Development and Evaluation of an Intuitive Operational Planning Process

Abstract

Although formal planning procedures are key parts of military doctrine, they may not be well suited to highly dynamic, time-pressured environments. The authors describe an intuitive planning process developed as an alternative to the procedure used by the Canadian Forces (CF). The Intuitive Operational Planning Process (IOPP) treats planning as a highly iterative process of incremental refinement in which a single course of action is elaborated and continually evaluated for its suitability. To examine the effectiveness of the IOPP, 12 members of a reserve CF Civil Military Cooperation unit of Land Force Central Area acted as planning staffs and created plans for two simulated planning exercises. Participants employed the IOPP for one scenario and the existing CF Operational Planning Process (OPP) for another. The teams were able to successfully employ the IOPP to develop acceptable plans; however, it was not possible to determine statistically that the quality of these plans surpassed that of plans generated with the OPP because of limitations of the data set. The IOPP was judged to be very easy to use, but teams expressed less trust in it than the existing OPP. The IOPP may foster greater collaboration and commander involvement in planning than the OPP. received his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1991. He has conducted independent research on human spatial cognition, human factors of aviation security, and, over the past five years, decision making as it is related to military command and control. Bryant is a defence scientist with Defence R & D Canada-Toronto, where he is pursuing research on operational planning, inferential processes involved in situation assessment, and tactical picture compilation.Lora Bruyn Martin is a senior consultant with Humansystems® Incorporated in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Her primary areas of research are decision making and distributed team collaboration, specifically within the context of command and control in the Canadian Forces. Bruyn Martin has an M.A.Sc. in systems design engineering, with a specialty in human factors, from the University of Waterloo.

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Training fast and frugal heuristics in military decision making

“…These have been developed from military experience and are embodied in military doctrine (Shortland et al, 2019). Although different nations have some unique variations, the common major steps are: clarifying the mission; assessing the situation; developing several courses of action; comparing the courses of action; selecting a course of action; developing orders (Bryant, Martin, Bandali, Rehak, Vokac, & Lamoureux, 2007; Matthews, 2014). The process is thorough, detailed and the emphasis is on applying a rigorous process of logical deduction to complex and ill‐structured situations in order to develop a sound plan.…”

“…Other NDM models have been developed that are better able to explain other aspects of decision making, such as the factors that can derail decision making (Shortland, Alison, & Barrett‐Pink, 2018). New decision‐making procedures have been proposed that are more aligned with recognition‐primed decision making (Ross, Klein, Thunholm, Schmitt, & Baxter, 2004), better suited to decision making under time pressure (Thunholm, 2005), or capitalising on intuitive thought (Bryant et al, 2007). For example, these methods begin with identifying a course of action that is subsequently refined, based on the insight that experts generate a good course of action upon recognising the situation, rather than generating several courses of action for evaluation only after rigorous analysis.…”

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“…In the case of the intuitive operational planning process (IOP), as compared with the existing Canadian operational planning process, IOP may foster greater collaboration and commander involvement in planning (Bryant et al, 2007). In fact, Thunholm (2006) employed the RPM as a basis for developing a formal planning model, the planning under time pressure (PUT) model, which is currently employed as a tactical-level planning model within the Swedish Armed Forces.…”

“…Formal empirical evaluations of the prescriptive value of intuitive planning models, such as the RPM relative to the MDMP, have shown that intuitive models permit an increase in planning tempo and lead to plans that are more bold and better adapted to situational demands (Blendell, Molloy, Catchpole, & Henderson, 2002;Pascual, Blendell, Molloy, Catchpole, & Henderson, 2001;Thunholm, 2005). In the case of the intuitive operational planning process (IOP), as compared with the existing Canadian operational planning process, IOP may foster greater collaboration and commander involvement in planning (Bryant et al, 2007). In fact, Thunholm (2006) employed the RPM as a basis for developing a formal planning model, the planning under time pressure (PUT) model, which is currently employed as a tactical-level planning model within the Swedish Armed Forces.…”