Army Organizational Overview

Organizational Overview:

There are usually multiple ways to solve a problem, however, the Army has developed their own standards and defined process called the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) to solve problems. The MDMP is a single, established and proven analytical process to solving problems. In the last few decades, this process has been the cornerstone to all decisions made within the military. It is a standardized planning tool used by staffs across different organizations within the military. It was established to better analyze current situations, to develop courses of actions and essentially select the optimum course of action to solve the problem. In order to understand the military decision making process, one needs only to understand that making a decision is just a matter of choosing between options, making judgments and picking the best one based off of your analysis. Going through the seven core steps and each of its sub-steps will allow a person to feel confident about their recommendation of a solution to a problem.

Once a recommendation has been made, and it has been determined to be the validated course of action, we need to communicate this decision with the rest of the organization. The Army does this through a "Warning Order" or "Operation Order". The Army is very keen on establishing good communication through-out the organization and believes in putting everything in writing so that there is no confusion as to who is doing what, for what purpose and by what deadline. This is how the Operations order is used.

An Operations Order is used to describe a situation the organization is facing, the goal to be accomplished and what activities the organization will need to conduct to achieve the mission/goals. The OPORDER is a standardized multi-paragraph format used throughout the Department of Defense. It is designed to lay out the generalities and specifics of a mission into five paragraphs: Situation, Mission, Execution, Service Support, and Command and Signal.

Before an organization receives an Operations Order, they may receive a Warning Order, or WARNO. This is basically a "heads-up" letting them know that an Operations order is to follow so be prepared. It gives the general overview of the situation without the details, so you can start making your own preparations within your sections to meet any requirements that may be needed.

Once an OPORDER is given, the situation may change before the mission has actually begun. In these cases, the Army would issue a Fragmentary Order, or FRAGO. The FRAGO states exactly how the situation and/or mission has been changed and what must be done to make up for the change.

Lapses in decision making and communication obviously can have dire consequences for the nation's military personnel, and the nation as a whole. So, it is of vital importance that the mechanisms