A New Era of Decision Making in the Australian Army – CAPT Jimmy Wilson

Welcome to the Cove podcast, your stop for PME on the go. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Cove podcast. I'm Captain Todd Lempi, your regular host. On today's episode, we're going to talk about tactical planning. We're going to go through a few tools, but largely the tools don't really matter, per save, but it's the process of planning at the tactical level. So formation or brigade headquarters and below. My guest today is Captain Jimmy Wilson. He's currently a small group instructor at RMC. He just finished first class at the graduation as the other day, and is moving into second class to SGI for the subsequent class. Welcome to the episode. Thanks, mate. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely awesome. All right. So we're going to talk about, so you've taught plans. I think that's the most important thing. You've taught plans at RMC. Basically, trying to get sort of all of the newest officers, junior officers in the Army, onto Lion O'Tea with the new planning doctrine. I think before we launch into the decision-making and planning process and the tools that we have available, can we just talk about and wouldn't normally do these massive bios. But for you, can we talk about your formative experiences before now, where you've sort of been and what jobs you've had up until now, which inform the way you plan? Yeah, absolutely. I'm graduate December 17th, from there to three RAR 2018, 1920, fulfilled multiple roles there, mechanized, rough, opportune commander, model line officer, adjutant, and from there still in Townsville into the combat training center. So two years, as what was a coach at the time still is observing and coaching on combat team, battle group, brigade, staff, x's, and warfighters as well. I'm there, posted down to 8.9 RAR, where I was the regimental tech-adge in the ops room for 2023 and then 2024, I was the adjutant of the battalion and here I am at RMC. So with the CTC staff, let's go back to that. So a lot of battle group tactics and sort of being in the box most of the time, with the CTC staff taking a step back to coach. So I suppose what was that relationship between you and the combat team or the person you were coaching at the time? How did that sort of work and what sort of value did you present to the combat brigades as I had gone through either certification or subsequent, like just their warfighters? Yeah, absolutely. I always found the relationship really positive. I was fortunate enough on my first exercise as CTC coach to coach a good mate of mine. I hope it doesn't mind me giving him a shout out, Lieutenant Jesse Jones to RAR at the time on his sort of first big warfighter with the battalion. And it was my first warfighter as a first year captain coach as well. Great experience, right? So we sort of, we got that rep-done figure out the relationship and then from there I was pretty confident stepping into coaching combat team commanders. And the way that I would give my sort of value proposition to them was we're just another set of eyes here to help. We're just, you know, we can have our head above the parapet that doesn't matter because we're not in the box, right? Yeah. So we can help you. We can say, hey, like, I think your team commanders could use another rock drill. I think your NCOs could use, you know, a little bit more guidance from the CSM. And that was the relationship with combat team commanders and I had a great time doing that. Yeah, really fun time. Battle group staff, again, just another set of eyes, right? You just, you're there in the tent watching the flow of information from brigade into the CP and how that filters between the watchy and the two and then how that gets out down to the combat teams. When you kind of, you look for efficiencies that the battle group can generate there. Are you asking them what value you can, like are you saying, how can I help? Or are you sort of identifying opportunities or is it combination both? Absolutely. Combo. We really refined that coaching process of CTSA over the two years that I was there. We codified the process into sort of the before action review, the midterm action review and then the traditional after action review. And we went through various terms of those TRAs, training review events and during the BAR it would help both the training audience and the coaches define what each of us, what they wanted to get after, what they wanted out of us and then what we could independently provide to them. So it really worked both ways. I think that scopes your experience before we get into the episode. Now, I've already done an episode on DMPV, or the decision-making planning process with the DCA, Major General Chris Smith. And he sort of talked about his main things, were returning intuition, the commander is more centered on the planning process, largely not that much change. Now, that's absolutely true from a change to normal business and we'll get into that in a minute. But there has got some nuances that we're going to discuss because that provides real benefit. There are a number of people still in the ADF and the Army that are asking like what are the changes. We've got 40 minutes, a tough task, to summarise all the changes in DMPV and the different ways of approaching that sort of stuff. Before we do that though, I think, if you will, can we talk about the old