Fundamentals of Operational Design

by
Richard Swain
swain_richard@bah.com
At any time or place, executive judgment involves answering three sets of questions: “What is going on?”; “So what?” (or, “What difference
does it make?”); and “What is to be done?” The better the process of executive judgment, the more it involves asking the questions again
and again, not in set order, and testing the results until one finds a satisfactory answer to the third question….1
Ernest R. May
Author's Preface

Design is a concept describing creative activity. In that define them. Not surprisingly, operational design
his pamphlet, Design: A Very Short Introduction, John presumes that the key to dealing with social-political
Heskett writes, “design, stripped to its essence, complexity is deep understanding of its structure
can be defined as the human capacity to shape and and competing motivations. Only by identifying the
make our environment in ways without precedent various interwoven tensions within a human system,
in nature, to serve our needs and give meaning to can one begin to identify patterns and possibilities for
our lives.”2 However, design lacks practical content changing the current distress to something like future
when it appears without an antecedent. This is why satisfaction.
schools of design organize themselves around specific
A number of military authorities have argued that
applications: architecture, industrial design, graphic
operational design is a set of tools, not a process.
design, network design, organizational design, and so
This argument risks missing the logic essential to
on. Operational design, which this short introductory
the practice. Design involves a skeptical yet inquiring
paper discusses, is “a method of critical and creative
intellectual approach to learning that cannot be
thinking for understanding, visualizing, and describing
assumed, and a critical stance regarding declared
complex problems and the approaches to resolve
truths and beliefs. Practice of design is progressive if
them.”3 The adjective, operational, is used consistent
not sequential. Some activities must take place first
with Joint Doctrine, i.e., involving “the carrying out
for others to proceed, although there is an expectation
of a strategic, operational, tactical, service, training,
that the “steps” will double back on themselves
or administrative military mission.”4 Complex refers
continuously as design is applied. If the “tools” are
to situations that are dynamic, ill defined, and fluid
applied randomly, without reference to or application
because of the presence of numerous interactive
of the discipline of the logic of design, it is unlikely the
and largely autonomous actors, where the number
designer will realize the benefits of his or her efforts.
of separate interactions indicates the degree of
While design is not a rigid process—as the Military
complexity. Complex systems display capabilities for
Decision Making Process (MDMP) is taken to be by
self-organization and emergence, where emergence
some—it does have a character and logical order that
is “the appearance of behavior that could not be
must be appreciated and respected.
anticipated from a knowledge of the parts of the
system alone.”5 They are inherently unpredictable. There is a rich and highly nuanced theoretical exegesis
on design for those of a philosophical or theoretical
Operational design provides an effective response
bent, entitled The Structure of Operational Revolution.
to situations and missions that are of sufficient
The book was written for Booz Allen Hamilton by BG
obscurity that the first requirement is to gain
(Res), Dr. Shimon Naveh, Israeli commando, division
a deep understanding of the situation in which
commander, historian, professor, and philosopher;
action is intended and from that to develop a fuller
Professor Jim Schneider, historian of Soviet military
understanding of the problem(s) to be resolved.
theory and long the military theorist at the Army’s
Operational design begins with the postulate that
School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS); and Dr.
strategic situations are human in origin and therefore
Timothy Challans, warrior, philosopher, retired infantry
are inherently complex. Understanding these situations
officer, and sometimes philosophy professor at West
starts with gaining an appreciation for the web or
Point and SAMS. Naveh is a charismatic genius. He
network of individual and collective human connections

iii
 developed his philosophy of Systemic Operational
Design over a period of 20-odd years by combining
his extensive combat experience with a broad and
deep study of Soviet military theory, architectural and
cybernetic design theories, learning theories, and the
expressive formulations of Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari.6 The Structure of Operational Revolution: A
Prolegomena, is a valuable Ur-text for Naveh’s theory,
the parent of all operational design theories.7 The
text is often difficult and fully understood only by
readers prepared to invest significant time and energy
iv
in detailed study. Busy leaders do not generally have
the time for such narrow and deep study of a single,
partial aspect of their professional repertoire, even
when it could be very useful. Fortunately, in the case
of operational design, this is not necessary. The basic
notions of operational design can be acquired without
learning a whole new vocabulary. This paper serves
as an introduction for interested parties. Those with a
greater interest or desire for understanding should turn
to the more detailed text.
Table of Contents

Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1

I. Operational Art . .............................................................................................................. 3

History of Operational Art............................................................................................... 3

Comptemporary Operational Art...................................................................................... 6

II. Operational Design ......................................................................................................... 8

System Framing............................................................................................................. 8

The Cognitive Transition................................................................................................ 12

Operation Framing........................................................................................................ 13

III. Methodology ............................................................................................................... 16

Leading Collaborative Learning..................................................................................... 16

Discourse................................................................................................................... 18

Rules to Guide Discussion Leaders............................................................................... 19

IV. Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 21

V. Endnotes ..................................................................................................................... 23

About the Author............................................................................................................... 26

About Booz Allen............................................................................................................... 27

Principal Offices................................................................................................................ 28

v
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Introduction
Since publication of the US Army’s 1986 FM 100-
5, which introduced both the US Army concept of
operational art and the notion of more or less official
“Concepts of Operational Design,” Army and later Joint
manuals have alluded to the practice of operational
design without going beyond manipulation of certain
approved design elements or concepts as its content.8
The 2006/08 Joint Publication 3.0, Joint Operations,
describes operational design this way, recognizing its
core relationship with the practice of operational art:
Operational art is applied during operational
design—the conception and construction of the
framework that underpins a campaign or joint
operation plan and its subsequent execution.
While operational art is the manifestation of
informed vision and creativity, operational design
is the practical extension of the creative process.
Together they synthesize the intuition and
creativity of the commander with the analytical
and logical process of design. Operational
design is particularly helpful during COA [course
of action] determination. Resulting design
alternatives provide the basis for selecting a COA
and developing the detailed CONOPS [concept of
operations]. During execution, commanders and
their staffs continue to consider design elements
and adjust both current operations and future
plans as the joint operation unfolds.9
The discussion of design that follows is heavily
indebted to General Shimon Naveh’s work on Systemic
Operational Design. The good ideas, the framework
particularly, and most of the terms are derived from
General Naveh’s work and that of Dr. Jim Schneider.
The purpose of this document is to provide an
elementary introduction to the ideas contained in their
more theoretical effort, written in collaboration with
Dr. Timothy Challans and entitled, The Structure of
Operational Revolution: A Prolegomena.10
Booz Allen Hamilton has had a fruitful relationship
offering introductory instruction on design to the
officers at US Special Operations Command (SOCOM)
and Third Army, and worked with the School of
Advanced Military Studies supporting its instruction
in design. Booz Allen instructor advisors have learned
a great deal from the SOCOM Staff’s practical work
applying design, as they have learned also from
much different work at Third Army. The SOCOM J5
Staff has been engaged in creating a global strategic
vision to guide SOCOM leaders in preparing for the
future. Third Army, as Army Service Component for
US Central Command, has been involved in gaining a
deeper understanding of the US Central Command’s
highly complex area of responsibility and, led by its
commander, in developing operational concepts that
can serve as a basis for his dialogs with the theater
commander and other interested authorities, as well as
provide guidance for more traditional planning activities.
Operational design consists of three major activities,
creating a System Frame,11 participating in an activity
General Naveh calls the Cognitive Transition12, and
creating an Operation Frame. The System Frame is
the expression of an understanding of the governing
human system that has created the situation that
is the object of design activity.13 The Cognitive
Transition, the climax of the process, consists of the
conceptual actions required to move from developing
situational understanding to formulating relevant
actions. The Operational Frame encompasses the
most visible creative part of operational design, the
development of the design itself, a combination of
form and function, expressed as guidance to orient
planners.14 This three-element structure forms
the framework of the discussion that follows. Both
the Cognitive Transition and Operations Frame are
grounded on the learning that supports creation of the
System Frame.
Like the larger work of Naveh, Schneider, and
Challans, this discussion begins by relating the
1
 practice of design to the notion of operational art,
taking as the definition of the doctrinal concept a more
simplified notion, hopefully freed of baggage related
to hierarchical jurisdiction of contemporary joint and
service organizations. The justification of this paper’s
underlying logic is intended to be nothing more than
the arguments it makes, tested against the practical
experience of those midcareer officers for whom it is
intended as a guide for instruction and practice.

