Tag: kvcc

  • Communicating the Plan: OPORD Step 1 — Situation

    “The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish the kind of war on which they are embarking.” — Carl von Clausewitz

    Lots of things impact mission success, including the temperature in Iraq!

    “The art of command lies in making intentions clear.” In the last post, I argued that clarity begins not with tasks or timelines, but with shared understanding. That is why every Operations Order (OPORD) starts not with the mission, but with the Situation.

    At my community college, nearly all employees take the CliftonStrengths assessment. It identifies preferred ways of thinking and behaving, with the idea that if we understand one another’s strengths, we can work together more effectively. My top strength is “Context.” Gallup defines it this way: “People who enjoy thinking about the past. They understand the present by researching its history.”

    I have occasionally wondered whether that tendency is innate or learned. My suspicion is that it is largely learned. The Army trained me to begin every serious discussion with context. Before we ever talked about what we were going to do, we talked about where we were and what conditions shaped the problem in front of us.

    In a formal OPORD, the Situation section describes the operational environment: terrain, weather, population, friendly forces, enemy forces, and key assumptions. It explains who is present, what capabilities exist, what constraints apply, and what uncertainties must be accounted for. The purpose is not to overwhelm with detail, but to ground everyone in a shared understanding of reality before assigning tasks or setting expectations.

    That same logic applies in higher education. If we want people to understand the mission, they must first understand the conditions under which that mission must be executed. Agreement with a plan is not enough; people need to see how the plan fits the world they actually operate in.

    Macro- political and social realities, wildlife, terrain. All these were part of the situation on deployment.

    If you have used a deliberate decision-making process—such as MDMP or a close civilian equivalent—your Situation section will largely write itself. In an earlier post on Mission Analysis, I described how we adapted that step at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. That work provides most of what a strong Situation paragraph needs. For a community college, it might include:

    • The institutional mission and strategic priorities
    • The specific problem being addressed
    • Leadership constraints and non-negotiables
    • Available internal and external resources
    • Critical facts and data shaping the issue
    • Key assumptions
    • Risks and likely second- and third-order effects

    These sections can be written into a document and form the basis for a slide presentation provided to all involved departments.  A brief word on dissemination. Whenever possible, an OPORD should be briefed in person, then reinforced in writing. Questions, clarifications, and even disagreements are part of the process. In the Army, we expected plans to evolve and had a formal mechanism—Fragmentary Orders, or FRAGOs—to adjust them. I will return to that concept in a later post. Doing a formal slide presentation and following that up with a document of the entire OPORD, is the most efficient way dissemination can occur in my opinion.

    Context is not a luxury. It is the foundation. Whether or not “Context” is one of your natural strengths, your team needs it. When everyone understands the situation, the mission makes sense. And when the mission makes sense, the execution plan is no longer an abstraction—it becomes a coherent response to real conditions.

  • Step 3 – COA Development: Where Creativity Meets Discipline

    “The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”
    — T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”)

    I have vivid memories of our TOC (Tactical Operations Center) covered in whiteboards and butcher paper. We were constantly developing alternatives to our current course of action—planning logistical convoy security, updating troop strength, tracking vehicle maintenance, and revising Electronic Warfare jamming programs as the radio-controlled IED threat evolved. While these aren’t memories of a full-on, end-to-end MDMP cycle, they remind me how involved our COA work really was—and how much it mattered that we were trained in a process that rewards thoroughness and attention to detail.

    Step 3 of the Military Decision-Making Process is Course of Action (COA) development. In the method we’re experimenting with at my community college, we keep the same name. Where Mission Analysis (what we call problem analysis) is an extremely rigorous, research-driven exercise designed to produce a well-informed staff able to discuss the problem with leadership, COA development is more creative. I’ve described it as a brainstorming exercise, but—as I learned in the Army—that creativity is tempered by the rigor produced in problem analysis. It’s also bounded by the approved mission statement and by the leader’s requirements, constraints, intent, and evaluation criteria. In short: creative brainstorming from a position of strength.