planning tool and how the military appreciation process, which is now dead, but what was that really briefly before we launch into DMPV? Absolutely. The IMAP was great once you got your head around it, right, the six steps and it essentially stepped through from your preliminary analysis about what time you had available through your terrain into considering your enemy and only there, which is sort of talk about your blue forces. And after that point, are you talking about coming up with a plan, right? And then there was still the analysis at the end, but as we'll get into, I think we've moved the order of those around a little bit and I think that it will generate us some efficiency in our planning process. We had the combat military appreciation process like the quick, you know, and it was determined on resources, time and complexity of task and we'll get into that. I think DMPV leads into that a little bit harder, but combat military appreciation process, immediate military appreciation process and then staff military appreciation process, which is where you have staff to guide the planning process. Obviously, we've now moved to DMPV. Everyone watching all junior officers going through RMC with that green book of the IMAP, you know, and having to fill in every single box, you know, air defense and all that section level. It's like, I'm on the minim eye on my legs. On my back shooting up at this more organic air defense, but so that we bit scarred from the green book and the IMAP. Can we talk now about DMPV and what it brings more so, yeah, to RMC and teaching cadets? Yeah, definitely. We still have a workbook, right? It is absolutely still there as the tool to guide, but we are much more sort of, I guess, understanding of that if you don't need to fill in a box, if your end solution is good enough, then that is okay now. I think that's, I guess, a big cognitive shift from when we went through every box. There was merit to the every box every time approach, like you definitely got the reps and sets in, but if we're talking about efficiency and if we're talking about caring for the planning process, that will serve these junior officers well when they get out there. No one's stepping you through a workbook when you're in a CP on a warfighter. Your OC is not stepping you through a workbook and checking every box, you know, when you're under a blackout cam net at the back of a PMB at 3 AM, like this process, I think the way that we're teaching them now that if the end product is robust enough, it is okay to take shortcuts in terms of not having to spell out every single step of the way. I think that's going to make us money down the track. Yeah, and I think the important thing is every time you did an online map in the MAP at RMC, it sort of, you almost reset every time and you had to do it all over again, whereas when we're talking about doing like sort of iterative planning cycles and staying in the same scenario, that complexity versus how much time you have available and uncertainty, complexity, and how much time really lean into how much you actually like lean into and how much you have to actually plan, noting that largely the variables have not changed. So let's do the things that we know are going to change and present more risk, but otherwise we'll leave it there top thing. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if I had to wait the factors that influence how much we're devoting to each particular step, time is always that first one. I think we'll get into it further a little bit down the track, but this prioritising of time to generate tempo really sets the tone for the rest of the process and I think that's where it's strength is. So I think we've largely put the military appreciation process to bed and we're talking about the decision-making and planning process now. Before we do that though, I'm going to take the liberties of the host to talk about the same app or the combat military appreciation process and met D so mission enemy and then terrain. So that was the tool we always used at particularly section level or during a QDE to go through some sort of deliberate analysis because you just see unhinged people just going nuts in like without on contrary target indications and stuff. It was always good to slow trainees down and sort of really think about the problem is C-MAP dead or irrelevant and how are we going about it now? Made C-MAP not dead, right? C-MAP's such a useful tool. The strength of that met D acronym was that it was so reliable and instinctive and I remember being taught that very early on in my sort of military career. I think first year ad for was the first time my dear sergeant introduced me to that as sort of how to make decisions as a section to IC, right? And so it is ingrained in I think many of us of sort of my generation older or our generation older and younger. So it's not dead, it's absolutely not dead. You can still use it which sort of conceive of the process behind it in a little bit more detail now. What we're calling it now and how we're teaching it is the IDMP basic, right? And so met D absolutely still applies here and I'll sort of talk through why in a minute, the three steps we sort of now talk about are Q retrieve and response, right? Where the Q might be that initial stimulus, you see two enemy were treating back along a creek line or you see a couple of dismounts maybe occupying a defensive position, right? That