Chris,

I’m also stealing your collective training assessments. Full disclosure I haven’t punished anyone with my training meeting yet, but I’ve tried to combine ideas across a couple ones I’ve seen (All the numbers/names/events are bogus). I’ve attached my Frankenstein Troop meeting slides and maybe there’s something you can steal or provide your own feedback on. Since we are similar organizations, I feel like we track similar things.

I asked for a lot of feed back on training meetings and morning meetings from previous bosses and mentors. A few recommended to train your XO to run the training meeting. Let me know if you try this and if it does/does not work for you. I’m on the fence on this one. I like the idea of preparing my XO to run the show and be competent and capable to operate the Troop in my absence, but I want to make sure I’m not abdicating any responsibility. Is giving the shadow nod, having the final saying, and interjecting only at key points enough to maintain disciplined initiative?

I second your use of OPORD format. My old boss didn’t want CONOPs, he asked me to invite him to our OPORD briefing – and he offered feedback after each brief to the PSG and I. He would ensure in the weeks leading up to the brief that I was never outside of his intent and that I would give him the rough cut COA brief before hand so that there were no major surprises.

My mentors have also recommended using the OPORD as a forcing function to see how your Platoons are conducting TLPs.

-Steve