Exhibit 1 | Stages of design

Source: Booz Allen Hamilton, Center of the Application of Design factsheet, 2009

2
I. Operational Art
Operational Art
The application of creative imagination by
commanders and staffs—supported by their skill,
knowledge, and experience—to design strategies,
campaigns, and major operations and organize and
employ military forces. Operational art integrates
ends, ways, and means across the levels of war.
(JP 3-0)16
History of Operational Art
The practice of operational design, though not limited
to the domain of operational art, resonates with the
broader concept defined originally in the interwar
years of the 20th century by Soviet military theorists,
especially A. A. Svechin, called “the Red Mandarin”
by Dr. James Schneider in his book, The Structure
of Strategic Revolution: Total War and the Roots of
the Soviet Warfare State.17 It was Svechin who first
gave a name to operational art and set it within a
hierarchy of activities unified in their nested logics
and distinguished by their purpose and instruments.
Svechin wrote—
Tactics and administration are the material of
operational art…On the basis of the goal of an
operation, operational art sets forth a whole series
of tactical missions and a number of logistical
requirements…Strategy is the art of combining
preparations for war and the grouping of operations
for achieving the goal set by the war for the armed
forces.18
Svechin distinguished between tactics and operations
in terms of their basic functions. He defined the
essence of tactics as “adapting equipment to battle
conditions.”19 Operations required combining a
number of heterogeneous activities: developing a plan,
preparing supplies, concentration of forces, building
defenses, marching, fighting to destroy a portion of
the enemy force and forcing withdrawal of others, and
capturing and holding a given line or area. In a critical
note, Svechin wrote. “While strategy pursues goals,
tactics solves problems.”20 Operational art, then,
mediates between the strategy and tactics, imposing a
governing logic on tactics while pursuing strategic goals.
The Red Army concept of operational art was a
response to the recognition in theory that the
possibility of the Napoleonic campaign, conducted in
a single season and culminating in a single decisive
tactical encounter, had become unlikely—at least
in continental conflicts with peer competitors. The
changes came about because of the size of industrial
armies, the resisting power of modern weapons,
and the robustness of modern forces provided with
material by modern logistic communications and
possessing the self-organizing capacity created
by instruments of command and control reaching
throughout the force. Red Army theorists, disposed
ideologically to comprehensive theories of politics
and the state, developed a unique theory of the
conduct of war, accounting for actions from the
councils of government to the factory floor and on to
the furthest reconnaissance unit, on or beyond the
battlefront.21 The function of operational art was to
mediate between the goals of strategy and discrete
tactical actions, carried out in parallel and in series,
to achieve intermediate objectives contributing to
the final desired outcome. As developed, Red Army
operational art consisted in general of techniques
for successive use of massive forces on converging
narrow but deep sectors of broad fronts, leading
eventually to destruction of all the enemy forces and
capture or destruction of their means of war.22 While
the proponents of operational art were killed in the
Stalinist purges, notions of operational art were revived
in practice during the Soviet Great Patriotic War and
practiced with great success from Kursk to Berlin once
mastered in the field.
Following World War II, just as the technologies of
war between early 20th century industrial powers had
3
 created the need for new frameworks for thinking of potential force. It is concerned not just with
about the conduct of war, so the experience of World enemies who dislike each other but with partners
War II and the anticipation of war with nuclear weapons who distrust or disagree with each other. It is
concerned not just with the division or gains
demanded new paradigms—not to mention means—to
and losses between two claimants but with the
address the requirements of the new forms of war possibility that particular outcomes are worse
that were emerging in retreat from empire and carried (better) for both claimants than certain other
on below the nuclear threshold. Strategically, as Sir outcomes.27
Michael Howard observed more than 40 years ago,
On the continent of Europe, following the war, the
“…these wars are not simply military conflicts with
Soviet Army retained the vision of massive forces,
a complex political background; they are rather
distributed across a broad front, conducting successive
political conflicts which involve an unusually high
operations into the enemy’s strategic depths, adding
level of violence.”23
in the use of airborne forces and nuclear weapons.
The magnitude of national efforts involved in the US forces, which had practiced operational art in all
conduct of global war, and the culminating introduction theaters in the recent war, did not develop a theory
of nuclear weapons in the years after World War II, for it until the defeat in Vietnam.28 General Dwight
tended to confirm for all nations the elevation of Eisenhower probably reflected the pragmatic American
strategy from the operational realm, as described view in 1946 when he wrote a letter to a recent
by Clausewitz (“the use of the engagement for the biographer of U.S. Grant. Eisenhower reflected on
purpose of war”24), to the political councils of chiefs of reading Grant’s July 1865 Report to the Secretary of
state. The strategic influence exerted by professional War and particularly the impression made by Grant’s
military men like George C. Marshall and the wartime concept for the 1864 operations leading to the defeat
Combined Chiefs of Staff diminished in the face of of the Confederacy. Eisenhower went on to say:
challenges by civilian academic theorists like Bernard I think people frequently lose sight of the
Brodie and Albert Wohlstetter. The notion of strategy importance of this broad scheme which lies
as the use of battles for the purpose of the war was behind every move the Commander makes. As a
extended, French strategist Raymond Aron wrote, until consequence we see people—sometimes highly
“there is no difference between what was once called informed critics—attempting to separate one battle
or one point of a campaign from the whole and in
a “policy” and what is now called a “strategy".”25
doing so they get it completely out of focus.29
Another academic theorist, Thomas C. Schelling, in a
1980 book entitled The Strategy of Conflict, adopted
a notion of strategy drawn from game theory, where
games of strategy are “those in which the best
course for each player depends on what the other
players do.”26 From this concept, Schelling drew two
conclusions regarding conflicts short of existential war.
The first was that winning in conflict “is not winning
relative to one’s adversary. It means gaining relative
to one’s own value system….” The second, more
pertinent to the notion of design applied to national
level political-military problems, was the following:
Thus strategy—in the sense in which I am using
it here—is not concerned with the efficient
application of force but with the exploitation

