Function Flow Analysis and Comparison of Doctrinal and Applied Operations Planning Process

Abstract

This work compared the Canadian Forces (CF) Operational Planning Process (OPP) as it is applied by a Staff at the Brigade level in a realistic scenario with the OPP as it is prescribed in current doctrine and taught within the Land Force (Bruyn, Lamoureux and Vokac, 2004). To establish how the OPP is applied in an operational context, the planning Staff of 1 CMBG was observed during EX VIRTUAL RAM at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Edmonton from Jan 21-25, 2005. Previous work has documented the OPP as it is outlined in doctrine and taught within the Land Force. Overall, it was observed that not all the functions of the OPP as described in doctrine were performed during the exercise, and there was a great deal of "looping" back and forth between the functions, mainly at the lower levels of the function decomposition. The abbreviation and repetition of lower level functions, seemingly in groupings, suggests that these functions are strongly linked and performed as more of a continual process than discrete steps. As well, it was observed that the planning process is indeed "command-driven" as the Commander makes the majority of critical decisions and provides significant guidance and direction to the remaining critical decisions handled by the planning Staff. It was concluded that the 1 CMBG planning Staff followed a step-by-step analytical decision making approach for higher level OPP functions, but more intuitive processes to perform specific, individual functions. It appeared that the input of various staff to the OPP was intuitive, or at least based on his/her own estimate of the situation, compiled from various sources. These results suggest that, in general, application of the OPP at the Brigade level may be a hybrid of analytic and intuitive decision making.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 16, 2005
Accession Number
ADA630698

Entities

People

  • L. Bruyn
  • L. Rehak
  • R. Vokac
  • T. Lamoureux

Organizations

  • HumanSystems Incorporated

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Army Personnel
  • Classification
  • Combat Support
  • Command And Control
  • Decomposition
  • Doctrine
  • Education
  • Guidance
  • Military Education
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Security
  • Systems Engineering
  • Task Forces
  • Training
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Canadian European Scientific Immigration and Epilepsy Clearance Studies
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.