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| David Cuykendall Click for Index Page |
The concept of operations is a verbal or graphic statement of the overall picture of an enterprise that clearly expresses what those responsible for the performance of an enterprise intend to accomplish and how it will be done using available resources. These are the "values" of the enterprise: the structure and prescribed behaviors, which include precisely defined responsibilities for collaboration (i.e., of how, concretely, the enterprise gets things done and synchronizes its activities). The concept of operations assigns a task and a purpose to each business and operational unit.
The value of the concept of operations is that it establishes the business and operational units' relationship within a unifying image and informs each of their responsibilities to attain common goals. The concept of operations describes the purpose of each task assigned. It provides a common understanding of what must be done and how it will be done to unify business and operational units' actions in attaining the vision of those responsible for enterprise performance.
Each business or operational unit has a prescribed concept of operations that dovetails with the concepts of operations of its peers and the echelons above it. Nested concepts of operations are a framework. By understanding the framework they are working under, employees can take action toward a common goal, producing unity of effort. The vision provided in the concept of operations must include the means to get there. The strategic intent of those responsible for enterprise performance guides business and operational units to their destination or endpoint. Although business or operational units can employ any of several routes to the endpoint (i.e, the concept of "equifinality") the intent remains constant.
The enterprise needs to conduct coordinated synchronized operations. And to do this, control is needed. But the demands of initiative and control seem conflicting, almost paradoxical. This paradoxical relationship between initiative and control is more apparent than real.
The paradox is resolved in the proper understanding of strategic intent and the concept of operations. Strategic intent and the concept of operations are both controlling mechanisms. The purposes contained in concept of operations identifies not only the responsibilities of each business and operational unit vertically to those responsible for their performance, but also their responsibilities to their peers horizontally. The horizontal linkage provides the interrelationships between peers in the business and operational units. It reveals how peers support each other in achieving common goals.
The key responsibility of those responsible for enterprise performance is to translate, then transmit their vision in terms that can be understood and executed. Nested concepts of operations accomplishes this: it imparts the vision of those responsible for enterprise performance, defining not only task and purpose of each business and operational unit, but also the relationship of each task and purpose in achieving the overall concept of operations. Nested concepts of operations are concepts of operations where each succeeding echelon’s concept of operations is nested with the others.
Cascading concepts of operations carry the intentions of those responsible enterprise performance to the lowest levels, and the nesting of those concepts of operations traces the critical path of concentration and priorities.
The concepts of operations are nested like mixing bowls in a kitchen. Each must fit within the confines of the larger and accommodate the next smaller and so on down to the team, the tools and information systems they use, and the individual worker himself. The genius of the system is a centralization of an overall concept of operations and a decentralization of execution and a full exploitation of workforces and opportunities.
The designation of the main effort versus supporting efforts
Managing too far down (i.e., "micro-managing") gives one a stereoscopic view, and this tunnel vision inhibits the ability to see the overall strategic picture. The absolute worst effect of such a management style is that employees' initiatives go into neutral and step out of their responsibilities when the authority they need to be effective has been usurped. Excessive control can stymie initiative, causing inflexible, brittle operations.
The designation of main effort pertains to the purpose assigned to a business or operational unit stating in essence that these activities are its "center of gravity.” The main effort may shift among business and operational units, but the purpose of the main effort remains the same. Supporting efforts are then designated to enable the main effort’s successful accomplishment of its purpose. Main efforts and supporting efforts should never be assigned the same tasks. The main effort is allocated based on the purpose the business or operational unit is accomplishing.
Giving the same tasks to business or operational units performing respectively main and supporting efforts by implication gives them the same purpose, failing to establish unity of effort. Dividing the span of control arbitrarily by dividing objectives into equally distributed goose eggs induces business and operational units to carry out parallel activities with similar objectives. By giving the same task and purpose to each business and operational unit, each unit is forced to carry out separate operations. No coordination is produced. No synchronization of effort occurs.
Further, in the allocation of resources to business and operational units, it is important not to confuse the terms weighting and supporting. Weighting is a vertical control linkage between those responsible for enterprise performance and the business and operational units. By weighting, additional resources are assigned a business or operational unit in order to accomplish strategic intents. Assets must be assigned by looking at the task and purpose established for them.
The main effort may well need the majority of assets and resources to accomplish its purposes. But resources should not be allocated to a business or operational unit simply because it is the main effort; the main effort does not always have the hardest task and purpose in an enterprise. Unity of effort is the key. All elements in the enterprise work to insure the success of the main effort.
Shaping the concept of operations
The shaping process of the concept of operations comprise approaches that change the general condition of an enterprise to an advantage — addressing an enterprise's collective referents (i.e., the communicated strategic intents, the culture of trust, the game rules, the requirements for collaboration, etc.) and behavioral algorithms (i.e., routinized behaviors) that may be stable or unstable (i.e., firekilling, spontaneous procedures under pressure, etc.).