4
The US Armed Forces did not adopt a concept of
operational art until 1986, although the 1982 FM 100-
5, as part of its discussion of Combat Fundamentals,
did announce the discovery of three “levels of war”:
strategic, operational, and tactical. “The operational
level of war,” it said, “uses available military resources
to attain strategic goals within a theater of war.” The
single-paragraph discussion focuses on the conduct of
the campaign, characterized as “sustained operations
designed to defeat an enemy force in a specified
place and time with simultaneous and sequential
battles.”30 The paragraph listed a collection of tasks,
not dissimilar to Svechin’s, that were included at the
operational level. The problem of crossing the nuclear
threshold and the fear that once crossed, one could
not go back, always gave Cold War discussions of
operational art a surreal quality, which was never
resolved. The gap between nuclear and conventional
warfare remained broad and deep, and because
fortunately it was never crossed, it was without
reference to experience.
In the 1986 FM 100-5, a discussion of operational
art was part of the “Structure of Modern Warfare”
and was defined as “the employment of military
forces to attain strategic goals in a theater of war or
theater of operations through the design, organization,
and conduct of campaigns and major operations.”31
Practice of operational art was reduced to answering
three questions:
1. What military condition must be produced in
the theater of war or operations to achieve the
strategic goal?
2. What sequence of actions is most likely to produce
that condition?
3. How should the resources of the force be applied
to accomplish that sequence of actions?
Shortly after the publication of the 1986 manual,
the Goldwater-Nichols Act mandated a new superior
level of joint doctrine, which was published under
authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Institutional thinking about campaign planning found
itself caught on the jurisdictional boundary between
service competence and joint authority, where it has
languished ever since.
US Army thought about operational art may have
culminated in the preface to an excellent historical
anthology published by the Army’s Center of Military
History (CMH) in 2005. The general editors, Colonel
Michael D. Krause, one of the Army’s most brilliant
historians, and R. Cody Phillips, a civilian historian at
CMH, wrote early in their joint preface that—
Strategy, operations, and tactics routinely affect
the dimensions of military conflict, each in a
different manner. For instance, the strategist
aims at the enemy center of gravity, which often
is the nation’s will to fight, or perhaps the key
resources or the delicate bond that holds an
alliance together. The operational artist’s center of
gravity is the mass of the enemy’s military force
and its ability to command and control its forces.
At the tactical level, the battlefield commander
has a more limited and proximate perspective
and focuses on his immediate foe. Strategy may
dictate whether or not to fight, but operations will
determine where and when to fight and tactics how
to conduct the fight. In turn, tacticians employ fire
and maneuver to achieve a limited objective, while
operational commanders use fire and maneuver on
a larger scale to create an imbalance against the
enemy and set the tempo of a campaign.32
One hundred years earlier, Colonel Arthur L. Wagner,
one of the US Army’s intellectual leaders prior to World
War I, defined strategy as “the art of moving an army
in the theater of operations, with a view to placing it in
such a position, relative to the enemy, as to increase
the probability of victory, increase the consequences
5
 of victory, or lessen the consequences of defeat.”33
Current Army doctrine simply parrots the Joint Definition,
shown at the top of this section and then adds,
gratuitously, “It is applied only at the operational level.”34
Design offers a creative logic and a set of useful tools
to revive thinking about the practice of operational
art and to apply it in the creative ways required for
resolving the unique kinds of operational challenges
thrown up by today’s unsettled world. The premise
of the discussion that follows is that, although the
circumstances of continental industrial war on land no
longer obtain, the concept of operational art retains its
validity, pretty much as described by Svechin. It is used
today at much lower levels of hierarchy than those
assumed by either Svechin or the authors of the
1986 FM 100-5.
Comtemporary Operational Art
While large-scale, existential, continental war between
peer states seems ruled out for the foreseeable
future, the political–military conflicts of today still
seem unlikely to be resolved by decisive battles on
single fields as those of the early 19th century were,
albeit for entirely different reasons. Land forces
confront even more distributed enemies, networked
electronically, collaborative more than hierarchical
