1. Applying Design at US Army Central/Third Army: What Theory Recommends and What Reality
Demands (2010)
Major Trent Mills1
Introduction
There is no shortage of conceptual Design approaches; however, as a growing community of
Designers, it could be argued that there are several gaps in our shared understanding of the
application of Design. This handbook will identify some of those presumed gaps and offer ways
of bridging Design theory with Design application as a contribution to the on-going
conversation. As the Department of Defense codifies its expectations of Design--in the most
recent FM 5-0 and pending revision to JP 5-0--one may find this handbook useful as a
complement to the scholarship coming out of the School of Advanced Military Science (SAMS),
or as a how-to manual for action officers told to go “do” Design. While we acknowledge the
risks associated with characterizing Design as a methodology (instead of a way of thinking), we
respectfully disagree with any outright rejection of the value of a prescribed approach to
Design. We hope that by focusing the dialogue on the operational application, we (as a
community) can refine our theoretical understanding of Design through our explicit differences,
accept risk in its abbreviation, make useful mistakes, and fully exploit the strengths of Design.
The Design Team of US Army Central (USARCENT)/Third Army has for two years
appropriated and implemented significant elements of BG (R) Huba Wass de Czege’s vast and
evolving understanding of Design complemented by the philosophical underpinnings of Design
provided by BG (R) Shimon Naveh (IDF) to create a Third Army approach to Design. This team,
commissioned by the previous Commanding General of Third Army2
, is one of only a few US
Army organizations to apply sustained energy to press the limits of Design’s relevance in an
operational-level headquarters3
. When FM5-0 was revised in March 2010, we aligned our
lexicon as best we could but found significant incongruities and shortfalls in the actual
1
This study was written in close coordination with the original Design Team Leader, COL Matt Dawson.
2
In July 2008, LTG James Lovelace, former Commanding General, USARCENT/Third Army commissioned a special
study to examine several “complex, adaptive systems” across US Central Command’s area of responsibility. Given
the enduring US strategic interests and policies, the team was directed to use what was known then as Systemic
Operational Design (SOD) to construct a whole-of-government understanding of ill-structured problems that the
command was facing. Following a two-week training seminar, a team was immediately assembled and COL Matt
Dawson selected to lead the effort. After six months, the initial team of six was replaced with another team
(retaining COL Dawson and your author). While this handbook is based primarily on the experiences of the first
team, our understanding of design principles gained fidelity only through application and refinement (read:
mistakes) with subsequent Design Teams and close interaction with several SAMS seminars applying Design
principles during Unified Quest 2009 and 2010. At the time of this writing, the team that was once task organized
directly under the CG, is now organized as a subordinate element to the G5 Strategy, Plans, and Policy Division.
3
The current leader of the Third Army Design Team is LTC Paul Robyn. At the time of this writing, US Army Pacific
(USARPAC) has a fully-integrated Design Team led by LTC James Frick. To my knowledge, USSOCOM is the only
Combatant Command that has incorporated Design into its planning efforts.
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2. application of the Army approach to Design. While the blogs and the institution will debate the
theoretical underpinnings of Design and others will condemn its esoteric lexicon, this handbook
will simply focus on the how.
Why Design at USARCENT?
USARCENT/Third Army serves as the Army component to USCENTCOM. This 1300-strong
headquarters is physically split by an ocean and seven time zones and must be intellectually
agile enough to simultaneously perceive problems through the lens of an Army Service
Component Command, Combined Joint Task Force, and a forward-deployed command post
responsible for supporting OIF and OEF as well as coordinating security in designated Joint
Security Area’s in the USCENTCOM Area of Operations (AOR). The difficulties of forming a
single consciousness across a major headquarters are numerous. The Third Army Design Team
contributes to this desired capability through the production of Design Concepts (discussed in
detail later) that serve as the Commander’s understanding of complex, adaptive systems in the
AOR. In addition to the formal planning products and direct consultation to the Commanding
General, our Design Team applies perspective gained by helping the Commander visualize
complex systems directly into MDMP efforts across the headquarters.
For USARCENT, Design charts a deliberate path that moves a complex, adaptive system4
from what is to what is feasible and better. Design serves to set the right problem(s) so that
planners can solve the problem(s) using the tools of the operational artist, e.g. MDMP, JOPP,
and elements of operational design. The outputs of Design are numerous and culminate in
Commander’s Guidance to Planners to initiate and/or synchronize planning efforts addressing
Third Army priorities in any complex, adaptive situation. The understanding generated using
this rigorous and disciplined methodology directly supports the operational artist charged with
delivering a critical factors analysis or mission analysis within a broader context.
This handbook is organized to present our own experiences as a Design team producing
Design-outputs for complex, adaptive systems extant in the USCENTCOM Area of Operations. It
will include frustrations as well as success; tension instead of harmony; anecdotes instead of
formula. Our goal is to help other Design teams (in Third Army or otherwise) negotiate the
tricky and oftentimes paralyzing cognitive “leaps” necessary in Design. This handbook is
constructed as a dialectic-of-sorts to offer the lessons-learned as our path intersected with—
and veered away from—theory.
Beginnings and Expectations
4
In his monograph on the philosophy of design, MAJ Edward Hayward provides perhaps the most useful
definitions of System and Complex Adaptive System and I shall offer them in their entirety. System: “A group of
independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole […] interacting artifacts designed to work as a
coherent entity; a procedure or process of obtaining an objective; an ordered manner; orderliness by virtue of
being methodical and well organized. A Complex System is any dynamic system composed of many simple, and
typically nonlinear, interacting parts. A complex adaptive system is one whose parts can evolve and adapt to a
changing environment” (Planning Beyond Tactics, 1).
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3. In order to Design, several logical principles must be applied, in a generally accepted order.
The first step is to engage with the commander and get clear guidance and a shared
understanding of the issue, mission, or concept being examined. What in the environment
poses a complex, adaptive problem that the commander needs Design to better understand,
and visualize? Is the problem the commander is concerned with complex, or just complicated?
The team should refrain from embarking on Design project that is better suited for MDMP or
JOPP. From this beginning, there are different paths to a successful Design outcome, and we
offer just one approach that we have generally followed with only minor variations.
Our rule of thumb: If complex, adaptive system, then apply Design.
If complicated, then apply MDMP/JOPP.
Any Design effort begins with the commander identifying a complex, adaptive system in
need of new appreciation. Put in another way, a commander likely has a menu of problems that
require planning efforts; some of those problems may fall in the “complex and ill-structured”
category. While many adaptive systems may exist within the scope of the commander’s
responsibility, the commander may be prompted to employ a Design team because of new
guidance from higher, a revelation, or an event occurs that triggers a need to shift (or develop)
priorities. Whatever the reason, the commander is the only one who should commit the team
to a “project”. Once committed to a project, the relationship between the Design team and the
commander should be considered as exclusive as is appropriate. The first formal engagement
should result in a shared understanding of how the Design will proceed.
The initial engagement should provide both the Design team and the commander fidelity
concerning the adaptive system in question. This engagement is vital because in it the
commander should orient the Design team as to why this new appreciation is necessary,
resources the commander can leverage for the effort, and perhaps connections to his or her
strategic understanding of the adaptive system. Since this will likely be the only time the Design
team and commander will formally meet before the Environmental Frame (discussed later) is
complete, the initial engagement must focus on the commander’s need for understanding and
should make the commander’s interest in the target system as explicit as appropriate5
. This
engagement should also be the forum for the Design team to outline/emphasize the
commander’s unique role in the approach and even how particular assets within the
headquarters could be brought in to support the Design team. Lastly, the engagement should
include a deadline for the requested Design Concept. As we will see in this handbook, any
5
Several engagements with the commander will be discussed in this handbook, however, one should note that due
to the length of time necessary to complete the design, informal coordination between the Design team and
commander is essential to help the Design team maintain currency. Designers should be wary of expecting the
commander to somehow play a dominant role in the Design methodology. Although that expectation is explicit in
FM 5-0, perhaps a more realistic expectation would be for the commander to establish a learning culture in his or
her headquarters. The commander can play a role in increasing intellectual curiosity in the headquarters; an
intangible, yet integral aspect of Design, not only to its practitioners, but for the headquarters that will be
influenced by it.
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4. deadline becomes instantly problematic, yet absolutely necessary to stretch the limits of
Design.