Q should get you thinking about what you need to do next. That thinking about what happens next is the retrieve phase. You were trying to retrieve the next action that you do based on either your intuitive understanding of tactics or your what you know about the enemy picture. And that intuitive understanding is based on all the tools that we try and use to generate that like our our study of previous battles, our classroom instruction, our movie, our our decent movie depictions of of tactical tasks, right? So you were trying to retrieve a suitable response response is the third phase, right? That is your orders and the equivalent to the decision. Now Q doesn't really change, where I think met D still plugs in is if you don't have something straight away met D is how you can retrieve it, right? So that is you can still you still go through your mission enemy terrain and decision and decision is still how you get to the response. The we offer another option now in terms of going through nine questions. So it's a little bit longer, right? So I can completely understand if for our junior commanders listening, they'd still like to rest on met D and there's nothing wrong with that, right? But we go through these nine questions, which is somewhat inspired by the British seven question planning process, but I'll go through them now. That's right. What is the situation? How does it affect me? What have I been told to do and why? What effects do I need to plan and what direction must I give to develop my plan? That's our Q phase. We then move into retrieve. Question four, where best can I accomplish each action? What resources do I need to accomplish each action? When aware do these actions take place in relation to each other? And then the final one in that retrieve phase? What is an appropriate response that I recognize? That is a solution to the problem I need to solve. We then get to our response phase. The last two questions there. What are my other tasks and purpose I need to issue to my support units and what other coordination and control measures that I need to issue, right? So as you can see, it fleshes out each Q retrieve response phase into a little bit more detail through those questions there. However, a shortcut through all that is still your met D. So I couldn't agree more, mate. I think met D absolutely still has a place and I fully admit that may as a tactical commander next time I'm doing that next time I'm in the box. Met D is probably going to be the first thing that comes into my head. That's excellent. In the questions, they always met D always had some sub questions that were large of the same as well, just a little bit more scripted, I think, but it's still on awesome card and I'll show I'll try and get it on the actual graphics so that they can see the card. Before we got on here, you talked about the Americans using a similar process but considering something else that was obviously the resource who've been talking about a lot. Can you just talk about adding that in as well in terms of the third C or second C? Yeah, definitely. So the US Army met T.C. Mission, enemy, terrain, troops available and that third T time and then civil considerations. But they've built time into that process from the start. I couldn't tell you how long they've been using that tool, but it is absolutely ingrained in them. Whereas our traditional Met D does not take into account time or at least not as its own distinct heading. Our Q retrieve response and those sub questions that we use in the IDMP basic does. So I think that is a key point of distinction there. Yeah, absolutely. Because I suppose that's the idea of this episode to make the distinctions. You said, I want to go back a little bit when you talked about reading and getting exposure that way, getting reps and sets in the training areas and then watching movies. Are you doing any visualisation as well? Because I found that helps sort of me understand but trying to visualize things before you get there to enable the planning process to be more smooth because you've seen it before. Maybe not in reality, but like you've experienced it in imagination, I suppose, or visualization. Yeah, definitely. One of the ones that we use a lot in first class during our planning module for our cadets is the Defence Public Affairs videos of war fighters and talisman sabers and any kind of field of life or training where we can show them what a mechanised platoon with tank and support advancing looks like. Or this is how a section looks like breaking into the northern flank of long-crank junction. So that is a really powerful tool that we've been using that helps with visualisation. That's actually our most common question that we got in the classroom in the last module was, I don't know what a mechanised platoon attack looks like. And so, yeah, we as instructors are delved into YouTube and those official Defence publications to show the cadets how it looks. So that's so we largely, we've put to bed the MAP and workbooks that will scare people from their time at RMC, the green workbooks. And I suppose to sum it up before we go into the nuances or changes. We've got the decision-making and planning processes broken up into the immediate decision-making process or the IDMP and then subsequently the deliberate military appreciation process, which is the DMAP, the two planning process that being the IDMP and then the DMAP, what's