Strategically, the concept of operations involves the following core drivers: (1) the ordered arrangement and positioning of business and operational units in relation to each other; (2) the objectives that are assigned to business and operational units; (3) the economy of operations (i.e., the principle of effective resource weighting); (4) the schemes and respective forms of measures undertaken (i.e., plans or courses of action) aimed at unlocking and discovering new sources of power; (5) unity of effort (i.e., plans and courses of action aimed at achieving the most effective coordination possible), and (6) simplicity..
The realization that an enterprise's social performance drives its economic performance is the most important identified strong point of the concept of operations: the mental and moral forces of the human element that always trump everything else.
Tactical skill and tactical levels in the concept of operations
Tactical skill is largely a consequence of the ability of those ultimately responsible for enterprise performance to effectively express their will in shaping the employment and ordered arrangement of workforces in relation to each other when assigning tasks, designating objectives, and giving authoritative direction necessary to accomplish their respective tasks.
The most important skill is the skill of concisely and effectively communicating overall intent, the drivers (i.e., the reasons why) of decisions. This skill is dependent upon the effectiveness of the methods and agents by which those responsible for enterprise performance express their will.
Tactical levels include the organization of workforces to quickly achieve optimal decisions, gain competitive advantage, establish appropriate tempo, and adapting when necessary. Tactical levels include the tactical logistics involved (i.e., the art of sustaining workforces and their activities involving the performance of supply, maintenance, and other services).
Key structures
- Mission (i.e., the tasks, together with their purposes, that clearly indicates the actions to be taken and the reason therefore in executing the concpet of operations).
- "Game rules" (i.e., the formal, informal, or tacit rules governing business operations) which are more or less respected, and are directly related to the quality of business performance.
- "Gears" (i.e., the gears made of up human behaviors and frameworks that make the procedures and processes of activity and communication, coordination, and cooperation functions perform correctly).
- Lines of communication (i.e., the communication nodes where business and operating units intersect either horizontally or vertically and along which information is passed).
- Lines of operation (i.e., the logical line that connect actions on nodes/or decisive points related in time and purpose with an objective).
- Nodes (i.e., the points at which lines or pathways of lines of communication and lines of operation intersect or branch; a central or connecting point of lines of communication and lines of operation).
- Synchronization (i.e., the coordination in real time aimed at ensuring compatibility between the activities and decisions of various entities, divisions, departments, units, teams and individuals in view of achieving overall objectives and goals).
- Synchronized decentralization (i.e., the decentralization transferring the initiative of decisive acts to the responsibility level where its implementation will be launched while setting up the kinds of communication,coordination, and cooperation that ensure compatibility with actions taken from all zones of responsibility).
- Clusters (i.e., the teams composed of internal actors with their hierarchical superiors).
- The supporting establishment (i.e., those personnel, operational bases, and activities that support operating workforces).
- The operational environment (i.e., the composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of those responsible for enterprise performance).
Key conjunctive elements
- Physical ergonomics (e.g., heat, noise, crowded, empty, closed, open; dominance of operational space on social and economic performance).
- Participatory ergonomics (i.e., maximization of the involvement of the workers based on the simple fact that a worker is an expert on his or her job).
- Cohesion (i.e., level of cooperation among actors within and among teams, business or operational units which is the source of sustainable performance).
- Functional adherence: Functional adherence holds that reliability and effectiveness is not the same thing. Roles can be highly reliable, yet ineffective when the expected utilities that define a role do not meet the requirements that are actually needed. The utilities that define a role can be badly selected, missing, or in excess.
- Functional alignment: The term “functional alignment” means that a set of roles that constitute, in a structural sense a particular unity, collaboratively deliver a required result.
- Coordinating dependencies: The coordinating dependencies among human actors tend to be efficient when the accountability and authority among them are clear as to who can do what to whom and why. Each form of coordinating dependency possess unique degrees of use, usefulness, value, and advantage regardless of whether the role playing agents are human or non-human. A predominating form of coordinating dependency is where the discretion of the role playing agent is constrained by the control of another by boundaries on its authority or ability. These boundaries can have both positive and negative impacts. Types of coordinating dependencies are: (1) Goal dependencies where one agent depends on another to bring about a certain state of affairs; and where the depending agent does not care HOW the goal that it depends on is achieved; (2) Task dependencies where one agent depends on another to carry out an activity, and where the depending agent specifies HOW the task is to be performed; (3) Resource dependencies where one agent depends on another for the availability of a physical or informational resources, and where the depending agent GAINS THE ABILITY to use the resource; (4) Soft goal dependencies. (e.g., quality of service, quality of equipment and software dependencies). The depending agent depends on another to perform some task that meets a soft goal.