Using Timelines Properly
It is difficult to accurately predict how long it will take to complete a Design Concept. The
best expectation is that we can determine when a Design Concept will be “due.” For any Design
team, it is recommended that a timeline for the first frame—the Environmental Frame-- be
outlined in terms of key Design Concepts to explore, not steps to advance through. We must be
careful not to over-engineer the approach or imply a strictly linear process; instead, stages (or
frames) happen simultaneously and oftentimes by accident. So much of a Design approach is
recursive and we rarely find closure with any given stage prior to moving on. As the Design
team becomes more experienced in the application of Design principles and the group
dynamics are established and refined, a schedule organized as inter-locking “blocks” necessary
to construct a given frame will help set realistic expectations. In addition, each frame will have
tangible outputs that will help focus the team and give structure to the approach6
.
The Environmental Frame will require considerable resources (time and energy) to
construct. While the recursive attributes of Design allows for the team to revisit/refine the
Environmental Frame at any time, the team must remember that the commander will have to
consider a completed Environmental Frame as his or her understanding of the operational
environment. In addition, the team should be prepared for the possibility that the commander
may halt the Design effort in its place and instruct the team to publish the findings to date and
shift to another project that emerged as a higher-priority focus.
Considerations for Implementation
We identify at the outset of this handbook that the commander will “employ a Design
team” to produce a Design Concept. While a single planning section (with trained systemic
designers assigned) can both design and plan a campaign to achieve strategic objectives, we
found that the creative tension created by separating the design and planning efforts is
undeniably valuable to the command7
. Another option is to literally assemble a Design team
upon notification by the commander like a working group. The temporary nature of such a
group must accommodate for the added challenge of immature group dynamics. The longer a
6
The tension between the facilitator (i.e. battle-captain) and the leader is important. While a facilitator may wish
to deep-dive into task at hand, the leader must always keep the long-view and be willing to accept risk in order to
meet the suspense.
7
Many Design approaches include an answer to “why design?” Recommended sources for designers seeking to
explain why they design include the following: BG (R) Wass de Czege’s, “The Logic and Method of Collaborative
Design” Small Wars Journal, May 2010; MAJ Edward P W Hayward RHG/D, British Army Monograph, “Planning
Beyond Tactics: Towards a Military Application of the Philosophy of Design in the Formulation of Strategy, SAMS
AY 07-08 (pages 14-15), TRADOC PAM 525-5-500, “Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design” Version 1.0,
28 Jan 08 (pages 13-17). Perhaps the best explanation of the 5-Ws of Design is found in pages 15-23 of the recently
published SAMS Art of Design, Student Text 2.0.
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5. team works together, the more disciplined and efficient the discourse8
becomes. The more
projects a team can work, the deeper understanding of Design principles the team achieves;
this deeper understanding equates to knowing how to exploit the systemic approach to best
suit the needs of the organization.
The product-oriented culture we thrive in has little tolerance for a time consuming,
uncomfortably introspective, philosophic exploration of a complex, adaptive system. A Design
team will likely find few willing adherents and encounter institutional resistance. Leaders in
charge of their own already time-constrained processes and functions will consider Design
irrelevant until value is demonstrated for their current efforts. Our design effort was
understandably somewhat abstract to the existing culture and, despite its relationship with the
commander, was obliged to be sensitive to its impact upon the headquarters’ system. In our
supporting role in Unified Quest (and by extension, the Army Capstone Concept), our SAMS
complement was uniformly steeped in Design theory, yet were rightly skeptical of its
usefulness. Only after seeing and experiencing the practical fruits of their labor in the form of
an executable theater campaign plan, did many on the team finally understand the connection
between setting the problem with Design and solving it with the JOPP.
Maximizing the Utility of Contextual Knowledge
To aid his visualization of the operational environment, the USARCENT Commander tasked
his first Design team to apply Design to what he considered complex, adaptive systems in the
USCENTCOM Area of Operations9
. He directed the team to construct a Design Concept for the
Levant Region (looking two levels up) and Environmental Frame-level understandings of Iran,
Afghanistan, and the Arabian Peninsula10
. While Environmental Frames are informative, they
are still just snapshots of rapidly adapting systems; their utility is limited and short-lived.
The cognitive tension generated from movement between the Environmental and Problem
Spaces provides the highest fidelity of understanding. In fact, in one of our projects, we moved
confidently from the Environmental to the Problem Space only to crash head-long into the
realization that our Environmental Frame was severely incomplete and did not adequately
8
Discourse is a collaborative act by the team tasked to construct and present a shared understanding of an issue.
Consensus is not the objective; instead, by recognizing and capitalizing on their differences the team comprised of
varied ranks, professional disciplines, and most importantly, biases.
9
The terms “Space” and “Frame” will be used often in this handbook. The three Design spaces--Environmental,
Problem, and Solution—might be considered cognitive work areas that the team can use to organize for work.
FM5-0 describes Framing as an act that “involves selecting, organizing, interpreting, and making sense of a
complex reality to provide guideposts for analyzing, understanding, and acting. Framing facilitates hypothesizing,
or modeling, that scopes the part of the operational environment or problem under consideration. Framing
provides a perspective from which commanders can understand and act on a complex, ill-structured problem.”
Paragraph 3-39.
10
The commander didn’t use the term, “Environmental Frame” of course. Instead, he just described his desire for
better cognitive foundation upon which he could pursue his own agenda in the region. When the team arrived at
that “output” we looked down and realized we were presenting an Environmental Frame.
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6. prepare us for the Problem Space. Only through the recursive learning afforded by developing a
Problem Frame did we discover significant shortfalls in our understanding of the Environmental
Frame11
. The most important mistakes are revealed during the aggressive oscillation between
the two frames. Our Design Team not only had to identify these shortfalls, but we also needed
the intellectual agility and patience to re-construct significant elements of our frame—often
discarding work that took days of discourse to realize.
Structuring the Logic of the Transformation: The Environmental Frame
As mentioned earlier, the first benchmark for a Design team is to present an Environmental
Frame to the commander to gain his or her concurrence on the following narrative (and
perhaps graphical) outputs:
1. The Observed System is a term of reference for our systemic understanding of the state
of affairs as we understand them.
2. The Desired System is an emerging understanding of the state of affairs as they should
be to support US interests as expressed in strategic directives and harmonized with the
learning achieved in the development of the Observed System.
The Observed System (OS). Understanding the OS is deservedly the most energy-consuming
(in terms of time and intellectual capital) phase of developing the Environmental Frame. The OS
narrative must explicate the nature of the relationships between the innumerable actors12
that
comprise a system reflecting the shared understanding of the entire Design team. The narrative
must also make explicit why the current understanding13
of the complex, adaptive system is
insufficient or non-existent. For a commander to accept the OS as his or her own, the Design
team must provide a holistic understanding while accounting for the iterative creation of
knowledge that resulted in the OS. This is best achieved by creating an actor-network map that
11
We were prompted to re-evaluate vital conclusions of our “observed system” that in turn helped us adjust the
conditions and relationships that comprised our eventual “desired system.”
12
The term “actor” can be applied to the following: (1) states and governments; (2) supra-state actors such as
coalitions; regional groupings, alliances, international terrorist organizations, international criminal organizations
and cartels, multi-national corporations, and non-governmental political and service groupings; and, (3) sub-state
actors able to influence the situation either through the government or in spite of it. The term “artifact” may be
useful apply to concepts, political movements, or significant events that trigger vibrations based on the
relationship between it and another actor in the system. The key difference between “actor” and “artifact” is that
the later does not possess agency. Practitioners familiar with JP5-0 should find obvious commonalities between
actors and “nodes”.
13
The current approach is often explained through an analysis of the strategic directives that are currently applied
by to the adaptive system. Often understood as the Strategic Aims and Directives, examples should remain in the
operational-strategic spheres, i.e. US National Strategies, US Executive Orders, Combatant Commander (CCDR)
published orders and messages, and US Department of State Mission Performance Strategies. These directives
must serve as parameters to acknowledge explicitly and accommodate for in our understanding, not as limiting
factors.
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7. captures the relationships that comprise the OS. The actor-network map is an invaluable tool to
visually account for relationships under analysis and perhaps stumble into new ones; it should
serve as a touchstone for the exploration. Three questions deserve attention here: 1) how to
determine which actor-relationships to analyze, 2) how to use meta-questions14
to inform the
OS, and 3) how to portray the actor-map in a useful way (when necessary).