the difference between those and how are they used? Yeah, absolutely. So the IDMP intuitively enough writes aligns with what we would use our MAP for. So one individual going through their planning process for a task of varying complexity but used at echelons where there is no dedicated staff. So combat team and below, whereas our DMAP, our deliberate military appreciation process, we're using that at the battle group staff level and above. And that marries up better with the staff map process. So still two equivalents just with some nuances between each. Yeah, absolutely. I suppose that's the two tools. If we talk about how they're used. So obviously, most of the time I imagine you're stepping cadets through IDMP. Yeah, yeah. And how do you go about teaching them now? So I remember having a series of briefs and you're talking about each of the steps, all the battlefield operating systems and you're talking about what each capability and going through those six steps that you talked about before. If we shift tack to the IDMP now, how do you step cadets through that and teach them how to plan? Yeah, definitely. So we still go through the boss. We still go through offensive operations, defensive operations at platoon and combat team level. And we try from the beginning to build on what they've already done in aft small team leaders and the war fighting module. It is not always easy to generate instinctive solutions from these guys through no fault of their own. It's the the experience is not there to be instinctive. That's where we have to lean on our tools. And it's a key part of the doctrine now where you use every tool in the toolbox that you possibly can to to generate experience, whether that is wide military reading and study or academic study or watching good movie depictions of combat of battles. Like there's a reason why that band of brothers attack on the 88s at Omaha is such a classic because it's really clear who the SBF group is, who the assault group is, what the objective is, and we still use that. If like, it's been a classic in Western military institutions for years and we've just now sort of codified why that is so important. Now, you know, for that specific example, don't look too much at the angles of the SBF and the assault, but you know, desperate times and different measures. I think you can still identify that though and just be like, that's not ideal, but like you said, the terrain will shape how you can and it's never going to be ideal type thing. Yeah. Exactly. And the time trade off right, like they had to stop the 88s firing on Omaha, that's why we're tolerating it a little bit more risk there. Yeah, that's good. I think you said about their IDMP before using the commander stepping through that. I think the commander always steps through the eye map as well, but the end state of the IDMP for the commander is commander's decision in guidance or direction in guidance, right? So they're delivering direction in guidance to a team. And that was something coming off foundation major's course. It was different, is that you're getting very scripted direction in guidance before you launch into your planning serial as in the the DMAP perspective. Can you just talk about the change in and the nuances with direction in guidance being an output for the for the commander's IDMP? Yeah, definitely. I think it's us moving away from the old model of the staff stepping through an SMAP and then the boss stepping through an IMAP sort of completely independently of each other and then sort of coming together at the end for, you know, being ordered to develop the color that might be quite divergent for what the staff have done. I think that is the the guidance throughout the DMAP is designed to get rid of that friction, right? So and with the transition from touch points as opposed to back briefs, there's a little bit of stage management around the back brief, right? And figured reason, you want to present well, you want to present sort of confidently, but that stage management around each brief, I think meant that in some cases, it was always a, it was a, a tension between planning and just getting the brief ready, right? I think where the advantage of a touch point over a back brief is is it de-formalises that a little bit and it allows the staff to concentrate on that granular detail that we're always trying to achieve in planning, but sometimes couldn't always get there because, you know, we wanted to make sure the slide deck was exactly right. Yeah, I still remember we both sat in on Elwick or the land warfare intermediate course. We sat in the same current operations. So it was like, I suppose it was future operations, but we sat in the same tent and planned through a series with a number of staff and Colonel Duce is the chief of staff in there, but there was a tendency and it was stopped at the time because we were very much on the DMP piece out of the house, but there is a tendency to, as soon as you receive any information, get the slide packer and you're immediately trying to develop the brief, a move to a touch point as opposed to that and it's enabled by the commander being far more involved. It's a good shift, I suppose, across to those from a, you know, developing backgrounds and effectively not planning to then come into like touch points, having the commander central, very clear guidance, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but