Troop Training Meeting

I have somewhat struggled with my Troop Training Meeting. Basically, I felt like I was speaking to much. I would have Platoon Leaders brief their upcoming training, but it was still a lot of me speaking. I decided to reread the TC 25-30 and redevelop my training meeting slide deck. I attached the slide deck. This is meant, partly to get feedback, but additionally to get people talking about what works and does not work for training meetings.

Structure seems to be incredibly important for training meetings. My Leaders will sit there and say nothing unless there are prompts for them to speak and spark a discussion. Additionally, I want to pull from the PLs and PSGs their evaluation of training so I am forcing them to update slides every week on their evaluation.

I blanked out my MET Assessment just to be safe, but normally it would be in there. I do not have a digital copy of my crew roster and stats at home, but those slides would contain the actual information. Also, I put those at the end because I hate getting bogged down in that information and it is a more of brief by exception since they do not change often.

I want to keep the meeting under an hour, but I know have a lot of slides. I am concerned how this will play out, but also recognize the number of slides will vary by week because some weeks we have a lot of upcoming training. We have a two week period with six types of ranges (we are only running 3 and participating in 3 others), so that adds a lot of pre-execution checklists.

Finally,

I have two somewhat unique views on training. My Platoons have Platoon Training schedules, but they are developed in conjunction with Troop. Under 1SG and my guidance and the input of the PL/PSG we develop a Troop training plan incorporating what they think we need to train on. I saw too many times as a Lieutenant “Platoon Training” that was never executed because it never made its way to Squadron’s radar. Focusing more effort on the Troop Training Calendar with their respective Platoon parts allows me to better protect their training. If I was to say figure out your training and get back to me at T+6 with a plan, then potentially Squadron will plan in that white space. Instead, I say lets look at the LRTC and see where we have to get to and based off of what we have done what do we need to train on between T+6 and T+12. We work through that on the Troop Calendar. They then pull from the more refined Troop Calendar to make the Platoon Calendars. This also provides more time to develop the Platoon’s ability to build a training plan. I think just saying figure your training out and get back to me sets Platoons up to get stepped on.

Secondly, I avoid CONOPs whenever possible. Instead of saying at T+5 we have range lets pull-up the one slider, I instead have the Platoon Leader brief the leadership his OPORD. This is a forcing function to develop my Lieutenants.

Some final notes,

Our T+9 through T+12 is a Squadron collective training event in conjunction with our Squadron conducting a limited user test on the new AMPVs. Squadron is still developing the plan. The Troop will participate. Squadron just published WARNORD 2 for the operation so I will be updating the slides with the information within. During our individual training period, we went out to T+12 with what we wanted to train on so my XO could start resourcing and everyone knew what was coming down the pipeline.

This is a work in progress so please provide honest feedback.