Initially our Design Team equated quantity of analyzed actor-relationships as a sign of
quality. During our first “Design” presentation to the commander, we presented an actor-
network graphic that resembled a dense ball of yarn of different colors and thickness. This
image became a symbol of our team’s legitimacy—a deliberate “shock and awe” effort that
conveyed limited meaning to the audience, but gave us some quantifiable reassurance. After
several failed attempts at incorporating graphics of the actor-network, we eventually resolved
that offering an actor-network map that essentially amounted to our working notes was
counter-productive. Presenting a high-resolution actor-graphic brings undue attention on to the
actors we chose to analyze instead of the nature of the relationships that emerged through
group discourse. Therefore, we merged the actor-network graphic with the perspectives, or
thematic categorizations or plot-lines of a selected group of actors, which helped us understand
the OS; this combination conveyed a deliberate and useful message (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Example of an Actor-network graphic merged with perspectives (themes) that represented the team’s
understanding of the Observed System
Design teams must be wary when trying to show their work graphically. Although the
above graphic might orient an audience by emphasizing dominant themes, it can mislead or
confuse a viewer just as quickly—generate more questions than answers. A rule of thumb
when deciding whether or not to use a graphic: if the team thinks that a concept or
understanding cannot be accurately conveyed concisely in words, go ahead and try in a graphic.
14
In his monograph, MAJ Hayward defines meta-questioning as a “process of questioning that enables designers to
stand outside their environment and critically observe their methods, their knowledge and the gaps in both”
(Planning Beyond Tactics, 8). The difficulty lies in knowing how to use such meta-questions once they are formed.
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8. However, there is no substitute for a well-written narrative. In fact, the team should refrain
from producing any graphics until a coherent narrative is completed.
When we sought to frame an engagement strategy for a particular region, we started
out the approach from a USCENTCOM-perspective. After studying the operational environment
from a whole-of-government/CCDR level, we decided to re-envision the environment through
our ASCC/Title 10-lens. Doing so enabled the team to see the environment from a CCDR
perspective and then narrow the focus based on self-imposed constraints (see Figure 1). What
we discovered is that by applying Third Army energy to our admittedly limited target-set, we
could articulate secondary/tertiary impacts across the entire region.
Figure 2. Map of the Levant Region Observed System. Black lines denote relationships the team identified as
potential targets for Third Army energy. The intended message is that while we may understand many of the
relationships that may be causing tension in the environment, our ability to improve the wider environment is
constrained by authorities and physical capabilities.
Figure 1 is an example of how we merged an actor-map network with the OS perspectives
(depicted as ovals in the graphic and as text in the OS narrative). The overlapping perspectives
in this graphic demonstrate how single actors can be relevant to several perspectives. When
faced with a complex, adaptive system, there is no prescribed calculus for deriving the
relevance15
needed to identify the actors that comprise the system. Without a guidepost to
help discipline the brain-storming effort, however, a Design team can waste time choosing and
15
Relevance indicates both involvement and interest, and an ability to act in some way that can affect the system.
Relevant actors can include: (1) states and governments; (2) supra-state actors such as coalitions; regional
groupings, alliances, international terrorist organizations, international criminal organizations and cartels, multi-
national corporations, and non-governmental political and service groupings; and, (3) sub-state actors able to
influence the situation either through the government or in spite of it.
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9. then characterizing relationships that have no relevance to the adaptive system. Disciplined
discourse is not synonymous with a linear checklist. In fact, discipline to a Design team is more
about harvesting a conversation for relevance even if it doesn’t fit into the current effort. A
disciplined team should always consider the planner who will eventually take this “systemic
understanding” and develop a critical factors analysis.
There are many times throughout a Design effort when the team must reflect upon how it is
thinking. For instance, before the team begins the grinding process of describing the
relationships of the OS, it must acknowledge that it views the world through a socially-
constructed perspective. The team must learn as much as it can about those “lenses” to make
its biases explicit. This kind of group self-reflection should be done for each new context—going
so far as to posting the more problematic biases to remind the group. Once those perspectives
are explicit, the team can then recognize the difference between its own world-views and the
new perspective it is constructing. The team must create a model of how it understands the
complex, adaptive system as it exists in the world, not just as it exists through the team’s
individual perspectives.
Determining relevance is a group-skill based on research and discourse. Our Design Team
built initial actor-network maps beginning with a blank dry-erase board. A useful way to begin
was to pose an informed question as the “title” of dry-erase board. This was a productive way
of applying meta-questions and helped focus our Design Team’s research efforts at the outset.
With just a “title” on a blank sheet, we then set out to understand the question by offering
actors that held relevance to the question and perhaps even the answer. We did not begin
formal discourse to develop the relationships—only a disciplined brain-storming effort. Once
we felt that we had exhausted the actors relevant to the first question, we continued to pose
new questions until we had an “actor-constellation” that best represented the OS. Another
useful method was to focus on either the actors that comprise the interior of a given adaptive
system, i.e. “what are the internal dynamics of Lebanon?” or to focus on how the exterior
impacts the interior, i.e. “how does Syria’s recently-ended occupation of Lebanon impact
Lebanese domestic and foreign policy objectives?” A third method (that should in fact be
considered a key task) is to assemble and study all of the strategic aims and directives that hold
relevance on the topic or area of interest. The directives should reveal who/what actors are
relevant from a policy-perspective16
. From these approaches emerged a mammoth actor-
network scribbled on a white board that made our knowledge-gaps explicit and left us with the
challenge of deciding which relationship to explore first.
A team should refrain from pushing their preconceived notions of the problem into the
actor-network, e.g. when studying the OS of the Arabian Gulf, refrain from simply putting “Iran”
in the middle as if Iran was a monolith and then spiral outwards. Instead, focus on the actors
that comprise the “system” of Iran and withhold judgment. Once constructed, the actor-
network map must not be considered a static depiction of the OS. As new knowledge is gained,
either through discourse or individual research, new actors will emerge that will need to be
accommodated for in the actor-network, while others become less relevant or even irrelevant.
16
Strategic aims and directives will be treated in detail later in this handbook.
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10. When two actors have been identified as relevant to the adaptive system in question, the
team should arrive at a shared understanding of the nature of that relationship through formal
discourse. The discourse should result in the inductive (and oftentimes abductive) development
of a hypothesis about the relationship conveyed as a series of “whereas” statements concluded
with a “therefore” conclusion. The hypothesis--captured in our OS narrative as a “Therefore”
statement--is singular and offers the commander what should be a rigorously developed
understanding of the nature and relevance of the binary relationship to the situation at hand.
The Design team should be prepared for the commander to simply review the “Therefore”
statements as a way of gauging the scope of the actor-network. Furthermore, the entire
relationship construct (“Whereas” statements and the “Therefore” conclusion) must define not
only the nature of the relationship between the two actors, but how the relationship functions
within the complex, adaptive system. The relationship constructs are the foundation of the OS
and each one must represent the shared understanding of the entire Design team.
The next series of abbreviated examples will demonstrate how our Design Team developed
a relationship between relevant actors in the Arabian Peninsula Environmental Frame and how
that “relationship construct” eventually contributed to our vision of an improved OS.
Relationship 16: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to Gulf Coast
Cooperative (GCC).
Whereas: SAARC and GCC (states) founded the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) established
in 2002 to discuss economic development and greater interdependence.
Whereas: In Sept 2008, the Islamic Development Bank and SAARC met for the first time to
discuss a future relationship.
Whereas: GCC is India’s 2nd largest trading partner and largest single origin of imports into
India and 2nd largest destination for exports from India.
Whereas: etc…
Therefore: As the predominant member of the SAARC with significant leverage in the GCC,
India is posturing this growing South Asian block to balance Indian economic aims with its
own desire to protect its internal socio-political agenda.
Another point to note is that while the GCC is geographically in the USCENTCOM Area of
Responsibility, India is not. This demonstrates how our learning about relevant actors should
not be limited by any “artificial” constructs (geographic or otherwise).
There may not be a clear way to identify when a team is done with the actor-network map.
Simply put, the team will know when there is enough evidence to capture the essence of how
and why the OS is a less-than desired system. There will always be ways to break down actors
into smaller and smaller pieces and compare them to more and more actors, but relevance and
understanding are integral and may be further informed by revisiting the strategic guidance
understood up to this point. Also, key relationships will guide the team to discover new
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11. relationships and actors that may be more relevant than lists drawn up at the start of the
journey.
In any given OS, patterns or trends emerge that may describe the current state of affairs as
a story. A useful way of crafting the narrative is by creating perspectives made up of
relationship constructs linked by a plot-line that emerged through discourse. These
perspectives could be considered lenses through which the commander should see the
complex, adaptive system--to help the commander see the environment the way the Design
team sees it. The team should attempt to craft plot lines that help bind the disparate
relationship constructs (often linking relationship constructs in multiple plots). When our
Design Team considered the 40+ relationship constructs that we deemed necessary for the
overall OS, one unique plot-line emerged that helped us assemble a dozen-or-so relationship
constructs into a single perspective:
“Perspective 3: Defending the Levant. Protecting national sovereignty is a right that the US respects
across the Levant region. Understanding the security requirements of Levant states is less about
how they defend themselves literally and more about how they posture themselves against
perceived threats. How a state frames a threat reveals layered agendas that may depend more on
domestic tension than imminent foreign aggression. Perceived or real, what a nation deems a threat
is not for the US to decide. Instead, the US must understand how the balance of power is
maintained and how our actions may contribute to or jeopardize that balance.”