yeah, that move, I think, cannot be understated the difference between those two things. Absolutely, right. And I think that instinct just to like crack on with the PowerPoint, like you're a good staff captain, right? It's just what you do, like get it going. But if there's a little bit of pressure removed from getting that exactly right multiple times in the process, I think that can only be a good thing. Yeah, so I think that's the touch points in the back briefs and we'll probably refer to it again throughout the episode, but if we come back to direction and guidance or the commander's direction and guidance, it's I found going through the process that there was a significant change in, didn't give you a lofty concept of what's sort of happening, a situation general specific and all that sort of stuff and then let you go off and you had to plan three colors, not the idea of DMPP, like we're shifting to a point where the direction and guidance you received from the commander, having done their own appreciation largely gives you a lot of the information you need, but really focuses the staff based on that intuition, huge change. Definitely, definitely. Focusing the staff from the start, like, I'd be thankful for that next time, I find myself rowing, you know, regardless of what that role is. Yeah, so I think to be told at the end of the commander's appreciation process that he wants, or he or her wants he or she wants one color planned, two contingency plan and a branch plan, all done. I'm going to split you up into these teams and that's exactly what you're working on and being very involved in like largely we understood the plan. I think it's an episode, a point you made before we come on episode that we were doing a lot of this anyway. Intuition was coming in a lot and we're talking about intuition at a moment, but that sort of too and fro between getting very clear guidance and then planning only what your commander wants and then touch points, heaps different. Yeah, absolutely. I usually do a couple of personal anecdotes if I could hear. So through my time at CTC where the most effective staffs that I saw, the commander was very involved anyway, right. And then the next time that I was in a battle group staff, eight, nine, RAR, TS-23 planning, what, you know, I think was quite a successful AMO. We were up on Duppies OP at the time for those that have been to Townsville Field Training Area. It's a phenomenal spot, sort of huge sweeping views of the training area below and sort of concurrent to the training that we were doing at the time. We also went through this serial in preparation for this operation that we're going to execute in a couple of days' time. Our boss at the time very experienced in AMO operations and really raised us OP's captains to be efficient and really tuned into the detail in terms of planning chalks and cereals and bump plans. Anyway, we've got the guidance to essentially plan an AMO for these between these sort of a couple of features and to seize Mt. St. Michael. Oh, so that was the tactic of TASA C's, an objective on Mt. St. Michael? Yep. Absolutely. And we just, we got given that guidance and then that made our planning process so much more efficient. We had the co-as done sort of that afternoon fleshed out. We're able to go through a couple of days of current analysis after that and kept refining the plan up until execution. And you know, whether we were deliberately following the DMPP or it was just something that happened because that was how I boss did business. Well, I think it was the latter, but the point I'm drawing out is that good battle groups and good stars did it anyway. Now, we've just written it in to reflect best practice. Yeah, yeah. And I took sense of passion. You genuinely like this process, as opposed to. Yeah, yeah. Good. Yeah. That's absolutely awesome. So let's talk about the intuition and your boss giving very clear guidance. You made a couple of suggestions at experience and very experienced and he knew how to do business. If we come back to that component, I think the intuition component and you talked about reading and getting like a lot exposed as much as you can in the absence of actual sort of reps and sets. But like more broadly, can we I suppose that the idea behind at a platoon level that might not seem all that relevant because your platoon commander doesn't have a lot of experience and sort of delivering your sort of into or using intuition is difficult. If we go up to your example in a battle group headquarters where the CEO is a fair way ahead of the ops captains, for example, the opso not so much, maybe five years difference from an opso and a battle group commander. But then we scale it up to a formation headquarters. Brigade major is a post-Aff College major and a brigade commander who is 15 years potentially in front. Like that intuition largely results in the efficiencies you were talking about before, which is that you're not planning for the sake of planning because the commander largely knows exactly what they're going to do. Yeah, they get it, right? They've likely maneuvered their own battle group through the box a few times. They've likely been part of a joint staff somewhere, maybe a US staff somewhere. So they all likely have an idea of exactly what they want done. And now that the new planning process gives them complete license to be as directive as they please upfront. Again, I