Military Decision Making Process
Solution.
Military Decision Making Process
Introduction
Decision-making remains an essential component for the success of any military activity throughout the world. The Military Decision Making Process thus describes the steps adopted by the US Army when making critical decisions within the establishment. The process consists of seven steps that have to be followed while making decisions within the Army (Wampler, Centric, Salter, & U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2008). Such decisions thus end up forming the means by which commanders pass their vision into action.
Each step of the process starts with some input and builds on the results of the previous step. The first phase of the process is the receipt of the mission. Such as mission comes from higher headquarters or an ongoing mission. The second phase involves analyzing the received order with the aim of understanding its specific requirements. The third step entails coming up with a Course of Action Plan that describes the organization of the task.
The fourth step is the Course of Action Analysis that involves activities such as gathering all the available tools, identifying friendly forces and critical events. The fifth step entails the comparison of the Course of Action to identify one with the highest success probability using a wide variety of techniques like the decision matrix. The sixth step involves the approval of the Course of Action taken by the commander by all staff. The last step is the production of orders based on the chief’s decision and final guidance.
In conclusion, having a clearly defined decision-making structure helps in making well thought out decisions whose outcome will benefit the military. Such a structure helps the army know the consequences of their decisions since a lot is always at stake when troops undertake a mission (Wampler ET. Al). The success of any mission is thus always dependent on the kind of decisions that a commander makes.
References
Wampler, R. L., Centric, J., Salter, M. S., & U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. (2008). The Military Decision-Making process (MDMP): A prototype training product. Alexandria, Va: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.