As these perspectives emerge, they teach the Design team what is critical in the OS and suggest
what relationships might be the most critical to modify to actually improve the OS. The
perspectives are also useful as a check-and-balance on the developing understanding.
With each relationship construct, the Design team must offer its assessment of the natural
inclinations--or tendencies—inherent in the relationship. This assessment comes in two parts:
1) the tendencies of the individual actors as they pertain to each other, and 2) the tendency of
the relationship as it might apply to the overall OS. Once the tendencies are identified, the
Design team must evaluate the potentials of the relationship as it functions within the OS17
. An
example of a tendency might be when Actor A compromises with a long-time adversary after
suffering a severe economic downturn. The potential derived from this tendency is that by
applying the right types of energy (incentives or threats) Actor A may compromise with another
adversary in a way that might modify the function of that relationship from one of turbulence
to one of less-turbulence. Identifying potentials is less about predicting action and more about
revealing trends that lead to options. This is a critical juncture in the methodology because the
conditions that comprise the Desired System should be supported by the “potential” that exists
in the OS. If a condition of the Desired System is not supported by the potential in the OS, the
17
In Design, when a “potential” emerges, it refers to an absolute potential; one that exists in the OS without our
meddling. In his preface to “A Treatise on Efficacy”, Francois Julien, proposes that “when we say that something
possesses a potential, we mean that by its very nature it is destined for some kind of development on which we
may rely. Instead of having everything depend on our own initiative, we recognize that the situation itself carries a
certain potential that we should identify and then let ourselves be carried along with it.” Sometimes the difficulty
lies in our reluctance to accept that the potential of a relationship may never directly serve US purposes.
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12. team must clearly articulate the amount of energy (and risk) associated with pursuing that
Desired System condition.
The Design team should be prepared to accept that while a relationship construct has a
tendency and potential, they may not directly support US interests; this does not make the
relationship irrelevant since we’re constructing the state of affairs as they are. The following
anecdote will demonstrate how a Desired System might emerge from the potential in the OS.
Continuing our earlier relationship construct that described the nature of the relationship
between the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Gulf Coast
Cooperative (GCC), the tendency/potential logically completes the relationship construct:
“Tendency and Potential Inherent in Relationship 16 (India to the GCC): India, through its
role in the SAARC, has demonstrated a tendency for shrewd negotiations aimed at
maximizing economic benefit from the greatest number of GCC countries. The potential is
for India (as the head of SAARC) to leverage current economic unrest and falling oil prices to
extract the best negotiating position with the GCC, focused particularly on Saudi Arabian
compliance. An additional potential is for the GCC to pursue only the minimum steps
necessary to address the treatment of its foreign-workers in order to alleviate political
pressure and improve economic relations with India (and the SAARC as a whole).”
Once these “potentials” were revealed, we had to decide if a potential could contribute to a
condition that would improve the OS. Armed with these potentials, we determined that a
necessary level of GCC maturation would be an important improvement that would contribute
to US interests in the region--improvement means transforming the function of the relationship
by a designed intervention.
The Desired System (DS) is not an ideal achieved through our own initiatives. While the OS is
comprised of relationship-constructs and perspectives to understand the current complex,
adaptive system, the DS is comprised of conditions and sub-conditions that clearly illustrate a
system that is better from a US perspective and one that requires little—if no—enduring effort
to maintain. Idealistic end-states are not the goal. Rather it is sufficient to chart a path towards
a DS while understanding it will never be achieved. In fact, success in progressing towards the
DS will likely change the strategic objectives, perhaps prompting the team to re-envision their
expectations of the DS18
.
As introduced above, the DS should emerge from the tendency and potential revealed in
the OS and be bounded by relevance (to include time) determined by the team. However, since
our goal is to improve adaptive systems to address US interests, we must incorporate guidance
“from higher”. This is an important place to revisit the role of Strategic Aims and Directives in
Design.
Strategic Aims and Directives (SADs) are the documents, speeches, conversations, and so on
that hold particular relevance in how the Design team understands the OS and what should be
incorporated into the DS. Unfortunately, complex and adaptive systems rarely come with a
18
See FM 5-0 paragraphs 3-46 through 3-48 for more on desired conditions.
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13. mission statement from higher. Instead, SADs must be assembled from across GCC boundaries;
between components within your own GCC; extracted from USG bureaucracies; teased out of
coalition hierarchy (like NATO in Afghanistan); and may include drafts of US National policies.
These must be read and synthesized to build a common understanding and identify
convergences and divergences in the relevant guiding documents19
. To offer a useful baseline
for what is already known about the environment, it is always recommended to assemble and
initially explore any applicable SADs before the initial engagement with the commander. As the
actor-network map develops to reflect expanding knowledge, the relevant emerging SADs must
be accommodated for.
The team should apply search criteria as consistently as possible, e.g. in the case of the
Levant, our team studied the Mission Strategic Plans for every Levantine nation as well as
adjacent nations like Turkey—not just Lebanon and Syria. The DS may even run counter to a
SAD and this must be accounted for, e.g. our DS for the Levant (~2008) required immediate
rapprochement with Syria, something severely constrained by then-current DOS restrictions on
US-Syria interactions.
The Design team should consider including a synthesis of the SADs, and if applicable, to
construct a complementing graphic to emphasize poignant aspects of the narrative20
. As a
complement to the Environmental Frame narrative, this SAD synthesis offers the commander a
useful way to understand how the adaptive system is perceived by higher and becomes an
invaluable tool when future designers are charged to “re-frame” the Design Concept. Format
for this synthesis depends on the nature of the artifacts. The goal is to identify where all of the
SADs converge and diverge and what the team learned from the interrogation. Where they
contradict, the Design team must account for possibly conflicting guidance and perhaps
propose constructive change (if possible). While the Design team should avoid critiquing SADs,
the team can and should deconstruct important SADs to discover the “logic” that guides them.
The SADs assembled in the OS should inform the DS. The team should not simply transfer
the goals (or stated objectives) of “higher” to their DS. Instead, the team should interrogate the
strategic objectives throughout the Design process to inform the desired conditions that
improves the complex, adaptive system. It is possible that the DS may not specifically address
the stated objectives of “higher” because achieving the stated goals may not be a realistic
potential. If possible, however, the DS should set conditions for achieving the objectives of
higher, e.g. higher desires rapprochement between two actors. However, DS does not include
complete rapprochement because there are insurmountable obstacles to that condition.
Therefore, the DS includes a condition that eliminates one of the most destructive obstacles to
19
Teams will likely find divergences between international policy objectives (to include international finance,
human rights protections, economic sanctions) and US military objectives. When the international community and
US military share the operational environment (best case is Afghanistan), then the team should be especially
skeptical of the numerous policies that seek to influence the environment.
20
Trying to understand the shortfalls of 30 years of economic sanctions on Iran, we found it useful to chart the
relationship between UNSCRs, US House Resolutions, and US Executive orders with events/actions of the Iranian
regime. Such a graphic tells a useful story when considering options to offer higher.
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14. rapprochement in the hopes that new opportunities will emerge. Another example is a
scenario where the US strategic objective is complete transparency of Iran’s nuclear program.
Achieving that objective may not be within the realm of the possible for a CCDR. However, the
CCDR might contribute to that strategic objective with several supporting objectives including,
“Neighboring states do not benefit from proliferating nuclear technology from Iran.”
Figure 3. An example of a Desired System articulated as four conditions with accompanying sub-conditions.
The DS graphic in Figure 3 (above) reveals one of the greatest paradoxes a Design team will
face. A DS will likely include desired conditions your command, if not the entire Department of
Defense, is not suited to accomplish. Imagine that the first three Conditions are well-suited for
a given CCDR. The Design team’s conclusion is that achieving the first three conditions will not
succeed in improving the overall system because the DS is dependent on success in all four
conditions. In this case, the fourth condition must be pursued using a whole-of-
government/international approach. Just identifying the integral (yet non-military) condition is
not enough; the team must develop strategic approaches that do not jeopardize this necessary
condition, e.g. regarding Condition 4a above, the US (MIL) should pursue efforts to improve
Saudi Arabia’s military capabilities while not directly threatening Egypt’s role as the preeminent
Arab military. Not only should the actions not jeopardize the condition, but the CCDR may have
to exert additional effort to get make the condition an explicit focus of organizations outside
the scope of his command, e.g. US DOS, UN/World Bank, etc.