think the good ones were doing it anyway. We've now just married them both up. Yeah, I think the deputy chief arm was talking about he gave Gordon as a battle group commander to his staff. Largely knew exactly what the tactical action was going to be and like some nuance. And he just wanted a little bit of color in between the lines basically, but very scripted, like very direct. And his staff come back to him and we're like, no, no, you need to give us the opportunity to creatively plan this plan. And like, don't give us anything in front loaded. We need to go in cold and come up with this creative. But then we have a combination of that. And then in frequent back briefs where and you work into the back briefs, I'm not sure the plan at the end of the day was as optimum as it could be. And you talked about resources before in terms of time. Maybe we were wasting a fair bit of time. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think so, right. With time being the underlying tenant of this planning process, if the staff want to be creative, that's great. And there's a place for that for everyone to develop. And I'd offer that to probably when our career courses perhaps, or internal PME within the unit, that's the place to encourage staff creativity. But when we're doing a rep and a set at sort of battle group or formation level, let's exercise as we would fight and plan and execute as efficiently as possible. Yeah. And this new process returns at in terms of the command detected active role throughout the entire process. And it results in having gone through it a couple of times, maybe for full planning series, it results in a far better plan and more efficient staff. But I think the way to epitomize how we look at the role of the commander now is to give clear intent, outline the scope of the plan, give key tasks for subordinates, and emphasize the key factors that define mission success. And then the staff's role, if we want to look at that different sort of role, clarity is to add detail to that direction. So I suppose that that's the role of the command, you've just sort of told us exactly what the commander needs to do. Now, if we step into the deliberate and we've hinted at a couple of times, but if we step into the deliberate military appreciation process or DMAP and the steps, you talked about six steps with an on map before, how many steps are there in the DMAP and how is it different to the ESMAP? So the DMAP, right, we still take those same three steps, but we're waiting more, I guess, we have more people and more time, right? So we initially launch into our scoping and framing step, right? And as we've spoken about a little bit, if the time is not there, then this is the one where we can probably save a bit more staff effort. Key difference between this and the prelim analysis that was in the ESMAP is that we in our scoping and framing as part of the scoping, you can start tabling intuitive solutions right off the bat. In the framing part where we're getting into our friendly and enemy comparative all that analysis quite quickly, we're talking about our bars and our combat functions and our comparative capabilities, our weapons ranges, all that kind of thing, right? What I think that does is that you can start thinking about critical vulnerabilities a lot earlier, whether that is as an individual or as a staff, whether it is immediate or deliberate, it focuses that analysis much earlier in the process. Yeah, I think and the thing was when the commander would come in and talk, the question they would pose is do we need to do so situation changes and you have to go through another planning cycle, another demo, the commander comes in and goes do we need to do scoping and frame again? Has the uncertainty or complexity of the scenario changed to beyond that of which we can push straight into the subsequent steps? Yes or no? That's an awesome question because it comes back to not doing all of the steps just because during the same sort of training area you're fighting on the same island and the enemy hasn't largely changed and they're complexity and uncertainty. We were larger there, right? So we were always pushed to keep going, like move straight into the next step. Yeah, definitely. We then move into our mission analysis step. Key difference here is that we again are considering not just blue mission analysis but red mission analysis as well and this is where the bulk of the enemy analysis is done. Again, we're talking about our most likely and most dangerous in this step where as before it was done independently of blue, they're now sort of a lot more concurrent, right? And I know that the IMAP and the SMAP encouraged it being an iterative process. We've now codified that as an iterative process and you can come back to each step at any point in time. We're effectively doing that throughout the whole process now. Yeah. And then touching on as it seems quite sort of counter intuitive to go into red blue at the same time. It's very different to the MAP and that process. But that's you're considering that the entire way through that mission analysis component. Absolutely. And if it results in stronger plans at the end, then I think that can only be a good thing. We then get into our co-development and analysis again done in the same step with a couple of sub steps. And I think before we move on important to note that there is commander's direction and