in structure, and often armed, at least in niches as
well as U.S. forces. These foes move among and are
often indistinguishable from the people at large and
therefore are essentially invisible until they act. Their
immediate goals are often local, resourced selectively
by franchisers to advance larger political causes. Even
where traditional conventional operations may initiate
a war, as in Iraq, these seem likely to be succeeded
by irregular wars among the people for some time
after, until stability can be returned on some terms.
Moreover, conventional adversaries, such as North
Korea and Iran, are prepared to employ irregular
or paramilitary forces in large numbers, behind the
conventional front and among the people. Such wars
must be fought very differently than the existential
war between armed forces of rival powers the Red
Army theorists of the twenties and thirties anticipated,
6
although Mao’s Problems of Strategy in China’s
Revolutionary War (December 1936) may still have
much to offer.35
Military forces still construct campaigns in which
battles are mere incidents in operations, and success
is sought by development of a creative ensemble of
tactical actions of even greater variety to develop
desired transformational conditions. Although Western
societies seem to have lost the capacity for full
mobilization, armies conduct year-round operations,
tied to their homelands by continuous logistics and
personnel flow. Campaigns are prolonged, if the
annual costs can be met, because wars seem not
to be existential in content and mass armies are a
thing of the past in the West, a condition that allows
small, mobile, decentralized enemy forces to conduct
prolonged dispersed operations of hit and run as long
as they are tolerated by the people they live among.
Intelligence, and particularly network analysis, rises
to supreme importance, in part compensating for
the absence of numbers capable of full occupation.
Providing oversight and security to target populations
requires even greater distribution and decentralization
of both tactical and operational initiative for, as Tip
O’Neill said long ago, “all politics are local.”
The operational artist is still required to take the
measure of the situation and environment, and
invent patterns of action that will create the desired
strategic results over time while wearing away the
enemy force and will faster than the enemy wears are doing looks a lot like what Svechin defined as
down one’s own. Today, before they can withdraw to operational art, even when it is qualitatively different
their camps, commanders must coordinate, creatively, than what is done at the theater level.
their more traditional military activities with a range
The function of design in operational art is to produce
of non-military actions required to build viable social
the skills that Schneider, referring to U.S. Grant,
organizations capable of maintaining relative local
lists for operational artists: the “unified and holistic
peace and social stability. Often that entails designing
approach in the design, execution, and sustainment
comprehensive campaigns and then negotiating unity
of their campaigns. They have had that intuitive ability
of effort with collocated but independent governmental
to render incomplete and ambiguous information into
and nongovernmental agencies, to follow a common
a meaningful impression of the true state of affairs in
operational path to the successful situational
their theater of operations.”36
transformation, which is the goal of all campaigns.
Design helps the commander confronted with a
While senior joint commanders still apply operational
complex multifaceted situation to develop a deep,
art by planning campaigns and major operations
nuanced understanding of the factors creating the
involving major forces, today’s mid-level commanders
situation, an understanding not likely to result from
are no longer challenged only to find the most efficient
immediate pattern recognition based only on prior
combination of physical means to achieve assigned
experience. Design then adds a creative dimension to
tasks. They too are often given vague, abstract
operational planning, helping the commander answer
missions, extending in duration over time, for which no
the three questions of the 1986 FM 100-5, based on
single tactical action will be decisive. They are required
understanding grounded in sophisticated and thorough
to understand the complex human situations they
insight into the circumstances of the situation. The
confront and develop patterns of “tactical” responses
function of design is to help the commander, or staff
(where tactical may include well digging and conducting
leader, choose the best way forward dealing with the
effective constabulary operations), which, together, will
situation as it is, not to mistake it for what one might
accomplish the desired goals—at least in the small
believe or wish it were.
theaters for which they are responsible. What they