As the Environmental Frame gains clarity, the Design team should remember that the
understanding gained through rigorous discourse was experienced by the Design team. It is the
Design team’s task to not only create an understanding of a complex, adaptive system, but also
to create ways for others to understand the system. Perspectives were one way discussed
earlier as a way to provide lenses through which to see the OS. A second method for helping
others understand the approach to the DS is to develop irreducible logics that help explain the
transformation necessary for the OS to progress towards the DS.
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15. The Logic of the Transformation could be considered the purpose of the Environmental Frame.
It offers the commander a way of understanding the underlying logic of what a transformation
must accomplish or address. Once the OS and DS are drafted, the team should then compose a
list of essential logics that should guide the transformation. Over time these can be altered as
needed, but they are designed to be guide posts that keep the design true to the realm of the
possible.
Our Design Team used several logics as a constant check on the design—posting them
prominently for constant reference and revision. One should consider these statements as part
of a logic-phrase that describes the kind of energy introduced into the OS. The following are
some extracted examples of Logics that our team has used in previous projects:
• Actions must not interfere with US/NATO access or place limits on introduction and
use of regional enablers
• All programs must be tailored to the province or district level and may require
targeting of individual tribes or geographic areas
• Speed is the decisive factor for success – once security is established, improvements
in governance and delivery on promises of development rapidly follow.
• Observes regional “red lines” for US allies and friends
• Exposes Iran’s “open” and “closed” systems of governance
• Removes turbulence that actors exploit for unilateral gain
• Fosters constructive interdependencies, especially in economics and politics
If a logic is violated, either the logic must be fixed--and the whole process to that point re-
evaluated--or the point, action, or task that violates the logic must be adjusted so that it falls
within tolerance. It is important the commander personally approve these Logics since they will
guide the Design process and guide the eventual planning effort. The emerging perspectives
and logics should be part of the developing Environmental Frame narrative. Another way to
help the commander understand the Environmental Frame is to convey the OS in terms of
assemblages.
Assemblages are revealed through discourse as groupings of actors that reveal a unique
sub-system operating within the OS. In the following example offered in the first SAMS “Art of
Design” Student Text21
, the actors may have multiple relationships and may belong to multiple
assemblages.
21
The SAMS Art of Design 2.0 also discusses “assemblages” but in a much less explicit way.
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16. In the Anbar ‘Awakening’ […] the Sunni Tribes, Al-Qaeda Iraq, COL MacFarland’s U.S.
Brigade Combat Team, the growing local economy, and legitimate Iraqi government were
the [actors] that made up the Anbar Assemblage, part of the greater Iraq system.”22
The figure below describes how an actor-network map might be presented to the commander
using “assemblages.”
FIGURE 4. Example of how actors can exist in multiple assemblages within any given system. The key
difference between a simple “grouping” and an assemblage is when energy is introduced into an assemblage, the
entire system is likely to be qualitatively changed.
Now that the Design team has a shared understanding of the complex, adaptive system in
question (OS) and a DS drafted as a “set of conditions to seek” rather than an “end state to
achieve”, the Design team should produce a coherent narrative. The Environmental Frame
narrative (including supporting graphics) should exist as a cohesive understanding that is readily
understandable by the commander. The tone of the Problem Frame narrative will likely be
noticeably different since the needs of the audience will influence the character of the
narratives. The Design team should keep in mind that the Environmental and Problem Frames
will likely be “annexes” to the final output that is communicated to planners. In fact, the two
frames may be the most important narratives for planners who will be charged with solving the
problem set by the designers.
Structuring the Form of the Intervention: The Problem Frame
If the purpose of the Environmental Frame is to understand the logic of the transformation, the
purpose of the Problem Frame is to understand the form of the intervention
Completing the Environmental Frame will be the most intellectually challenging for the
Design team while the Problem Frame will be the most intellectually uncomfortable. The border
between the frames is deliberately porous and the Design team must be confident enough to
not only see the border, but to capitalize on the tension created from the recursive nature of
Design. The only thing that really delineates a shift between the Environmental and Problem
Frame23
is the actual presentation of the Environmental Frame to the commander. A disciplined
Design team, however, will recognize when the team is delving into issues appropriate for the
22
SAMS “Art of Design” 1.0, October 2008, 33.
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17. Problem Frame instead of the Environmental Frame. It is critical that the Design team not
discount a line of questioning because it doesn’t “fit” into the Environmental Frame effort.
Instead, the team should record the nature of the conversation for use when the team is ready
for the Problem Frame; these should be prominently displayed for the Design team to
reference.
As the Design team transitions into the Problem Frame, the team has considered all
relevant data to understand the context in which they are being asked to function. As with the
Environmental Frame, the Problem Frame is comprised of several outputs that should be
followed in this general order:
1) A way of conceptualizing the emerging tensions that inhibit transformation from the OS
to the DS: Problem Propositions.
2) An initial determination of what will support and oppose the Problem Propositions:
System of Cooperation and Leadership, System of Energy, and System of Opposition.
3) A re-envisioning of the Propositions as a way of describing the form of the intervention:
Theory of Action.
4) If possible, a Stratagem that if followed would enable the transformation proposed in
the Theory of Action.
As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the Design team should refrain from producing a
“problem statement” and instead focus on how to understand the tensions generated as the
OS transforms to the DS. Understanding the tensions is the best way to reveal what makes the
situation complex, adaptive, and problematic. Each of the proposed conditions in the DS has
sub-conditions that when action is taken will generate tension (although not always negative).
How the Design team understands the revealed tensions will become the foundation for the
Problem Frame.
Tensions are all those things in the OS that could be seen as creating heat—friction points.
One kind of tensions exists without energy being introduced in the OS. For example, political
adversaries in a system may be at odds regardless of US interference. This is fairly obvious, but
leverages or opportunities that may emerge from this tension are not necessarily so. While
tensions exist regardless of our intervention, the type of tension that is most useful for
developing the Problem Frame is the kind produced in reaction to “blue force” energy being
introduced into the OS. Understanding this second type of tensions is integral to understanding
what the real obstacles to progress are. The following anecdote demonstrates how progress
towards a proposed desired condition reveals tensions that should be mitigated or
accommodated for in the Problem Frame: a hypothesis to transform the system.
In our earlier example (Figure 3), we proposed four desired conditions that comprise the DS.
Each desired condition is further supported by sub-conditions—or things that helped the
23
Or BG (R) Wass de Czege’s shift from “Stage I” of Design to “Stage II”. From “The Logic and Method of
Collaborative Design” Small Wars Journal, March 2010.
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18. system function as designed. Since we haven’t proposed a solution (to a problem we haven’t
identified yet), how do we know what kind of tensions will emerge when the system progresses
towards the DS? In addition, the energy used to move towards the DS is neither always
originated by the US, nor military in nature so how do we account for that? The learning
developed in the Environmental Frame must re-surface here. Based on the relationship
constructs and the potentials discovered in the OS, the team should have a comprehensive
understanding of what might resist the transformation, thus revealing the tension that must be
mitigated. At this point the tensions are general-in-nature, but will become more specific when
the Problem Frame gains fidelity.
FIGURE 5. How tensions emerge when we forecast progress towards the Desired System
The team should assemble the tensions--there may be dozens--into categories to serve as
the team’s shared understanding of the problems that must be mitigated in order to progress
towards the DS. These completed narratives--known as Problem Propositions--should explain
how the tensions are organized and understood (in terms of relevance to the OS) and the un-
sequenced goals that should be accommodated for to achieve the desired transformation.
Propositions will be described in detail later in this handbook. When the Design team has a
draft of the Problem Propositions (hereafter just Propositions), it should then refine them by
determining what will support or oppose the Proposition: The Systems of Cooperation and
Leadership, Energy, and Opposition24
.
Systems of Cooperation and Leadership, Energy, and Opposition
The Desired System will likely require support and cooperation from people, processes and
organizations that do not answer to your commander, but who are active in the operational
environment. This is okay and expected. There are several key components of the
24
The USARCENT Design Team adapted these terms from BG (R) Naveh’s Command as System, Logistics as System,
and Opposition as System to suit the needs of its own audience.
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19. methodology that help make the operational environment explicit to the team and eventually
the planning community. These components might be considered unique systems within the
OS; they exist regardless of the designed intervention, yet they are made explicit here because
they are relevant to the objectives of the Propositions. The Design team should construct these
systems as necessary tools to improve the coherency of the Propositions and the resulting
guidance to planners.