guidance at any point in time, but definitely at the end of each of these steps, right? So there is that liberty for the commander to come in at any time. And if he or she is not happy with the planning process so far, I can get the staff back back on track. So course of action, development and analysis, this is where we now get into our decisive actions as opposed to our decisive events. I feel like that might be a decent secret. Yeah. That now. Yeah. Absolutely. So decisive events being like very relatively scripted as a result of a maths formula sometimes. Can you just go through, I suppose, what DEs were and then subsequently how it has changed now that we look at DAs or decisive actions? Absolutely. So the decisive event took a defeat mechanism and applied that to an enemy targetable critical vulnerability with a certain effect at a certain point in time and space in the battlefield. And that was a good formula, right? Once you got comfortable with expressing it that way, we've now changed that to decisive actions which can be delivered in a narrative format. There's a little bit more scope for commanders and staff to articulate the exact nuance of how they want something done. And that takes a little bit of getting used to. There's a little bit of cognitive dissonance for those of us that grew up in the DE's era. Particularly if you did your co-ac with DEs, you can be quite wedded to that. It's something that I'm adjusting to, but I think there is absolutely value in changing the verbage from event to action. It's important in improvement. If we look at event versus action, events happen, they can happen to us by us, whereas actions deliberate is a step taken to achieve an end state. We already talk about actions when we say we're going to focus all of them on the enemy center of gravity. That being sort of one of our tenants of Manuva, so it makes sense to marry them up. Yeah, and do it in a more flexible, but again, it's coming back to that point of like better planning right, better in state, whatever that may be, and that's how we're going to get to it, I suppose. And that enables the DEs and able that. Definitely. And I think that, that's the point you raised there in that, and this is just me sort of spitballing, but I feel that this planning process allows for a little bit more flexibility for commanders and staff to just articulate exactly what they want at each point in time, right, and far from staffing that creativity. If you've got that creativity off the bat, then get after it, right? And I think it encourages that. I think if we go back to course of action, development and analysis, zoom back out to that, a combined step. The idea is that you can identify unworkable plans before you've completely developed them, I think, and it's supposed to develop more adaptable plans. As you work through, it's sort of separating the steps, made it that you develop to call it all the way through despite the fact that it was not FASD. Key point of difference now that we talk about is the transition from FASD to FASAD with the addition of an A and another D. The second A adaptable, right? We're trying to work that into all plans now that in quickly pivot, quickly maybe change onto a different course of action according to rapidly changing circumstances. Something that we always should have done in good plans anyway, but again, this codifies it and emphasizes it. Second D, deception. Trying to work that in at every level now, from section up to formation and beyond. We can get our people thinking about deception from that ab initio leadership training, or even as an individual training. Then that can only be a good thing for our survivability and our lethality down the track. Something that we emphasize to academics is that deception can be achieved by good soldier skills, right? It's not this entirely separate concept. You can achieve deception at the section level through a silent infiltration. That is deceiving in a sense. If you have a, at the platoon level, a covered and concealed FUP and a well sided SBF that achieves on-flight fire, then that is achieving deception as well, because it presents a dilemma to the commander when they're the enemy commander, when they're contacted from two directions. It's, again, I think it's a point that I keep coming back to, is that it was something that we were doing anyway when we executed these things well. This just puts it in eldest of considerations and holds us to account as commanders to do it every time. Yeah, and I suppose that moved from FASD to FASAD. That's the three broad steps, scoping and framing mission analysis, course of action development and analysis in the same step, and we talked about the benefits of that, or what the idea is behind combining those two adaptable plans and including that in the FASAD. If we come back to the IPB intelligence preparation of battlespace, there must be an overarching step where you talked about iterative planning process. What is the overarching step that sits alongside that is consonant throughout the entire process? Yeah, gotcha. We now call it our jupawi, in keeping with that joint doctrine now, probably more applicable to the DMAP setting, where we have a separate S2 staff that can devote their effort in entirety to intelligence preparation. So it still happens, but it is ongoing and concurrent. Being the key difference from sort of being done only upfront. So that's