Flattening the Decision Cycle in Tactical Units
Flattening the Decision Cycle in Tactical Units
Joe Byerly
In accordance with ADP 6-0 Mission Command, the philosophy of mission command is based on 6 principles:
- Build cohesive teams through mutual trust
- Create shared understanding
- Provide commander’s clear intent
- Exercise disciplined initiative
- Use mission orders
- Accept prudent risk
All of these are much easier to recite than to actually internalize and set into practice. There is a simple solution already in tactical doctrine that could help leaders embrace the six principles much easier.
A decision point is an event, an area, a line, or a point on the battlefield where tactical decisions are required. Decision points do not dictate commander’s decisions, they only indicate that a decision is required, and they indicate when and where the decision should be made to have the maximum effect on friendly or enemy courses of action.
During the planning process commanders might require subordinate leaders to do the following: “Identify 3 decisions that you will have to make during the course of this operation and discuss them with me during the back brief.”
This simple step will potentially have the following effects:
- Commanders and subordinates gain a shared understanding of potential situations that may arise during operations.
- Commanders and subordinates gain a greater appreciation for how each other thinks which increases the likelihood that both sides will accept prudent risks.
- Subordinates begin to understand they can trust the commander to support them when timely decisions are required, thereby speeding up the process.
- The decision cycles of the entire organization are greatly decreased during actual operations
Mission command is like a marriage; it takes a lot of work and open lines of communication, and there is no better time to do this in a military setting than before the actual battle begins.
Joe—well thought through as this is in fact the way forward—this process/suggested way drives the concept of building trust using dialogue in an open fear free manner–ie collaboration.
It gives both the commander and his staff the ability to dialogue and through dialogue it builds trust and trust drives collaboration.
And it is easy to slide into the MDMP process.
BUT what is interesting many commanders and staffs have actually through the last ten years of treadmill check the box operational planning actually forgotten how to use decision points or what a decision matrix is.
MAJ Byerly,
You seem to have identified a disconnect or at least a confusing area in current revised ADRP doctrine. There is no reference to “decision point” in ADRP 6-0 or ADRP 3-0, but there is in ADRP 5-0 and 2-0. There are a full three paragraphs on “decisive point” in ADRP 3-0. ADRP 2-0 discusses only “decision points” in several areas making references to NAI and CCIR. Is this a disagreement in doctrine or a simple confusion of similar but different terms?
Your definition in this article is this:
ADRP 1-02 says a decision point is:
There is nothing about an “event” in the ADRP 1-02 definition of “decision point” or in ADRP 5-0 whereas an event is associated with “decisive points” in ADRP 5-0. The gist of “decision point” in ADRP 5-0 appears to be that it is related to branches and sequels of the plan, whereas decisive point is more related to the initial plan objective and commander’s intent that MDMP and Design would develop. The three-paragraph discussion in ADRP 3-0 for decisive point seems to revolve a great deal around centers of gravity…which Army general purpose forces are best able to address.
Relative to Outlaw’s comments, consider this from para 4-20 of ADRP 5-0:
So how can a decision support matrix be good if MDMP and COA wargaming is bad?;)
In addition, with all this talk lately about toxic leaders and the superiority of young leaders, let me point out that that many LTC and COL of today were Captains and Majors when these wars started. Were they better early on and deteriorated with age, or was there something about 4-5 year long deployments that changed them…because the Army general purpose force wasn’t large enough and they were forced to deploy to conflict that many times with so little break in between?