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.