the three steps of DMAP, and I suppose there's some efficiencies throughout, but more broadly, the argument is better planning and better plans and then taking decisive action with deception to enable you to win wars. If we come back to the idea that you must step through the entire planning process, I think that's a, you talked about direction and guidance at certain points, the commander coming in and being incredibly involved. The other side of the DMAP is that if the commander is largely happy with the level of detail in the plan and they have made, they're just getting to a point where they can make a decision. Run on the decision, don't continue through the process. I think that's codified in the DMAP, and it's something probably we definitely did before, but it gives the commander free run to be able to use that intuition and make decisions at any point. Once largely the uncertainty and the complexity of the scenario are understood. Yeah, definitely. Again, right. It's things that we might have done well previously. It's things that we've identified worked well in the past but might not have set in stoning doctrine. This process does that. So I suppose if that's, so that's, we've talked through the IDMP in the DMAP as well, and now sort of summarise the distinctions and difference whether there are many, I suppose, but largely your argument is that we were already doing most of it. It's just quantified or codified into doctrine and allows you the flexibility to do that. If we come back to, let's talk about it and we look to summarise the episodes of three main points about our new decision making process. What are they? What are your three big takeaways that you want people to get out of this episode? Yeah, absolutely. The first one. For our junior commanders out there, the more in-depth your understanding of the enemy that you're fighting and the better that you can flesh out, they're most likely and most dangerous or cold one or cold two. However, you want to articulate that the better. That is making you money down the track, but it's something tangible that you can fight. It takes the, you know, it takes the mystery out of what you're fighting if you can conceive of a tangible set of tactical actions that the enemy is going to do. It's the first key point. The second two, sorry, they relate to our decisive actions. First one on decisive actions. Regardless of the format that you use, whether that is sort of broad narrative or quite specific, you still need to clearly articulate which defeat mechanism is being used by which subordinate call sign against which enemy TCV. The order in which you can do that is now a little bit more flexible and has changed, but you still need to get good at articulating that both up to your boss and down to your subordinates. The third one, my final one, get as good and efficient as you can at coming up with different methods of achieving the same decisive action quickly, right? And that's where you can build your intuitive library of how to do different things by studying your doctrine, studying your weapons effects, studying your military history, and your good cinematic depictions of all this stuff, right? If you can get good at coming up with different ways to do these things, the end result is a better plan, which is all that we're trying to get to through this whole process, right? If it achieves a better plan at the end of the day, then our planning process endorses that. Yeah, a better plan and a way better outcome as a result of that excellent planning effort. I suppose let's go full circle. We've talked about the process now. At the start, we're led with you being a small group instructor at RMC. How difficult has it been rolling out the DMPP? A complete change to decades of doctrine. And you talked about a workbook now being completely different. How difficult has it been rolling out at RMC, the DMPP? Yeah, gotcha. I mean, it comes with its challenges, right? There's those in our own staff biases where we all grew up on the IMAP and of transition to that. The good thing is, I'm going to give some shout-outs here, full credit to some of the fellows that have come before me at RMC. Captain's Braden Droy and Elliot Starling, they have done so much of the heavy lifting on this over the past few years. The workbook that Braden has put together is top notch and the way that he's broken down the instruction by a class into IDMP basic IDMP intermediate and IDMP advanced. Flows really logically. So he's made it really, I guess he is definitely paved the way for subsequent instructors to come in and be set up the success and the delivery of this. Yeah, that's awesome. So it's exciting rolling out a new tool, thinking about things a bit differently and using some different tools you talked about visually. Moving the arousal that used to be at the start of lesson into the learning points for the lesson in terms of like, have a look at how this maneuver works and all that sort of stuff. I suppose, Jimmy, that's how we plan now, the DMPP or the decision-making plan in process. Thank you so much for coming on. It's absolutely awesome. Captain Jimmy Wilson. Thanks for having me, mate. Pleasure. Cheers. Thanks for listening to the Cove podcast. Explore our channel for more great audio PME content. Also visit us at cove.army.gov.au for hundreds of additional resources. The Cove, the learning home of the Australian profession of arms.