7
 II. Operational Design
Operational design is a highly reflective and
introspective process. It fosters a posture of
skepticism about the possibility of completeness of
understanding, presuming that, however good one’s
current understanding, the nature of human problems
condemns us to continual revision to keep pace with
changing circumstances. Design can be initiated by
a commander, a staff leader, or a superior authority,
either to direct the organization to a new task or
to update current understanding or declare it false
and replace it with a sounder version. As skeptics,
operational designers practice Karl Popper’s theory of
falsification, presuming that hypotheses can never be
fully validated, only disproven and rejected for better
approximations.37 All conclusions in operational
design, then, remain provisional.
It is useful to distinguish here between designing and
planning. Planning, when it is referred to in this paper,
is the absolutely essential work to identify, acquire,
and maximize the forces, the material means, and the
actions required to accomplish assigned missions.
Staff planners do the sums and assist the commander
in realizing his or her vision. Design is all about helping
the commander to create his or her vision of a future
campaign or operation and to formulate this vision
in a fashion that can be passed on to subordinate
and collaborating actors in order to carry out the
necessary planning to achieve the assigned tasks
through action. This distinction is somewhat artificial
to the extent that the Marine Corps and Army doctrine
writers, each in their own way, already account for both
functions within planning. The Marine Corps planning
doctrine describes planning as “the art and science
of envisioning a desired future and laying out effective
ways of bringing it about.”38 The Army has adapted its
doctrine on Battle Command to account for anticipatory
creation of understanding as the basis for action.39
8
Because each situation is unique, designers begin
by defining the governing situation in some detail
and then develop a unique theory for transforming
it. Because the observed situations are likely to be
complex and will evolve as operations are executed,
planners produce schemes for ensembles or patterns
of actions intended to produce fundamental and self-
sustaining systemic change. A single design may result
in a number of operational plans, each largely self-
contained and intended to be pursued through success
or abandonment in favor of another plan.
Planners inform and often participate in development
of a design as members of a design team. In some
headquarters, designers are all planners, and the
only distinction between the roles is that between
the activity in hand and that to follow—where
movement is back and forth. In cases where they
are separate groups, if both are to be effective, there
must be continuous comprehensive communications
between the two, and both must focus on serving the
commander whose vision, in the end, is the one that
matters.
System Framing
System Framing40 is a critical examination of a
situation deemed problematic. It asks, in effect: ”What
are the conditions that cause this situation to exist?”
System Framing includes examination of the initiating
directive; developing a deep, nuanced understanding
of the system underlying the unsatisfactory situation,
including the path that brought you there; and the
formulation of a more desirable state of affairs.
System Framing addresses Clausewitz’s famous
admonition:
The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act
of judgment that the statesman and commander
have to make is to establish by that test [the
 subordination of war to policy] the kind of war on current system got to be what it is to set the present
which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, in an historical or genealogical perspective.
nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to
nature41 The purpose of the initial inquiry is exploratory. The
goal is mutual understanding between superior and
System Framing is carried out using a collaborative
subordinate, and often, an initial discussion is required
process of interpretative criticism, here called
for clarification. Aside from the desirability of avoiding
discourse. Discourse will be discussed more fully later
unproductive or counterproductive work, this initial
in the paper.
inquiry is necessary in the methodology to provide a
standard of relevance for further inquiry. A personal
Legacy System
exchange is often useful to help the superior clarify
Even before seeking to understand the current
his own views, and such an exchange provides an
or observed system,42 operational designers ask
opportunity for the executing leader to offer advice
themselves one of their most important questions:
on the suitability of a particular directed action, or
What has brought us together? Why are we here?
apparent contradictions with standing instructions. In
General Naveh uses the formula of the Passover Seder.
an army as hierarchical as the US Army and in a society
“Why is this night different from all other nights?”
as jealous of civilian control of the military as the United
No part of operational design is more important than
States, the tone of this inquiry is obviously is critical.
examining critically the motives and expectations
Such discussions are a basic professional obligation.
that serve as pretext for the design effort. This often
seems impertinent to military officers, accustomed
The Current System
by discipline to accept missions at face value and
Once the motivation for the design inquiry is clear, the
immediately to begin to reduce them to executable
design team can begin to explore the existing situation.
tasks. On reflection, however, it is apparent that this
It does so, counter-intuitively—not by addressing “the
initial examination is an essential part of intelligent
problem”—but by developing a deeper understanding
discipline because it assures that whatever follows will,
of the environment, or ecology of the situation that will
in fact, satisfy the wishes of the commander or higher
have to be transformed. The only intrusion of the task
authority, however imperfectly the initial guidance may
itself at this point is in its role in bounding the inquiry
have been framed or expressed. Matthew Ridgway
by indicating which actors, influences, potentials, and
described his approach to command in 1952, saying,
tensions44 (positive and negative) within the existing
“When you get a new job to do, spend most of your
system are relevant to the concern expressed by the
time discovering exactly what your new mission is.
instigator and indicating the governing motivations of
Then break it down into workable units.”43
the United States as a player in the system.
The object of this first inquiry is to discover what
Designers lay out a plan of inquiry created uniquely
has happened that made the existing situation
to address the particular kind of situation they are
unsatisfactory. Where a new mission is assigned,
confronting and the kind of action their guidance
it is likely that some existing condition has become
envisions. This plan is provisional and subject to
unsatisfactory, or a new situation has been recognized
adaptation as more is learned about the situation.
that requires a response to restore conditions to
(Fundamental adaptation is called reframing.) The
an acceptable state. In either case, it is particularly
inquiry itself must be self-consciously unbounded;
important to tease out precisely what needs changing,
that is a deliberate effort must be made to expand
what limits circumscribe possible solutions, and how
one’s inquiry beyond circumstantial limits, such as
the new mission affects existing guidance and policies.
assigned areas of responsibility, national borders, or
Often it is useful to review the history of how the

