The Operations Process - Planning

Guided Discovery.

Artist: GP Photography

Suggested Reading

• ADP 5-0, The Operations Process

  • Pages 2-10 through 2-15 based on printed document (PDF pages 38-43)

  • Pages 2-21 through 2-26 based on printed document (PDF pages 49-54)

  • An overview of Operational Art and planning fundamentals and pitfalls in the Operations Process

• Link to ADP 5-0 on US Army Publishing Directorate

• This week’s Study

• All excerpts below are from ADP 5-0

Guided Discovery

You know how to make plans, you’ve been doing it all your life!

How are you at making complex plans? How thorough is your approach to making a plan? How do you plan your life?

Both literature and life love to remind us that the act of making a plan is more important than the plan itself. But is that how we actually act?

In corporations, significant time and resources are invested in making plans. There are financial plans, sales plans, marketing plans, supply chain plans…each has a half-dozen types of planning activities beneath them. The plans themselves are very important.

Plans, in the corporate world, become the contracts upon which we measure success and failure. Whether it is evaluating corporate performance on external financial expectations, or determining leader ratings and compensation against P&L expectations, or holding providers and third parties to service level expectations, plans become unofficial contracts. Sometimes, the plan even becomes an actual contract: the entire point of a statement of work is to codify a plan.

The plan is more important than the process.

The formality and rigor applied to planning in business implies such a degree of science that the word ‘strategy’ needs to be overused to describe non-scientific planning. Strategy, as a business concept, has become any level of planning that provides the wiggle-room for a leader to de-link the plan from contracted outcomes.

Everyone repeats the mantra ‘no plan survives first contact’ (if you’ve spent any time in a large organization you know saying ‘everyone’ here is not an unfair generalization). Everyone understands that making a plan is more important than having a plan. But professionally, no one acts that way.

In their personal lives, few people act that way either. We make life plans and then translate those plans into goals. Five year income goals. Retirement target date and number. Bucket lists.

It’s time to reframe how we think about planning and plans AND how we act.

2-2. Planning is a continuous learning activity.

2-6. 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.

Not surprising. What else?

2-14. Imperfect knowledge and assumptions about the future are inherent in all planning… Nonetheless, the understanding and learning that occurs during planning have great value. Even if units do not execute the plan exactly as envisioned—and few ever do—planning results in an improved understanding of the situation that facilitates future decision making. Planning and plans help leaders—

• Understand situations and develop solutions to problems.

• Task-organize the force and prioritize efforts.

• Direct, coordinate, and synchronize action.

• Anticipate events and adapt to changing circumstances.

Planning and plans help problem-solving, decision-making, and adaptation. The purpose is to help take action, not predict the outcome of the action itself.

Detailed plans are important, but the understanding and learning that takes place in the planning process are what are described in the text as actually having “great value.”

The understanding and learning come from what precedes the detailed plan, not the contents thereof.

What precedes is operational art.

2-52. Operational art is the cognitive approach by commanders and staffs … to develop strategies, campaigns, and operations … by integrating ends, ways, and means…

Operational art is the term the US Army uses to describe the method by which a leader should define the concept of operations to resolve a problem.

2-52. Applying operational art requires commanders to answer the following questions:

• What conditions, when established, constitute the desired end state (ends)?

• How will the force achieve these desired conditions (ways)?

• What sequence of actions helps attain these conditions (ways)?

• What resources are required to accomplish that sequence of actions (means)?

• What risks are associated with that sequence of actions and how can they be mitigated (risks)?

The elements of operational art:

1. End state and conditions

2. Centers of gravity

3. Decisive points

4. Lines of operations and lines of effort

5. Tempo

6. Phasing and transitions

7. Operational reach

8. Culmination

9. Basing

10. Risk

Hopefully you read about all ten. We’ll touch on elements 2, 3, and 6 to help inform an improved structure for your individual planning process.

Centers of Gravity

2-62. A center of gravity is the source of power that provides moral or physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act (JP 5-0). The loss of a center of gravity can ultimately result in defeat. Centers of gravity are not limited to military forces and can be either physical or moral. Physical centers of gravity, such as a capital city or military force, are tangible and typically easier to identify, assess, and target than moral centers of gravity. Forces can often influence physical centers of gravity solely by military means. In contrast, moral centers of gravity are intangible and more difficult to influence; they exist in the cognitive dimension of an information environment. They can include a charismatic leader, powerful ruling elite, or the will of a population.

2-63. Understanding friendly and enemy centers of gravity helps the commander and staffs identify decisive points and determine an operational approach to achieve the end state.

Imagine the children’s game ‘Capture the Flag’; attack an opponent’s center of gravity while defending your own. Now imagine there are four centers of gravity on each team’s side and they aren’t clearly marked with flags. It is not enough to focus analysis on discerning the competition’s centers of gravity prior to attack. Yet how often do we neglect to understand our own centers of gravity?

In your personal life, this manifests as inadvertent sacrifice (giving up health for work or family time for hobbies). It is not necessarily wrong, but understanding the tradeoff is frequently neglected in the planning process.

Professionally, it is more likely that an organization generally understands both their own and the competitor’s centers of gravity, but draws incorrect conclusions or ignores what they know because it does not correspond to what leadership wants to do.

When assessed correctly, the knowledge provides the ability to know what battles to actually fight.

