe the operation’s end state by stating the desired conditions of the friendly force in relationship to desired conditions of enemy forces, terrain, and civil considerations. Commanders share and discuss their desired end state with their higher echelon commander to ensure unity of effort. Commanders may elect to discuss several proposed end states, and their respective costs, for the higher commander to consider. Planners develop visual models with supporting narratives to capture the desired end state.
How big is the OE for your life plan? How does adjusting this scale change your thinking?
What does it mean and what is required to complete OE framing before life planning?
How might a visual model and supporting narrative help you plan?
4-54. The planning team frames the problem to ensure that it is solving the right problem, instead of solving the symptoms of the problem. The planning team closely examines the symptoms, the underlying tensions, and the root causes of conflict. Tension is the resistance or friction among and between actors. From this perspective, the planning team can identify the fundamental problem with greater clarity and consider more accurately how to solve it. During problem framing, commanders and staffs answer questions such as—
What is the difference between the current state of an OE and the desired end state?
What is the difference between the natural tendency of an OE and the desired end state?
What is the difference between the desired end state of other actors and the commander’s desired end state?
What is preventing the command from reaching the desired end state?
What needs to change?
What needs to be preserved?
What are the opportunities and threats from a friendly perspective?
What are the opportunities and threats from an enemy’s and other actors’ perspectives?
4-55. The planning team captures its work in a problem frame that describes the set of interrelated problems or system of problems in a narrative supported by visual models. The problem frame supports the commander’s dialogue with higher echelon commanders and unified action partners in defining problems and developing common expectations regarding resolutions. This is vital to develop an effective operational approach to solve or manage identified problems.
4-58. A technique for identifying problems begins with two questions:
What is the difference between the current state of the OE and the desired end state?
What is preventing the force from reaching the desired end state?
How does your personal discomfort with uncertainty influence your decisions?
What questions have you stopped asking because the answers might require changing beliefs?
What is your clear desired end state?
Questions for Individual Reflection
How often do you or your team deliberately challenge your own framing of strategic challenges?
What assumptions about your environment would fundamentally alter your strategy or life plan if proven wrong?
What narratives do your peers (or competitors) construct about themselves that you systematically ignore? What are you missing?
Which interconnected problems do you or your organization treat as separate issues because your mental model or functional silos demand it?
How well do you understand what the people closest to you actually want versus what you assume they want?
Professional Discussion Prompts
Which stakeholder groups' framing of your industry challenges does your leadership systematically dismiss? Why?
When last did your leadership team last trace current market conditions back to their historical and systemic origins? What did you learn?
Which critical relationships in your ecosystem does your organization ignore because acknowledging them would complicate your strategy?
What market forces does your organization resist because they contradict leadership's preferred narrative?
Personal Discussion Prompts
Which beliefs about personal or professional success have you never subjected to rigorous challenge?
How does your relationship with being wrong affect your ability to frame problems accurately?
How does your socioeconomic background create blind spots in environmental assessment?
Which perspectives do you avoid because they threaten your professional identity or personal narrative?
Which family or personal patterns do you observe but avoid analyzing for underlying causes?
Exercises
Actor Relationship Mapping
Exercise:
Individuals create detailed relationship maps for their industry ecosystem using military actor analysis methodology.
Must examine relationships from multiple perspectives and identify tensions between different actors' desired end states.
Focus on relationships that traditional competitive analysis overlooks or oversimplifies.
Debrief:
Which critical relationships does your organization's competitive analysis systematically ignore?
How do relationship complexities create opportunities and threats that linear thinking misses?
What actor motivations did you discover that contradict your organization's assumptions about their behavior?
Multiple Perspective Integration
Exercise:
Individuals take the same environmental challenge and frame it from three different stakeholder perspectives sequentially.
Must identify how each perspective reveals different aspects of the operational environment.
Synthesize insights from multiple framings into comprehensive environmental assessment.
Debrief:
Which environmental factors were invisible from your initial perspective but crucial from others' viewpoints?
How do different actors' framing reveal opportunities and threats your organization's single perspective misses?
What would change about your environmental assessment if you systematically included multiple actor perspectives?
Feel free to borrow this with pride and use with your teams, professionally or personally. If you do, please let me know how it went and tips for improvement: matt @ borrowingwithpride.com