Overcoming the Planning Paradox

Abstract

This article will explore productive approaches to dealing with the Planning Paradox.

"No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces.
Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an
original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end."
~Field Marshal Moltke the Elder

The point of departure for this analysis will be a civilian reading of military theory, grounded in the appreciation that war is an endeavor with dynamic and unforgiving external constraints where leadership complacency is punished severely. The following is based on the premise that civilian organizations can learn from experienced military leaders accustomed to navigating volatile situations. The abstraction level for the analysis in a peaceful context is to seek inspiration in more wicked problems, on how to embrace uncertainty and adapt to surprises in a structured way that touches on all four course dimensions. On multiple scales, a popular strategy appears to be reducing organizational complexity by means of flattening leadership structures where swift action is required. This principle is also deployed where every member of a team has the competencies to dynamically transfer leadership based on who has the most situational awareness. The intent of this is to shorten the collective decision cycle or OODA loop in a dynamic situation, to avoid bottle-necking decision making in a single individual who might be denied sufficient situational awareness to make a productive decision. Here a short summary of factors for cohesion will be provided as well. In a project scale perspective, the wide array of Agile Frameworks have a common aim: Shorten development cycles to face reality in the form of stakeholder feedback on MVP’s. The intent of this strategy is to reality check assumptions and self-correct away from sunk-cost behavior with minimum investment. Here, dysfunctional implementations of Scrum will be explored as a warning against unreflected framework deployment.

Finally, on the Portfolio level this article will also explore the risks of Path Dependence with respect to situational agility. The case studies for this exploration will focus on hesitancies to exploit technological salients that big organizations otherwise appeared to be poised to dominate. This analysis will respect the good intentions of the leadership, attempting to contextualize their hesitations with the organizational complexity they had to work with as well as the corporate cultures they had to navigate. These examples will be picked up with a conclusion on the relative merits and limitations of the tools explored, followed by a recommendations to continually adapt leadership strategies and framework deployment to the situation at hand and keep organizational structure ready for changes as the situation permits.

Decision Making Lessons from a Fighter Pilot

F. Osinga: Simple Boyd Cycle

John Richard Boyd was a United States Airforce (USAF) fighter pilot who, after his combat deployment in Korea, got his nickname "forty seconds" from a standing bet he made as an instructor in the USAF Fighter Weapons School(FWS). The bet was that he, within forty seconds, could defeat an opponent from a position of disadvantage in Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM). After instructing he went on to contribute to the development of the F-15 Eagle, as well as laying the strategic foundations for the USAF Lightweight Fighter programme with his Energy-Maneuverability theory of aerial combat. His true legacy is one of tactical and strategical thinking. He was very critical of rigid structure of command and other symptoms of inflexibility. An example of this is found in his "Patterns of Conflict" presentation that compares Napoleon Bonaparte's early and late tactics, scolding the late Emperor for his top-down approach to tactics. His critique was that Napoleons rigid flow of orders was a tactical waste of sound strategy, and that the lack of afforded initiative to the lower parts of the organization was a key factor in his defeat.

A key concept underpinning Boyd's strategic and tactical teachings is his decision cycle, better known as the OODA loop developed for aerial combat decision making. It is an abbreviation for Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action: First, information is gathered about the situation. Second, the actor must rely on experience to orientate themselves in the situation. Third, a decision must be made before finally acting. This cycle repeats continuously, and Boyd's central point with the decision cycle was that if two adversaries with equal capabilities with respects to skill and resources meet in conflict: Then the pilot who closes the OODA loop the fastest wins. Note that action itself is within the loop as a point of order that needs to be completed before gathering more information.

• Observation: Raw information about the situation is collected.
• Orientation: The information is parsed through experience, with subjective analysis of what might happen.
• Decision: A review of possible courses of action ending in selection.
• Action: Decision enactment.

Considering the concept of Path Dependency - and by extension the sunk cost fallacy - through Boyd's decision cycle the error becomes glaring: The OODA-loop is not closed and re-initiated, but the actor remains in the last phase - stuck on action without further review of the situation. The situational awareness is not maintained and the action becomes blind and predictable to adversarial response.

Any given problem or set of problems might develop into a threat, even without adversarial and malicious intent. For example he discovery of a "unknown-unknown" after a project has been scoped and initiated presents a similar management challenge. Continual usage of the Boyd Cycle is a deceptively simple framework for dealing with a developing situation, developed for the worst kind of problem: Another actor seeking to destroy you. The OODA-loop is intended to be applied at all levels, from the operational, through the tactical and up to the strategic level. Abstracted to a civilian context and in summary: The OODA-loop must develop as fast as, or quicker than, the problem being dealt with.

Organizational Structure - Perils and Opportunities

Elaboration and contextualization of Boyd's briefings through Osinga.

What is strategy? A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests. ~John Boyd

• Introduce Actor Network Theory and the abstract notion of non-human actors.
• Set the adversarial premise that any given non-human problem is a blind attacker in the context of Boyd's broader strategic perspective.
• Summarize Boyds inspiration in entropy and the importance of simplicity.
• Emergent and reactive complexity from simple constituents.
• Overconstraining in an organizational context.