    At the end of step 2, Mission Analysis, the commander is briefed on what the staff has learned. The staff then recommends a mission statement and proposes evaluation criteria for assessing potential COAs. If the leader approves the mission and criteria, the staff reconvenes—again without the commander—to brainstorm ideas that accomplish the mission (in our context, to solve the problem). There usually aren’t many rules for this session, but because it follows thorough analysis and a leadership brief, the creativity stays grounded in reality. There’s no set number of ideas that must come out of brainstorming. When the session wraps, I recommend a short break before reconvening to apply the mission statement and evaluation criteria to the results.

    When the staff meets to refine ideas, start by reviewing the approved mission statement and the evaluation criteria. Post a simple decision matrix to narrow the list to a few COAs to bring to leadership. A decision matrix for a community college might include criteria such as impact on student outcomes, cost, time to implement, staffing requirements, risk, and alignment with strategic priorities.

    Begin by removing ideas that clearly fail one or more criteria, are unacceptable to leadership, or are impractical given constraints. Then discuss what remains. I recommend bringing no more than three to four recommendations to leadership; two to three is often better. You can evaluate as many options as time allows, but keep the final brief focused. For each COA you present to leadership, complete the decision matrix (some options will stand out on scores alone), write a short narrative identifying its decisive or unique element, and explain why it’s distinct. Finally, list the risks for each COA (costs, time investment, added resources, change-management complexity, etc.). Your available time will determine how many brainstormed ideas get the full treatment.

    Ideally, you want to give leadership a real choice. By bringing two to four strong options—each with unique points, risks, and rationales—you enable a detailed discussion of what best meets the leader’s intent. Once your staff work is complete, bring the commander/leader back in for their input. This is the leader’s COA presentation. At our community college, we’re using this format:

    • Brief recap of the Problem Analysis deck (emphasize changes since the last meeting)
    • Leadership’s approved mission statement and the approved evaluation criteria for choosing a COA
    • Slide on major obstacles/constraints to successful execution
    • Completed decision matrix highlighting quantitative scores for the 2–4 COAs being briefed
    • One slide per COA including:
    – Its score against the evaluation criteria (with notes)
    – Decisive/unique component of the COA
    – Rationale for the COA
    – Risks associated with the COA
    • Final slide with the staff’s recommendation

    After the presentation, the leader provides feedback. He or she isn’t deciding yet—they’re offering reactions to each COA, eliminating options they find unsuitable, and then handing it back to the staff for the final exercise. In the military, there are three more steps: COA Analysis (wargaming), COA Comparison, and COA Approval. For our community college, we’re finding that combining those into a single step makes sense. I’ll cover that in the next post.

  • Step 2: Mission Analysis — Turning Information Into Understanding

    “It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”
    — W. Edwards Deming

    I first encountered the second step of the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP) as a staff officer with a Michigan National Guard cavalry squadron preparing to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As I shared in my previous post on Step 1: Receipt of Mission, I didn’t take it seriously at first, and my inattention to detail showed. It was a lesson I took to heart—and one that I’ve shared often in my work at the community college: researching a problem and paying attention to detail early in the decision-making process matters as much, or more, than anything else you will do.

    In the military, the second step of MDMP is called Mission Analysis (MA). We call it that because in Step 1 we receive a mission from higher headquarters. In higher education, what usually happens in Step 1 is that a problem—or opportunity—is identified. What some of us have been practicing at my college is something similar: problem analysis.

    We conclude this step with a mission statement that we craft from our analysis and the problem statement we were given in Step 1. In the Army, Mission Analysis begins with inputs such as the higher headquarters’ order, any initial guidance from the commander, details about the area of operations, relevant higher-level information, and current data about your unit (often called “running estimates”).

    These inputs can be voluminous. With this information, the commander’s team goes to work. That team includes personnel, intelligence, operations, communications, and logistics staff—as well as the chaplain, engineers, civil affairs, and anyone else with relevant expertise. Under the leadership of the battalion (or squadron) executive officer, this group prepares a formal briefing for the commander.

    Leaving the commander out of the room at this stage is intentional. The goal is to allow the staff to analyze freely and prepare an organized presentation so that, when briefed, the commander receives the best information possible—and can ask informed, targeted questions of a well-prepared team.