9
 organizations of thought that have become customary will be of second order, that is, disinterested in the
over time. Examples of the latter are regional particular issues but concerned about the effects of
abstractions like “West Africa,” which may no longer possible outcomes with regard to the status of other
reflect critical relationships, or considerations of the interested parties. For entirely unrelated reasons, a
Far East that continue to separate Hong Kong from player may be loath to see a rival benefit. Actors may
China, long after it has passed back to sovereignty of be individual or collective, and deep understanding
the Chinese authorities.45 will often call for the deconstruction of collective
actors, say states, into constituent interest groups.
The critical task of System Framing—understanding the
Sometimes second-order actors will form contingent
current or observed system—involves an exhaustive
groups—a set of otherwise unrelated actors may
mapping of interested actors and their relationships
share a common interest that causes them to act
relevant to the situation in question. Actors are
as one.47 Transnational actors, religious bodies,
included according to their ability to influence future
criminal cartels, supranational associations, and
actions but exploration of their relationships is not
multinational corporations must be considered,
limited to those involving the particular issue at this
as well as indigenous actors in the political form
point. Rather, the goal is to gain an understanding
contingent groups—a set of otherwise unrelated actors
of the contextual system in general, as a set of
may share a common interest that causes them to
relationships motivated by any number of agendas or
act as one. Transnational actors, religious bodies,
influences. Influences may include history, relevant
criminal cartels, supranational associations, and
cultures, political ideologies and structures, economic
multinational corporations must be considered, as well
issues, and social structures.46 All these should be
as indigenous actors in the political system. The map
considered, although no standard list should limit the
of relationships should be captured graphically and in
range of possible perspectives to be considered in
narrative form for use as a reference and, eventually,
defining any given situation.
to share learning.
This desire to un-constrain the initial analysis ought not
to be taken as justification to ignore entirely physical
realities (geography), which will present themselves
objectively in all perspectives alike (although their
impact will be different in benefits and vulnerabilities
realized according to situation). In fact, defining the
situation will be enhanced by considering the spatial
relationships offered by graphic portrayal on maps.
Physical features and relative positioning “are what
they are.” For that matter, international boundaries
exist in fact. Even if they do not necessarily “bound”
anything, they bring with them certain expectations
and therefore suggest certain lines of inquiry. It Mapping relationships between actors must recognize
would be wrong to ignore them entirely in the name that players often reflect different identities according
of free speculation. A large map should be posted to the question they are addressing and that each
for reference in the design team work area to ensure identity may prompt a different response to an issue,
these realities are considered. depending on how the stimulus is interpreted. The key
is that the design team must enter into the conscious
Actors may be involved or neutral but interested. They
mind of the subject actor sympathetically and make
may be proximate or distant. Sometimes their interest
the best judgment possible about how that actor sees