The System of Cooperation and Leadership is a way to develop and organize everything and
everyone that will help the transformation, many or most of whom will not be under the
authority of your commander. It is a construct for organizing support and collaboration for
action in support of the goals and objectives drafted for the propositions (Figure 6). At this
stage in the Problem Frame, it may simply be a graphic of the initial network (constellation) of
actors that will support the individual propositions. Understanding how this system functions
can be especially useful in informing senior leader engagements or strategic communication
targets. As the Propositions gain clarity, so will the system needed to support the un-sequenced
goals and objectives that comprise the Propositions. True to the recursive nature of Design, the
greater fidelity in this system (intended to improve fidelity of the Propositions) will likely reveal
new learning and cause necessary changes to the Propositions.
The unregulated character of the following graphic (Figure 6) is deliberate. Each actor has
its own agency and agenda that may or may not be compatible with US objectives. Even actors
normally considered in the opposition might inadvertently contribute to the System of
Collaboration and Leadership. For example, HAMAS might be part of this system because their
tendency to pursue greater representation in the Palestinian Unity Government might reduce
internecine violence, which might in turn drain energy from politically-motivated violence in
refugee camps in Lebanon, resulting in reducing tensions between Lebanon and Syria,
ultimately opening diplomatic doors towards finally completing the border demarcation project
between Lebanon and Syria. This doesn’t mean that the US reduces diplomatic pressure on
HAMAS or stops considering them a proxy of Iran. That said, perhaps HAMAS’ potential to
contribute to overall regional stability might warrant a re-envisioning of the US posture towards
HAMAS?
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20. FIGURE 6. Constellation of actors organized into supporting systems based on how they support the Problem
Propositions
The System of Energy characterizes all of the friendly energy that can/should be injected
into the system to support the propositions (it could also be removal of energy). Examples of
energy include diplomatic, financial, economic, sanction, and military energy25
. In the case of
USARCENT, energy might include security cooperation engagements. A system of energy may
be comprised of security cooperation activities including senior leader engagements, seminars,
bilateral exercises, multi-lateral symposiums, and adjacent unit security cooperation events--all
the typical activities that are normally aligned towards achieving a shaping objective. Unlike the
nation-states that a CCDR might find necessary to effect, the policies and procedures that
support a unit’s existing mission sets might be re-envisioned as a System of Energy that, when
energy is introduced, might reveal necessary efficiencies or new capabilities (Figure 7).
25
While this tool may provide the team with ways to refine the unique Proposition during the Problem frame, it
will likely serve to generate necessary tasks to achieve during the Solution frame.
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21. FIGURE 7. A System of Energy is relative to the Problem Proposition; thus, it may range from nation-state
actors to a system of artifacts that function as a System of “policy” Energy. Understanding the system that
provides energy to the Proposition helps the team refine the area of intervention.
The System of Opposition is simply a way to account for everyone or everything that will
oppose the transformation from the OS to the DS. Dr. Richard Swain offers a useful description
of the System of Opposition as
[…] the development of [the] logic of actual and potential rivals: those who or that which
obstructs or opposes. In other words, it is mentally constructing a model of the system of
actual and potential rivals, or the system of potential sources of opposition to the preferred
strategy for transforming the observed system into that desired.”26
This is less of a discussion of what an “enemy” will do, and more of how “actors” function
naturally (based on their tendency and potential) and how that functionality plays a role in
impeding the improvement of the OS. The value of constructing the opposition as a system is
that a system has a discernable function that we can eventually modify as part of the
transformation from OS to DS. It is useful to explore each desired condition (from the
Environmental Frame) to propose who/what exists today to oppose those conditions. Although
unlikely, there may be cases when a desired condition may not incur any significant opposition.
Some tensions (from Figure 5) might be reconsidered and then reorganized as components to a
larger system. The below graphic (Figure 8) describes how the System of Opposition functions
26
Richard Swain, PhD, “Design in Army Doctrine” (DRAFT), pages 24-5, 2008. Although this reference is dated, Dr.
Swain’s earlier thoughts about Design greatly informed our team’s initial understanding of Design.
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22. as an inherent part of the Environmental Frame. It cannot be extracted from the Environmental
Frame, we can only hope to learn about its function during the Problem Frame and modify or
exploit its function during the Solution Space.
Just as “blue” has a DS, the opposition also pursues a system that contributes to its own
“red” agenda. The “red” DS exists regardless of a “blue” system; it is not a reaction to
transformation towards a “blue” DS nor is it even in competition with a “blue” DS. Moreover,
the opposition’s cultural, political, economic, and social components should be re-envisioned as
a “learning” system as well as a system that relies on energy (logistics, infrastructure, resources,
etc) the US might exploit27
.
FIGURE 8. Example of how a Desired Condition may be impeded by something greater than a singular actor
with a singular agenda. When we understand the opposition as a system, we can act to make it function differently
so that it is less-relevant to our approach.
The Design team must develop the System of Opposition with the same rigor as it
approached the OS and DS. One of the most effective ways to inductively understand any
system (to include the opposition) is to pose probing questions that reveal how the opposition
functions “in the world”: to construct a model of an organic and learning system28
. There is a
27
This description of “opposition” is informed by “The Structure of Operational Revolution: A Prolegomena” by Drs
Shimon Naveh, Jim Schneider, and Timothy Challens. 2009, pages 91-94.
28
Several resources are available that offer suggestions. The most useful is perhaps the SAMS Student Text 1.0
because it takes what is for most a less-than-accessible series of questions offered by BG (R) Naveh and
reorganizes along paradigms familiar to Army planners. Another useful resource is a Fort Leavenworth pamphlet
entitled, “Questions of Operational Art” January 2006, courtesy of Dr. Alice-Butler Smith from the School of
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23. useful correlation between the System of Opposition and the “systems perspective” of the
enemy’s center of gravity espoused in JP 5-0. In addition, teams may have to deal with two
paradoxes unique to this approach: 1) the US may play a significant role in opposing our own
DS, and 2) the enemy may not choose to oppose the DS. Instead, conditions in the “red” OS
may include domestic constraints that will force it to oppose the “blue” DS. Regardless, the
System of Opposition should be deconstructed into decisive points similar to how decision
points are extracted from critical vulnerabilities (again from JP 5-0). These decisive points may
not require military force. In fact, the other instruments of national power will likely be more
effective at influencing the System of Opposition.
While the tendency now is for the Design team to develop a plan to interrupt, defeat, or to
make the System of Opposition less relevant (the blue squiggly lines in Figure 8), the goal at this
stage of the Design approach is to widen the scope of the draft Propositions by incorporating
goals and un-sequenced objectives that might mitigate the effects of the System of Opposition
(or better yet, make it cease to function as a system at all). The team should be able to
understand the opposition as a system that is greater than the sum of its parts; as a system-of-
systems29
. The opposition will have its own System of Cooperation and Leadership that it needs
to facilitate its agenda. It has its own System of Energy that it must maintain in order to achieve
and maintain initiative. Especially with regard to the System of Opposition, there are always
questions that cannot be answered immediately. Oftentimes, the Design team will pose the
question only to leave it idle until well-into the Design Concept (Solution Space). The Design
team must decide when an understanding is complete enough to contribute to the process and
when to return to unanswered questions.
Once the Design team has drafted Problem Propositions30
to explain the tensions in the
system and it has an understanding of the Systems of Cooperation and Leadership, Energy, and
Opposition, it must commit the time to deconstruct and re-envision the Propositions into a
larger Theory of Action that will orchestrate all of the intervention-actions developed in the
Solution Space. The foundation of the Theory of Action is the set of completed Problem
Propositions (see Figure 9). The product of the “re-envisioning” effort should be completed
Problem Propositions that are as broad as possible; this may require the team to prioritize its
concerns and assemble what were once distinct Propositions into larger concepts. The
Advanced Military Studies.
29
Originating from BG (R) Naveh’s work in operational design, the SAMS Student Text 1.0 defines the System of
Opposition through questions that challenge the Design team to see the Opposition as a system-of-systems instead
of an “enemy” to template. Some of the question categories include Cultural, Political, Economic, Social, and
Logistics. It also prompts the Design team to understand how the opposition is organized to function, how its
strategy is formulated, and under what conditions will “the maneuver system lose its systemic coherence?” (pg 53-
54).
30
An explanation of how the tensions are organized and understood as a problem (in terms of relevance to the
OS), a working hypothesis to guide learning, and a working draft of the un-sequenced goals and/or objectives
associated with the hypothesis that will contribute to the desired transformation.
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24. extended example that follows will take us from the development of tensions in the outset of
the Problem Space through the transition into the Solution Space.