    When the time allotted for Mission Analysis ends, the staff conducts the Mission Analysis Briefing. When I served on that cavalry squadron staff, this was the most comprehensive briefing in the entire MDMP process—and one we constantly referred back to during later stages. It included the area of operations and interest, anticipated weather, enemy forces, civil considerations, and the friendly forces situation, among many other factors. We also briefed key facts and assumptions, critical information requirements, potential risks, constraints, and finally a proposed mission statement and timeline from the present moment through mission execution.

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    Adapting the Framework to Higher Education

    At my community college, we’ve adapted this military model to our own context while keeping its core strengths: disciplined analysis and a shared understanding before moving forward. We call ours a Problem Analysis Briefing. It’s not yet a formal procedure, but more and more teams are beginning to use it.

    Our current Problem Analysis Briefing format includes:

    • Mission Statement of the College
    • The problem statement we’ve been assigned to solve
    • Constraints from leadership
    • Leadership’s criteria for evaluating proposed solutions
    • A proposed decision matrix or rubric for leadership’s use
    • Implied tasks
    • Available resources internally and externally
    • Research and case studies showing how other institutions addressed similar challenges
    • Critical facts related to the problem
    • Assumptions being made as we frame solutions
    • Risks and potential second- and third-order effects of our proposed solutions
    • A proposed mission statement to guide us in developing those solutions

    Leadership is seated for this briefing and asked to approve the proposed mission statement. As in the Army, approval is not guaranteed—they may ask for more data, modify our language, or even rewrite the statement themselves. Once approved, they may issue updated intent, constraints, or priorities.

    Why the Leader Should Stay “Out of the Room”

    Just as the commander remains out of the room during Mission Analysis, it’s often wise for the leader to remain out during the Problem Analysis phase. This isn’t about exclusion—it’s about clarity.

    When the leader steps back, it allows the team to examine the issue honestly, without shaping their findings around what they think the leader wants to hear. It encourages creative thinking, balanced critique, and a full airing of data and perspectives. When the leader later reenters the process, they encounter a cohesive, prepared team—one that has wrestled with the complexity, organized its findings, and can now brief the leader confidently and clearly.

    In both the Army and higher education, that separation builds trust. The leader demonstrates confidence in their team’s analytical ability, and the team, in turn, delivers sharper, more objective insights. The result is the same in both worlds: better understanding leads to better decisions.

    And then, just like in the field, we move on to Step 3: Course of Action Development—where artistry and creativity meet the discipline of analysis.
    That’s where ideas begin to take shape, built on the firm foundation of shared understanding.

  • Step 1: Receipt of Mission — When Awareness Becomes Action

    “The first duty of any commander is to understand what he is being asked to do.”
     — Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery

    “The first step of MDMP is never taken alone — it starts with people, purpose, and a problem to solve.”

    When a U.S. Army unit of battalion size or larger receives an order—or even an alert that an order is coming—the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP) begins.

    In early 2007, the Michigan National Guard unit I belonged to (1-126 Cavalry, 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team) was alerted that we should expect to be mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008. Thus began nearly a year of preparation. Much of it focused on individual and small-unit readiness: M4 carbine qualification, crew-served weapons training, maintenance, new equipment fielding, and a plethora of administrative tasks that accompany deployment. Security clearance renewals, medical screenings, paperwork, life-insurance updates—the list felt endless.

    But while soldiers trained, our commander and his staff began planning how we would execute the mission once we hit the ground. Initially, this planning was broad and conceptual since the specific mission was not yet defined. Over time, it grew sharper: we would provide convoy security to ensure the safe delivery of logistical supplies moving north from Kuwait into Iraq. And all of it began with a single alert order.

    Readiness is built in the details — repetition, feedback, and the willingness to learn before it counts.

    Receiving a mission initiates MDMP. The unit’s current status is updated, available information is gathered, and subordinate units are alerted. The battalion (or, in my case, squadron) commander issues initial guidance to company and troop-level leaders. It’s the start of deliberate, coordinated thought.

    At our community college, this step most closely resembles the identification of a problem. Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s mission—

    “Kalamazoo Valley Community College creates innovative and equitable opportunities that empower all to learn, grow, and thrive.”

