“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.” Vice Admiral James Stockdale (Medal of Honor)
In my last blog, we ended with the staff presenting leadership their best two to four Courses of Action (COAs), along with a recommendation for the one they believed would best accomplish the mission. That briefing included an analysis of each COA based on the evaluation criteria and the mission statement previously approved by leadership. Leadership then gets as much time as they need to consider the options, ask clarifying questions (which the staff must record!), and decide what comes next.
When leadership receives a COA briefing, their response usually falls into one of four categories:
- Accept the staff’s recommended COA and direct them to wargame it.
- Identify two or more COAs as viable and ask the team to wargame each one and then compare the results.
- Send the team back to do more brainstorming.
- Suggest a COA the leader believes in that was not part of the original briefing.
If option 3 is selected, it’s back to COA Development. In all other cases, the team moves into COA Analysis—what we called wargaming in the military and what I still call it today.
Wargaming: Creating a Realistic Simulation
Wargaming is simply a structured simulation of the selected COA(s). The goal is to identify risks to completion, consider ways to mitigate those risks, and refine the COA based on what the simulation reveals.
I’m a firm believer that COA Analysis should be as visual and tactile as possible. Sticky notes on a wall, whiteboards, printed floorplans—anything that allows you to move pieces around. Seeing the plan in motion will reveal gaps, risks, and opportunities you would never catch on paper alone.
A Community College Example: Three Campuses, 120 Students, Half a Day
Recently, one of our high school recruitment coordinators, Demond, was asked to schedule a campus tour. Nothing unusual there—normally no need for deep decision-making. But this time they had a new ask: they wanted all 120 students to tour three of our five campuses, which are miles apart, all in half a day.
Demond and I loved the idea and knew it was possible, but we also knew we needed a simulation to see what we might be missing.
So we drew the campus buildings on a whiteboard.
We used sticky notes to represent buses.
We identified available staff.
And with a notepad in hand to record every step, we played the morning out.
Some insights emerged quickly:
- If the school provided three buses, each going to a different starting campus, we could rotate the groups in a round-robin structure.
- Two campuses were less than a mile apart, but the third was nearly eight miles away, affecting timing.
- The school wanted students to eat lunch, but only two of the campuses had spaces where 120 students could eat.
By walking through bus movements, lunch timing, and tours at all three campuses, we saw exactly where bottlenecks would happen. Our solution? We added a short presentation at our largest campus where students could hear from Demond. The students would share their interests and dreams, and Demond would share how education after high school could help them reach those goals. That extra activity created the time buffer needed to keep the entire event on schedule.
Running the simulation took time, but it paid off. They day was a rousing success and we’ve already been asked to repeat it.
The Final Step: COA Comparison and COA Approval
When wargaming is complete, the staff prepares one last briefing. This briefing compares the results of all simulations (if more than one COA was analyzed), offers a final recommendation, and seeks leadership’s approval to execute the plan.
One important note: approval must come from the administrative level with authority over every department or resource involved in the solution. In the military this sometimes meant taking the final plan to a higher headquarters to request additional resources. If those resources weren’t approved, we returned to an earlier step—but with a far deeper understanding of the problem.
And that’s the point. By this stage:
- You’ve done a thorough analysis.
- You’ve followed leadership guidance at every turn.
- You’ve developed multiple COAs.
- You’ve simulated at least one.
So if you’re required to revisit an earlier step, you do so from a place of clarity, confidence, and shared understanding.
Up Next: Execution and Communication
Execution is its own discipline, and it’s an area where the military excels. It starts with clear, consistent communication to every person responsible for carrying out the plan.
I’ll talk about communication—and how it applies to higher-ed operations—in the next few posts.