FIGURE 9. General path to through the Problem Space through inductive steps to create larger and larger pieces of
the puzzle
In the example above, the Design team has successfully assembled what were once six
Propositions (red ovals) into three distinct Problem Propositions. Although brief, each
proposition should include a hypothesis that explains the nature of the transformation, the goal
of the action, and the proposed result for the US. After developing the Systems of Cooperation
and Leadership, Energy, and Opposition, the Propositions should be fully-developed using un-
sequenced actions to describe the general approach. The below is an example of what one of
the three Problem Propositions (yellow ovals in Figure 9) might look like.
With respect to Resistance Groups, the best option for the United States would be to move
to transform the existing relationships by maturing the legitimate political participation of
these resistance organizations […] The goal would be to make the resistance groups a
cooperative, contributing (and burdened) part of the System […] The result for the US would
be a reduction in violence aimed at our allies, unification of governance in Country X, and
elimination of the primary mechanisms for malign influence in the Region.
Draft Goals or Objectives (un-sequenced)
1. US normalizes relations with Syria
2. Iraq and Syria re-establish embassies to pre-2009 standards
3. Israel withdraws from Gharjar Village
4. […]
Each proposition would have un-sequenced actions or goals that would help the team
understand the true nature of the transformation. These actions are the “good ideas”
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25. encountered during discourse through the Environmental and Problem spaces that were
(hopefully) captured on some white butcher block paper.
The act of deconstruction is likely the most difficult concept to explain (without charges of
post-modern sympathies) and the most frustrating to apply, yet is perhaps the most valuable
step in creating a resilient Problem Frame31
. The Problem Proposition exampled above might
be further described through additional un-sequenced actions. However, the new
understanding (seeing all three propositions through the Systems of Cooperation, Energy, and
Opposition) may create a wholly-unique perspective that may prompt the team to break-down
the actions into their component parts starting with refining their titles. When the action that
was once entitled, “Israel withdraws from Gharjar Village” is re-envisioned through the System
of Leadership, we might find that Israel’s ability to support US objectives in Lebanon and to
generate domestic political capital is directly tied to their forward presence in Gharjar Village.
Therefore, this action may need to be revised to achieve the ends of the Problem Proposition,
while accommodating for the competing agendas that support regional US objectives. For
example, “Israel takes steps to incorporate UNIFIL presence alongside IDF forces in Gharjar
Village”. The effort to deconstruct the actions that comprise a Proposition may result in a
severely re-envisioned Proposition. The intent is to answer-through-deconstruction and re-
construction why a team crafted the Propositions (and actions) the way they did and to
reconcile arguments against the Logic of the Transformation (from the Environmental Frame).
One way to deconstruct a Problem Proposition might be to organize actions chronologically
—proposed as phases. The team might discover that some of the actions were not supported
by the current “potential” in the OS (thus it’s unlikely that any amount of energy would impact
it). Instead, any intervention would have to include a way to recognize an emerging potential
that would enable this desired action. In other words, broadly sequencing the actions may
reveal new actions to take at earlier phases or to wait until necessary conditions emerge. Other
actions may be considered overtaken-by-events because the sequencing (and achievement) of
the prior actions would make them unnecessary. Deconstruction and re-envisioning of the
Propositions should produce essential elements of the Theory of Action to thoroughly describe
the form of the intervention. As the transformation-tensions informed the Problem Frame, the
Theory of Action should help transition the team into the Solution Space. Although singular by
definition, the Theory of Action is comprised of all of the completed Problem Propositions the
team has resolved to retain.
31
Deconstruction is not limited to this phase in the approach. At any time, the Design team may determine that
knowledge created earlier in the process must be re-envisioned due to an evolution in the understanding. It’s
always a good time to understand why we think the way we think.
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26. From the Theory of Action a Stratagem should emerge32
. The Stratagem is the central and
unique theory that best represents the path to transformation. The stratagem may be a critical
action excerpted from a Proposition that holds significance across multiple propositions. It
could be considered the most meaningful, wide-ranging component of the transformation, if
not a key that begins to unlock the complex, adaptive system by revealing useful potential in
the OS. Again, there is no hard, fast rule here; it is a matter of interpretation, context,
complexity of the system, and possibilities. The key is to develop something around which a
Design Concept can be constructed. A Stratagem that might serve to focus a whole-of-
government approach to our Levant example might be the following: The US engages Syria in
order to promote constructive relationships between it and its regional neighbors; progress with
any neighbor must be informed by an ultimate goal of transforming the relationship between
Syria and Israel. It is critical that the team have a central and unique theory to inform the
multiple solutions that comprise the Solution Space. Without it, the solutions will be
disconnected from the whole. In addition, having a Stratagem that the team can rally around in
the Solution Space will contribute greatly to interactions with the commander or outside
contributors.
Plan of Intervention: The Design Concept
The Design Concept is the tangible interface between the Design team and its audience. At
its core is the requirement to convey the broad operational approach for the intervention that
will help transform the OS. Since planners will be primarily responsible for operationalizing the
Design Concept, planners and designers should have a shared understanding of the
expectations associated with the interface.
The primary components of a Design Concept include: 1) a Theory of Action comprised of
Propositions and the emerging Stratagem; and 2) a written concept (what FM5-0 might call a
mission narrative), possibly comprised of lines of effort, which provides a more explicit
visualization of how the objectives developed during operations framing could be sequenced,
thus achieving progress towards the Desired System33
.
32
We appropriated this word and function, “stratagem” from Wass de Czege’s earlier work in Design. His current
phrase for a similar function is the commander’s intervention or mission strategy, “Logic and Method of
Collaborative Design”, March 2010, 14.
33
In Design, we rarely achieve end states. It might be argued that “achieving” end states is the purview of
planners. Instead, Design offers a medium for the commander to describe the general path he/she wishes the
planners to follow. On the other hand, FM5-0 is explicit about its expectations about the Design Concept as the
“visualization of a broad approach for achieving the desired end state” (pg 3-12). This may be a divergence but the
Third Army approach to the Design Concept does not necessarily run at cross-purposes with emerging doctrine. It’s
more a question of expectation management. Can we expect a “Design Concept” to comprehensively map-out the
achievement of end states-- end states that will invariably change based on the actions we take?
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27. FIGURE 11. How the Theory of Action developed in the Problem Space transitions into the Solution Space
Depending on the level of complexity of the Design Concept, understanding how the Design
team perceives the intervention will require the systemic understanding gained through the
Environmental and Problem Frames. While seeing the supporting frames are a necessary aspect
of the interface, we do not recommend simply piling the Environmental Frame and Problem
Frame into the Design Concept narrative. Instead, the supporting frames should be synthesized
for relevance with the frame narratives included as appendixes for reference.
Lines of Effort. The Design team should develop a Design Concept, not simply present its
“findings” as the Design Concept. The planner should see a product that is familiar and
immediately applicable to his or her task to apply elements of operational design from JP5-0 or
conduct the MDMP. While the first two frames were focused on the team and commander, the
Design Concept should also accommodate the unique needs of the plans community. With that
in mind, it is recommended that a Design team use Lines of Effort (LOEs) to create a framework
for the intervention. The content of the LOEs are not prescribed here because they are context-
specific, but they must ultimately help the planner visualize how the objectives developed
during Problem framing – for which the Theory of Action was developed – could be achieved
and to serve as the broad operational approach for planners.
A planner may find that the broad guidance offered is not always task-oriented. Some of the
analysis may come across as questions, suggestions, ways of learning about the effectiveness of
a given LOE, or even points of leverage that one might consider exploiting. The LOEs may serve
like a structured repository for all the learning the team experienced. For this effort, LOEs are
sequenced and prioritized, yet LOEs are still simply those things that if initiated, followed, and
adjusted properly, may enable the transformation from OS to DS.
Once the draft LOEs are agreed-upon by the Design team, a new round of questions should
be applied to the LOEs. These questions should reveal a unique understanding for each of the
LOEs bearing in mind how each LOE supports the Theory of Action. The series of questions
should be uniformly applied and tailored to the needs of the planning community.
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28. After first providing a concept/description of the overall LOE, the team should provide the
un-sequenced conditions necessary to achieve the LOE. These un-sequenced conditions should
be descriptive actions that help a planner and the commander gain a shared understanding of
each condition as an objective-to-achieve, not a task-to-undertake. It is important to note that
the inductive nature of Design will generate many supporting conditions that must be
assembled into larger and larger constructs. For example, a fabricated LOE entitled, “Restore
Freedom of Navigation in the Strait of Malacca” might be described like this,34
− Describe what condition success looks like. 1) Pirates no longer have freedom of
movement, 2) Malaysia and Indonesia agree to lift travel restrictions on Philippine
commercial traffic
− For the primary actors involved in the condition, the Design team should address the
question, “what do the actors need to achieve the condition?” 1) Malaysia needs
reassurance from India that its commercial traffic will be allowed into Indian harbors, and 2)
Indonesia needs reassurance that the US will provide littoral security against pirates until it
can develop indigenous capability.