    —serves as our equivalent to a higher-headquarters order. It defines the purpose and intent of all we do. When challenges emerge that inhibit that mission, a deliberate decision-making process becomes valuable in identifying courses of action and determining the best path forward.

    As I’ve shared in earlier posts, MDMP offers more than a military planning tool—it provides a framework for disciplined, inclusive problem solving. Step 1, Receipt of Mission, reminds us that the moment a problem or directive is identified, the clock starts ticking. How we process that initial alert determines the tempo, clarity, and success of everything that follows.

    Looking Ahead: Step 2 — Mission Analysis

    Once the mission is received, the real work of understanding begins. Step 2, Mission Analysis, is where we dissect the problem, clarify assumptions, identify constraints, and define success. It’s the bridge between awareness and action—the point where good leaders transform orders into understanding. That will be the focus of my next post: how the discipline of Mission Analysis applies not just to combat operations, but to our classrooms, campuses, and communities.

  • Introduction to the Military Decision-Making Process — “If Everyone Is Thinking Alike…”

    Introduction to the Military Decision-Making Process — “If Everyone Is Thinking Alike…”

    “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” — Gen. George S. Patton

    In 2008, when my Cavalry squadron mobilized at then–Fort Hood, Texas, I was pretty cocky about the kind of intelligence officer I’d be downrange. I’d spent five years overseas as an intelligence collector for another agency, and I’d completed the Reserve Component Military Intelligence Officer Course at Fort Huachuca. I figured I’d be fine.

    Then pre-deployment training introduced me to the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP). As the Squadron S2, my job was to know everything available about the threat to our troopers. Our first training exercise packet—enemy order of battle, weapons systems, terrain, local communities—ran to hundreds of pages. I didn’t read it all, assuming I could wing it or look up facts on the fly.

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    When my squadron commander (who I suspect is reading this) asked for details I couldn’t answer, then asked if I’d read all the material, I admitted I hadn’t. He made it clear, in his own special way, that this was unacceptable. We were preparing to deploy to Iraq—hardly the time for cockiness, a lackadaisical attitude, or anything less than my best. I learned a lot that day.

    From Combat Operations to Campus Operations

    In higher education, I often talk about deliberate decision-making, and since 2008 my model has been MDMP. I define college deliberate decision making as a structured, intentional process for making choices that align actions with clearly defined outcomes—and with the institution’s mission and strategic plan.

    MDMP itself is a deliberate, collaborative framework Army leaders use to make informed, coordinated decisions in complex conditions. It’s a seven-step process that I’ll cover across several posts. It’s structured yet flexible (I rarely executed all seven steps in perfect sequence). And it demands input from every member of the commander’s staff.

    In the Army that includes personnel, logistics, operations, communications, intelligence, civil affairs, and more. In higher ed it often includes Counseling & Advising, Financial Services, Recruitment & Outreach, Development, Events, Wellness, and others.

    Why It Matters in Higher Education

    Colleges aren’t facing hostile fire, but our challenges are often complex, fast-moving, and nuanced—the exact environment where a deliberate decision-making model helps. Think student persistence and academic success, degree and certificate completion, cross-department coordination, and shifting federal and state priorities for different student populations.

    MDMP gives us a common language and method to move from operations to outcomes—on purpose.

    The Seven Steps of MDMP

    1. Receipt of Mission
    2. Mission Analysis
    3. Course of Action (COA) Development
    4. COA Analysis
    5. COA Comparison
    6. COA Approval
    7. Orders Production, Dissemination, and Transition

    At its heart, MDMP isn’t just about decisions—it’s about trust and collaboration. Patrick Lencioni, in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, reminds us that trust allows teams to engage in healthy conflict, commit to a plan, and hold each other accountable. Without that foundation, even the best process falters.

    The military understood that long ago, and higher education can learn from it today: when people trust each other enough to debate, challenge, and commit, that’s when we start thinking together instead of alike.

    Next Up

    In my next post, I’ll explore Step 1: Receipt of Mission—how deliberate decision-making begins with clarity of purpose and a shared understanding before the planning ever begins.