Decisive Points

2-64. A decisive point is a geographic place, specific key event, critical factor, or function that, when acted upon, allows commanders to gain a marked advantage over an enemy or contribute materially to achieving success…

2-65. Decisive points are not centers of gravity; they are key to attacking or protecting centers of gravity.

If you’ve ever assembled a business strategy, decisive points are referred to as the ‘Must Win Battles’. In business, these are characterized as success criteria and metrics versus actual battles.

If you are confident in your understanding of the true centers of gravity it is less difficult to identify decisive points. The challenge is what to do about them.

2-66. Generally, more decisive points exist in a given operational area than available forces and capabilities can attack, seize, retain, control, or protect … The art of planning includes selecting decisive points that best lead to establishing end state conditions in a sequence that most quickly and efficiently leads to mission success.

What is important is what is hard: prioritization and sequencing, coupled with the ability to discern when and how to change the priority and sequence as the situation changes, supported by the strength to actually make changes when necessary.

Phasing and Transitions

2-75. Ideally, commanders plan to accomplish a mission with simultaneous actions throughout the AO. However, operational reach, resource constraints, and the size of the friendly force limits what units can do at one time. In these cases, commanders phase operations.

Understanding decisive points, as well as their prioritization and sequence within a plan, necessitate the need for well structured phasing and transitions. Often, in a planning process, defining phases is left until detailed planning, using an assessment of activity and time to create manageable blocks of effort. This type of work plan approach is insufficient to address the criticality of phasing and transitions.

2-78. Transitions require planning and preparation so the force can maintain the initiative and tempo of operations. Forces are vulnerable during transitions, so commanders establish clear conditions for their execution. Planning identifies potential transitions and accounts for them throughout execution. Effective commanders consider the time required to plan for and execute transitions.

If you are a parent, you are very familiar with the importance of planning for and executing transitions in a purposeful manner. All transitions, whether on a battle field, in an organization, or with children, leave people feeling vulnerable. The potential for loss of emotional investment, mental focus, and team cohesion is significant.

Pulling phase and transition planning forward in your planning process, and building the detailed plan around those inflection points. This is especially critical if one of your own centers of gravity is human capital.

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Beyond the introduction to the elements of operational art, ADP 5-0 provides guidance on effective planning and warnings against common planning pitfalls. Three ideas are the most critical for you:

ONE: Leaders Lead Planning (you must be hands on)

2-118. The responsibility for planning is inherent in command. Commanders are planners—they are the central figure to effective planning. Often with the most experience, commanders are ultimately responsible for the execution of the plan. …Generally, the more involved commanders are in planning, the faster staffs can plan. Through personal involvement, commanders learn from the staff and others about a situation and ensure the plan reflects their commander’s intent.

TWO: Keep it Simple (complexity is the enemy of success)

2-122. Simple plans are not simplistic plans. Simplistic refers to something made overly simple by ignoring the situation’s complexity. Good plans simplify complicated situations. However, some situations require more complex plans than others do. Commanders at all levels weigh the apparent benefits of a complex concept of operations against the risk that subordinates will be unable to understand or follow it. Commanders prefer simple plans because units can understand and execute them more easily.

THREE: Take Advantage of Time (do not procrastinate)

2-128. When allocating planning time to staffs, commanders ensure subordinates have enough time to plan and prepare their own actions prior to execution. Commanders follow the “one-third, two-thirds rule” as a guide to allocate time available. They use one-third of the time available before execution for their own planning and allocate the remaining two-thirds of the time available before execution to their subordinates for planning and preparation.

Do you anticipate increasing your use of operational arts in planning?
How will you plan your life differently?

Questions for Individual Reflection

1. Do you enjoy the activity of planning or does it create distress? What about your planning process could you improve?

2. Is a good planning process a success if the plan is a failure? What determines the value of a plan?

3. Operational art involves integrating ends, ways, and means. Which of these do you find most difficult to align, and why?

Professional Discussion Prompts

1. The doctrine suggests that linear planning is insufficient. What outdated planning models still persist in corporate decision-making, and why are they hard to abandon?

2. In what ways does “operational art” apply to corporate strategy, and how does your company practice it—intentionally or unintentionally?

3. What are the corporate equivalents of “tempo” in battle, and how do you control them in your business strategy?

Personal Discussion Prompts

1. What are your personal centers of gravity? How do they need to factor into life planning? How do you protect them?

2. How do you apply “shaping conditions” in your personal life before making a major decision (e.g., moving, changing careers, or investing)?

3. What personal risks have you taken that parallel strategic risks in business? Were they worth it?

Exercises

1. Centers of Gravity

   1. Exercise:

      1. In teams, develop a list of three to four centers of gravity for your organization. Consider both physical and moral centers of gravity.

      2. Develop a list of three to four centers of gravity for your largest competitor. Consider both physical and moral centers of gravity.

   2. Debrief:

      1. How accurate do you think you are in your assessment?

      2. What centers are similar and different between your organization and your competitor?

2. Decisive Point Challenge

   1. Exercise:

      1. Identify a center of gravity for your organization and identify the associated decisive points.

      2. Discuss whether the organization understands those decisive points, is focusing in the correct place, or what changes might be needed.

   2. Debrief:

      1. Were the decisive points obvious, or were they overlooked?

      2. How can companies improve their ability to identify and act on them?

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