The Military Decision Making Process---Welcome to the first exercise at SAMS

A few years ago, well, more like a decade ago, the simple concept of the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP for cool folks) overwhelmed me. I think that feeling was due to being a junior lieutenant in an organization (a brigade level headquarters company) loaded with field grade officers and a few seasoned and senior company grade officers. My exposure to the process left me a bit in awe, along with an "I'll never be able to do that" feeling.

Fast-forward a decade and not only have I embraced MDMP and other problem-solving models, but I am now waist-deep in it here at SAMS.

Our first non-introductory week of SAMS, this week, kicked off with a division-level MDMP exercise. During the Intermediate Level Education course in 2009, there was considerable build-up prior to conducting exercises such as this. Here, my initial take was that it serves to validate the individual and group competency towards taking a basic military problem and going through a linear process to solve.

However, after today's lengthy session--approximately 13 hours--my group began the bonding experience that typically takes weeks in some organizations. The ability to be professionals, argue professionally over passionate topics during Mission Analysis, and come together as a team to formally bring varying levels of experience and knowledge together was humbling. 

The best part: there are three more days of it and five more similar exercises scattered throughout the year from now until November. 

I managed to "get lucky" and was assigned my stereotypical duty position--the Logistics Officer. In this case, being the Division G4 in a major combat operation (MCO) scenario was really not too far off from my two years as a Brigade Combat Team's Support Operations Officer. The basic sustainment principles remain, the scope is significantly, larger, clearly, and the depth across the other warfighting functions required a bit more knowledge and understanding of their moving pieces and the slew logistics-related implied tasks that their specified tasks would subsequently generate. 

Humbling, fulfilling, and all encompassing. And, it is merely the first full week of the course.

If you know nothing about MDMP, go ahead and kick back for the evening and enjoy Appendix B of Field Manual 5-0. You probably will not gain rock start status if you are a first-time reader. Or, scan the chart below and realize how similar it compares to most other problem solving models.