Envisioning and Achieving the End State

1. Envisioning and Achieving the End State

2. If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable. 12 Seneca, 4 BC—65 AD

3. What is the Right Solution? The Future is Plural! There is a future that will occur without an intervention There is a future that will occur if an intervention is successful (or not!) There are an infinite number of futures in between All Planning Attempts to Alter the Future Consequently, All Planning is Future Oriented 10 If the “future” were immutable,planning would be pointless.

4. Reliable Assumptions 9 Norms can be extremely accurate and reliable. The coldest day in July is warmer than the warmest day in December. Trends provide direction.

5. Futures Forecasting Envisioning the future is not a prediction, but a forecast While precision may be impossible, identifying a range of likely outcomes is not Norms can be reliably estimated far into the future, even when the details can not Trends provide direction with general tendency Social Forecasting—using social factors to forecast probable trends and events 8 A lack of ability to be precise must not be an excuse for a lack of foresight!

6. Ignorant Omniscient KNOWLEDGE Past Now Future TIME Identifying the Range The Event Horizonis that portion of the future where you can realistically anticipate the consequences of your actions Confidence Level Foreseeable Future Present EventHorizon Unknown Event Horizon

7. Undesirable Desirable OUTCOME Past Now Future TIME Limiting the Scope The Manageable Futurelies between the best and worst case scenarios with the highest confidence nearest the most likely scenario and oriented closest to the present Best Possible Most Likely Event Line Timid Rash Worst Possible EventHorizon Scenario Review

8. End State “If you don’t know where you’re goin,’ How you gonnaknow when you get there?”Yogi Berra Must be attainable Specific enough to be visualized Provides the beginning of a“common operational picture” 7 What the Incident Commander wants the situation to be when operations conclude.

9. Commander’s Intent Provides the planning guidance for developing plans Describes commander’s rationale and assumptions Allows subordinates to use initiative and exploit opportunities 6 A clear, concise articulation of the purpose behind one or more tasks assigned to subordinates.

10. Fog 5 A condition that prohibits a tactical commander from obtaining accurate information in a timely manner. • Called the “Fog of War” by the military • Information will always be ambiguous, uncertain, unreliable, and even conflicting • You will never be absolutely certain of an appropriate course of action

11. Friction Manifests itself in at least three distinct dimensions Physical Psychological Self-Induced 4 The force that resists all action. It makes the simple difficult and the difficult seemingly impossible.

12. Center of Gravity May be tangible, such as a structure or hostages May be intangible, such as perceived air of legitimacy, commitment to a course of action or objective 3 Something necessary which, if eliminated, damaged or destroyed will severely hinder the ability to succeed.

13. Critical Vulnerability May be tangible, such as lack of weapons or ammunition May be intangible such as ability to sustain or continually resist 2 A weakness that if exploited willcreate failure.

14. Planning Misused Attempting to forecast events too far into the future Too much detail(sometimes called “over planning”) Using planning as a scripting process Inflexible plans or dogmatic adherence to any plan 1

15. Questions?