Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 48

battlefield (IPB) portion was largely a copy of their higher
headquarters’ IPB, their war-gaming foils (the entity they
“war-gamed” their COAs against) were always enemy focused, and the team’s three courses of action (COAs) largely
revolved around how to organize or lead the guerrillas.
Typical war-gamed COAs included: one guerrilla base
versus multiple bases, rural insurgency versus urban, and
multi-use guerrilla bases versus single-use bases. All teams
and the vast majority of members assumed they would
have to win the hearts and minds of the people, and that the
guerrillas would have to do likewise; that the guerrillas’ local
interests naturally aligned with those of the larger shadow
government; and, that everyone’s interests naturally aligned
with those of the United States.
Fourth, on average, I found the MDMP teams had
the most trouble of all teams in adapting to their reality
once they hit the ground. They had more trouble building
rapport with the guerrilla chief, more trouble adapting their
original plans to the reality, and more trouble figuring out
what was going on in their sectors. They were more likely to
keep fighting their original plan and to refuse to adjust their
incorrect assumptions, even when they discovered evidence
to the contrary of their assumptions. On average there was
a slightly higher rate of recycle and relief of officers from the
MDMP teams, although I suspect this was probably the
least rigorous finding of the entire research.8 The MDMP
teams were more likely to spend a longer time getting to
more complex training objectives than other teams due to
their initial struggles to accomplish simpler ones such as
building rapport with the guerrilla chief, completing initial
assessments, and figuring out what was motivating the local
populace and the guerrilla band and leadership.
Finally, upon completion of the exercise, officers on the
MDMP teams were more likely to admit they did not see
much value in their planning efforts. The NCOs, however,
were generally more than three times as likely to have seen
very little value in their planning efforts as those from the
other teams. They almost unanimously regretted having
spent so much time building PowerPoint slides, not rehearsing much, and not questioning their higher headquarters’
operations order.

Five Salient Differences Between the
MDMP teams and the Army Design
Methodology Groups
First, the ADM teams were more likely than the
MDMP teams to include their NCOs in on the conceptual
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planning portion of their preparation.9 Since teams were
encouraged to build only 10 PowerPoint slides, the ADM
teams were more likely to spend more time together during
planning. A typical visit to a team found the entire team
discussing their sector—usually around a whiteboard or
a map. The ADM teams were also more likely to initially
question their higher headquarters’ assumptions and commander’s intent, although they were also normally more
likely than the unstructured teams to ultimately adopt their
higher headquarters’ assumptions and nest their intent with
their commander’s.
Second, during their briefings, the teams conducting
ADM were less likely than the MDMP teams to have trouble articulating the logic of what they thought they were
about to do. The NCOs were more likely than those on the
MDMP teams to be able to explain in clear language what
the concept of their operation was going to be. A typical
post-briefing comment and question was, “We noticed
some conclusions we had during our design portion kind of
got lost when we started into MDMP because they clashed
with our higher’s order. How do we fix that?”
Third, the ADM teams normally built many more slides
than just the twenty they displayed—many had hidden
slides that amounted to about 100 slides. Once they initiated MDMP, the training they had received kicked in; they
turned to filling out the formatted slides and doing much of
their analysis using the product they had to create for their
briefings. This meant that the ADM teams did not spend
as much time doing rehearsals as the unstructured teams.
Once the team started its MDMP, many of the conclusions
from the design effort were lost.
Many in the ADM groups admitted it seemed to be a
contradictory approach: design encouraged them to build
their own understanding of the environment and problem,
but when it conflicted with their higher’s, they were unsure
of what to do. Notably, those teams that looked at their
higher headquarters’ order before conducting their design
effort were more likely to have their design effort match the
conclusions of their MDMP.
Because these teams eventually conducted MDMP, the
problems associated with the MDMP teams in terms of
the IPB, the most likely and most dangerous enemy course
of action (COA), and their own three COAs were largely
the same. The