How do we prioritize and plan in order to train? Training, like operations, is the execution of plans.   So what are the methods we use to deliberately plan our training? The bulk of our time and effort to have successful training will be spent in planning it, so we owe it to ourselves to seek best methods.

In 3×5 Leadership, Josh offers us a methodology on choosing what to plan for first, offering us 3 categories. I am shortening them from his full description.

1. Priority Training. This is the stuff the boss says we must do.

2. Required Training. This is the universal and Army required training (think 350-1, driver licensing).

3. Opportunity Training. Everything you as a Leader want to train on that isn’t captured as Priority/Required training.

This is a simple and easy approach on where to focus your training, and it is something that is rooted in best practices.  In “Taking the Guidon: Exceptional Leadership at the Company Level” , authors Nate Allen and Tony Burgess identify a similar way of ranking your priorities.

Josh, Nate and Tony all offer us similar advice that rests on a clear approach:Bring your company(platoon) leaders together and have them lay out the quarterly training within the limits of your guidance. I have never been in a company that has executed planning in this fashion, often being a very Officer (Commander/PL) driven function with guidance from NCOs. In both sources, the planning horizon for a Company Commander is roughly a quarter (Roughly 16 weeks) with some issues needing a longer look (like personnel).

This is, based on my anecdotal experience combined with assumption, the result of our BOLC system where the formation is all officers and the person who is in charge is tasked with conducting most of the planning. This might give the false assumption that the LT/CPT goes into defilade, completes their plan, and then emerges for everyone to revise the plan/make corrections or execute. This couldn’t be further from how we should be practicing our planning procedures.

Please consider offering the following to the conversation.

What are your methods for bringing your team together to plan for training?

How do you maximize all the people in your organization to involve them and get them to buy into the plan?

Have you seen “Officer planning defilade”? How do you coach your junior leaders to avoid this practice?

What are the challenges in your formation to planning – are they resource induced or personality induced? How did you or do you plan to overcome these challenges?

How involved are in you in planning PT for your formation?

What is your planning horizon? Why?

 

**I’m stealing  from our own @jbownen_100 ‘s, 3x5leadership.com. If you don’t follow or subscribe to his blog, I encourage you to – it’s gold to read as a junior officer. His article titled “How to Better Understand Army Training” written in January of this year is the reference for this post.