Design and the Prospects for Decision
Design and the Prospects for Decision
by Christopher R. Paparone
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The proposed view of decision presented in this essay reflects quite a departure from US “PPBE” procedures, “JOPP” doctrine and Service-equivalent procedures, such as the US Army’s Field Manual 5-0, The Operations Process. US Joint Forces Command recently released a pamphlet that equally subordinates design as process methodology subservient to a rational-analytic model of decision-making. These depictions unfortunately portray design as just another staff method to reach sufficient commander’s understanding in order to eventually reach a rational or programmatic decision.
This essay is attempts to challenge that view. The artful military designer is concerned about the design of deciding based on appreciatively judging the situation at hand — sometimes having to act before deciding; realizing that deciding may be an elongated process, not a point in time. The messier the situation the more unstructured deciding must become. Although US Army doctrine and pre-doctrinal joint publications may see design as a step toward the more desirable programmatic and rational-analytic forms, participative and emergent modes do not have to lead to analytic and programmatic modes. Situations may demand a blending of all four types, with emphases on one or more. With the proposed typology presented in this essay, the art of deciding is facilitated with the prospects of blending more than one “color” on the military designer’s palette.
Much of the curricula in both US Service and joint staff colleges emphasize programmatic and rational analytic models. For the most part, US military staff and senior service colleges stress rational-analytic models to teach military strategy. Can we imagine a staff or war college changing the educational emphases toward consensus-based decision-making (with the backdrop of social construction theory) and require more exploration of complexity science and chaos theory?
Download the Full Article: Design and the Prospects for Decision
Christopher R. Paparone, Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, is an associate professor in the Army Command and General Staff College’s Department of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations at Fort Lee, Virginia. He holds a B.A. from the University of South Florida; master’s degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology, the U.S. Naval War College, and the Army War College; and a Ph.D. in public administration from Pennsylvania State University. On active duty he served in various command and staff positions in the continental United States, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Bosnia.