− Relevant to the condition, what do the primary actors fear? 1) Malaysia and Indonesia fear
that the US will act preemptively with lethal military force to thwart Chinese initiative, 2)
China fears continued increases in commercial traffic insurance will force it to militarize the
Strait of Malacca, 3) The Philippine President fears reprisal from constituency unhappy what
is perceived as a month-long blockade.
− What are the potential points of influence within the OS that provide the best potential
for advantageous action? 1) Malaysia is China’s number 2 export partner, 2) The Malaysian
navy has a superb anti-piracy capability, 3) Indonesia is a net-importer of petroleum, 4)
Indonesia and Malaysia are both members of the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC), 5) Malaysia is China’s number 2 export partner.
− What are the ways and means that a planner might learn about relevant approaches? 1)
US mission to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq war, 2)
Coalition efforts to reduce Somali piracy in the Gulf of Aden.
− What opposition should planners be concerned with? 1) China will seek to gain influence
and leverage at the expense of the US, 2) Malaysia may challenge US initiatives to restore
FON because of its relationship with China, 3) Islamic extremists in the Philippines benefit
from turmoil and will oppose international efforts to stabilize the current Philippine
government.
− What are the ways and means to recognize emerging potential or failures in the approach
prompted by the intervention? 1) China increases hostilities with Taiwan because the US
has reduced regional influence and diplomatic capital, 2) Malaysia and Indonesia conduct
34
These questions are derived from BG (R) Wass de Czege’s handbook, “The Logic of Operational Art:
How to Design Sound Campaign Strategies, Learn Effectively and Adapt Rapidly & Appropriately”,
January 2009 and “The Logic and Method of Collaborative Design”, 5 April 2010.
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29. joint anti-piracy operations, 3) Malaysia and Indonesia re-establish diplomatic relations with
the Philippines.
− What organizations (broadly speaking) have the tendency and potential to assist in
achieving the sub-condition? 1) The SAARC, 2) The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), 3) The United Nations, 4) USSOCOM
−
FIGURE 11. From Problem to Solution Space and expectations for transition
The Transition to Planning: Commander’s Guidance to Planners. Orienting the Design
Concept to support deliberate planning requires additional consideration and will be based
largely on additional commander’s guidance. The final engagement between the Design team
and commander should include the planning team so that the commander can offer guidance
immediately and within the context of the wider Design Concept. The Design team should
recommend the medium and content of the commander’s guidance since they understand the
nuances of the operational approach.
Deciding on the medium to convey the “Commander’s Guidance to Planners” is one of the
most important choices the team will make. The medium must accommodate for the intended
audience and culture of the organization. Some examples include a written strategy to inform
an up-coming campaign planning effort or a memo from the commander to complement an
existing strategy. Another medium may be constructed as a package of guidance that reflects
what the commander thinks about the “how” he just prescribed in the Design Concept, e.g.
STRATCOM message guidance, strategic risk, recommendations for applying elements of
Operational Design (JP5-0 and FM3-0), and recommendations for decision points. Whatever the
medium, it should be promulgated across the headquarters and subordinate units to ensure the
command’s current operations are informed, not just the campaign planners.
Due to the environmental constraints on the headquarters, the commander may decide his
Design team is best-suited to execute his guidance--what we consider “cradle-to-grave” Design.
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30. Depending on the size of the headquarters, the Design team may serve as the core of the
working group. As the authors of the Design Concept, the team will not only be able to better
tailor support requirements, but will have access to the understanding that ended up on the
cutting room floor. At a minimum, the Planning team should have one Design team member to
provide continuity and insight. The Design team representative should ensure the plan develops
within the tolerances in the Design Concept (especially the Logic of the Transformation) and the
Commander’s Guidance to Planners. That said, the representative should be flexible enough to
revisit the Design team’s conclusions when the Planning Team discovers new understanding.
The importance of Strategic Communications. The development of US strategic
communications in support of the Design Concept fulfills two requirements. First, draft themes
add to the strategic sponsor’s understanding of the lines of effort and the way the
transformation is perceived should by other actors. Second, draft themes provide a strategic
baseline for follow-on development by strategic communications planners, from National
Command Authority to service components. There is benefit in a certain degree of strategic
ambiguity in these themes, which allows for the interpretive latitude so critical to both
diplomacy and politics. While there may be distinct themes for each LOE, each theme has one
or more unique components that should be synthesized to serve as common principles to apply
to the overall strategic communications guidance.
Key Synthesis of Linkages in LOEs. The Design team should acknowledge that the proposed
LOEs will by their very nature trigger reactions that may reveal new opportunities (potentials)
or perhaps prompt a complete reframing of the understanding. For this section of the Design
Concept, the Design team should offer the planner a list of proposed “linkages” to assist in
constructing a coherent sequence of objectives as well as some of the likely preconditions
associated with the objectives. The commander might take the opportunity to speak directly to
the planner regarding a specific action described in an LOE (or supporting condition). This
engineered exchange may be helpful to a planner seeking to “get inside the commander’s
head” on key aspects of the approach.
As mentioned in earlier sections, the Design team should take advantage of appropriate
opportunities to share the knowledge created through discourse with the planner. However,
the objective of the Design team is to “set” the problem, not overwhelm the planner with
proudly-developed details. If the framework doesn’t accommodate for the nuance of the
understanding, the Design team should create an appropriate section within the Design
Concept. If the Design team presents the Design Concept graphically, it should demonstrate a
unique of understanding the Design Concept, not simply re-phrase it gratuitously.
Issues with Strategic Aims and Directives. The planner needs to understand what strategic
guidance is accommodated for in the intervention. The Design team should synthesize any
narratives already committed to Strategic Aims and Directives as they pertain to the specific
requirements outlined in the Design Concept. The list should represent the most significant
divergences between what existing strategic aims and directives state and what is proposed in
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31. the Design Concept. In order to follow the path outlined by the Design Concept the planner
might consider formal discussions and agreements that account for these divergences.
Potential Application of the Design Concept. The Commander’s Guidance to Planners
should demonstrate that the planner and commander have a shared understanding as to where
the Design Concept fits within the larger context of higher. For example, a commander might
use a Design Concept to inform an engagement with his or her superior or a commander might
maintain an Environmental Frame of a complex, adaptive system as a way of understanding the
actor-relationships within his or her operational environment. A security assistance planner
may find this useful because it informs engagement and shaping operations in the targeted
operational environment, or it may offer a framework for potential missions in the
environment. A planner may also use the Design Concept to develop a wholly unique strategic
framework in the targeted area of operations or to communicate concerns to higher. Its most
relevant application is arguably to set the right problem for a campaign design or major
operation to solve.
As a form of technical communication, a Design Concept is a two-way interface, not a
transshipment point for guidance. The Design Concept is less about transcribing guidance and
more about translating a learning experience into an operational approach for a targeted and
well-understood audience. How the team chooses to convey the poignant aspects of their
understanding is an art.
The best Design Concept is useless if it cannot be assessed during and after execution. The
Design team is responsible for developing sensors that can be emplaced in the environment,
e.g. PIR or Commander’s Decision Points. While the sensors can convey the effectiveness of a
Design Concept, perhaps the most important contribution these sensors can offer is to
communicate to the Design team when a Design Concept is wrong or should be re-framed.
Another useful sensor discussed earlier is a Design team representative embedded in the
planning team who can help keep the planning effort within tolerances.
The graphic below (Figure 12) implies that the Design Concept has been implemented and
has changed the operational environment. Perhaps success in a campaign plan has revealed
new opportunities for improvement, or caused a traumatic reduction in our strategic options.
Regardless, something has happened to warrant a re-envisioning of the environment. A re-
frame is necessary when something in the OS, DS, or Problem Frame has shifted out of
tolerance or triggered a change so dramatic that much of the constructed model of
understanding must be reevaluated. If the event forces us to change our Observed System
dramatically, we must be prepared to follow the impact through the Desired System and
accommodate for the changes in the Problem Frame—I hope you kept good notes. We should
not expect to control events in our environment. At best, we can understand events within the
context of our own logical, albeit flawed model. Perhaps the ability to conduct a re-frame is the
best test of the rigor and logic of a Design Concept. One cannot re-frame an unfinished picture.
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32. FIGURE 12. How the Environmental Space may need to be “re-framed” based on the intervention
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