NASA & USN

After the Columbia space shuttle disaster and the following Senate hearings, where the testimony of Admiral Rickover prompted a collaboration between NASA and USN. Rickover managed the Naval Nuclear Reactor (NR) programme, deploying organizational principles that allowed for safe operation of reactors. The following is the executive summary of findings of the NASA/Navy Benchmarking Exchange:

NASA’s examination resulted in identification of the following key leadership, organizational, and management attributes of NR safety implementation.

• NR has total programmatic and safety responsibility for the design, fabrication, test, installation, operation, and

maintenance of all U. S. Navy nuclear propulsion plants.

• NR represents a very stable program based on long-term relationships with three prime contractors and a

relatively small number of critical suppliers and vendors.

• NR employs well-documented, conservative and achievable technical requirements whose implementation is

verified through robust audit and review processes.

• NR is a relatively flat organization with quick and assured access to the NR Director
• Critical NR program decisions require concurrence of all appropriate system, component, and support technical

managers in addition to the program manager.

• NR has embedded the safety process within its organization such that safety and quality assurance are

mainstreamed to an extent that a quality or safety office per se is unnecessary.

• NR relies upon recruiting, training, and retaining highly qualified people who are held personally accountable and

responsible for safety.

• The theme of recurrent training is a major element of the NR safety culture and NR incorporates extensive outside

experience to build a safety training regimen that has become a major component of the NR safety record.

• NR promotes the airing of diverse and differing opinions and recognizes that when no differing opinions are

present it is the responsibility of management to ensure critical examination of an issue to actively encourage such opinions.

• NR has institutionally embedded a closed-loop lessons learned process that begins with a technical requirements

base built on 5400 years of reactor operational experience, which in turn provides the foundation for the next generation propulsion plant design specifications.


The following opportunities are identified for NASA to consider based on the benchmarking:

• Increase the capability and functions of current NASA engineering organizations.
• Strengthen independent safety analysis and compliance assurance organizations.
• Consider alternative approaches for safety critical decision making, including enhanced roles for independent

technical and safety organizations.

• Consider alternative organizational/management approaches for future human space flight programs
• Employ selected Navy submarine approaches to create stronger NASA system safety performance, including

system safety training, alternative fora for discussion of safety critical engineering issues and the airing of differing opinions, as well as verification of safety behavior.

• Implement a Process Sponsor Program to enhance the retention of corporate knowledge and strengthen critical

material and manufacturing processes.

above is intended to be summarized into a more digestible summary in the final article

BEF, Kodak & IBM

The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were first to deploy Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV) under the codename "Tanks" in the first world war, pioneering the concept of "lightning war". The organization of the British Army was not ready for these strange machines that did not fit in anywhere. AFV's were as such more of an appendix than a main chapter. The Nazis had no such organizational barriers as they had to build an army from the ground up to satisfy their expansionist goals, as the conditions of surrender from the first world war had demanded a demilitarization of Germany. As such, the BEF were surprised by tactics they themselves had invented as the hitlerian "Blitzkrieg" plowed through the Ardennes forest in 1940. Right past the french Maginot Line, the most elaborately planned defensive line ever constructed. According to economist Tim Harford, the Treaty of Versailles backfired militarily on the Triple Entente by removing the military, giving the nazis an opportunity to organize a modern war machine from a clean slate.

Kodak was a very large film company, highly technology focused and specialized in one way of producing images. When the technological salient began closing to provide the opportunity to make digital photography, Kodak did not seize their brand opportunity to stay "picture company" number one. The company considered themselves tied to their technology of choice, and the emergent technology became the competitor. Kodak had the finest production facilities for producing film, and that production capability became their center of identity and probably the reason why they acted like the the new technology was an adversarial force. To their credit, they did not possess the electronics capabilities of other Japanese brands like Toshiba. But Kodak's adherence to film photography invariably led to their bankruptcy as the market favored digital solutions. They were inflexible in their objective, disinterested in what they provided but highly focused on how they provided it. They remained a film company, but lost out as a picture company.

IBM similar to Kodak but with personal computing. Refused to think in volume. Out of time soon. Draft! Sorry!

Dark Scrum: Inflexible Agility

Unreflected orthodoxy of tech bro's: Just don't make bugs, man!

Very rough takeaway: Agile is a manifesto of principles that requires reflection, the frameworks are algorithmic and provide recipes for agility. Algorithms only provide certain options, and their devout users will invariably suffer if reality rejects conforming to the algorithm.

Conclusion - Contextual Framework Implementation

Use Boyd's principles of adaptive decision-making. Take inspiration from the flat-like-structure of USN NR and their focus on direct communication, accountability, evaluation and implementation. Show how that relates to the OODA loop. Point to path dependencies and cultural factors within behemoth organizations. Learn from Kodak, IBM and BEF.

Organization should never precede the objective.