10
the world and his/her/its place in it. To make this kind
of judgment effectively, the design team will have to
learn as much as possible about the culture and self-
identity of the various players. Often, use of a trained
“Red Team,” skilled at playing “the other,” will assist in
this effort.
The design team will draw on all available sources of
expertise in making these judgments and consider
various factors of social conditioning that can be
expected to influence interpretation. The overlapping
influence of cultural forces in modernizing regions
can be very complicated indeed. Take the perspective
of the Middle Eastern Arab in whom the Sunni-Shia
and Arab-Persian cultural divides may be expected
to produce different effects according to which
predominates in a particular setting. How do Iraqi
Arab Shias relate to Iranian Shia interventions in Iraqi
affairs? How do Palestinian Arab Hamas Sunnis relate
to Lebanese Arab Hezbollah Shias who acknowledge
Iranian clerical authority, and vice versa? How do
intervening variables, say mutual enemies, affect their
responses? Identities are multiple and overlapping,
and sometimes the governing identity is difficult to
discern.
It is important to remember to include one’s country
in the mix of actors. Analysis of one’s own national
perspective and cultural biases is also important.
To continue with the Middle Eastern example, the
American concern with equality of the sexes can make
full cooperation with conservative Muslim nations
problematic, as can the Arab view of the history of
US relations with the State of Israel. Part of this
initial analysis must be historical, asking how things
have come to their current pass, recognizing that the
history understood by each actor will be different in
both perspective and content. This searching inquiry
provides the basis for the necessary insight to
construct a new fuller understanding of the governing
situation.
Writing at the end of the War in Vietnam, General Jack
Cushman reflected that US Army advisors had often
failed for lack of adequate insight, which he found to
be a remedial fault. He said—
Insight—or the ability to see the situation as it
really is—is the most valuable asset an advisor
can have. Intellect alone does not guarantee
insight. Soldierly virtues such as integrity, courage,
loyalty, and steadfastness are valuable indeed, but
they are often not accompanied by insight. Insight
comes from a willing openness to a variety of
stimuli, from intellectual curiosity, from observation
and reflection, from continuous evaluation and
testing, from conversations and discussions, from
review of assumptions, from listening to the views
of outsiders, and from the indispensable ingredient
of humility. Self-doubt is essential equipment for
a responsible officer in this environment; the man
who believes he has the situation entirely figured
out is a danger to himself and to his mission.48
Framing the current system is all about creating such
understanding-based insight.
The Desired System
There comes a point in System Framing when a
provisional understanding is adequate to move to
the next level, or time forces forward movement
despite the promise that in design one is always
free to go back and revisit earlier steps to fill gaps
and omissions. The final act of System Framing is
creating a Desired System Frame that will produce the
necessary conditions—the desired state—that meet
the wishes and expectations of the initiating sponsor.
The creation of the desired state supposes a
review of the revised understanding of the initiating
directive in light of the new understanding of the
working of the current system. If guidance requires
modification, recommendations should be made to the
originating authority. If the guidance does not require
reconsideration in light of new knowledge, the design
team looks at its handiwork, marks the conditions
and relationships that make the existing system what
it is, and creates a concept or vision of what a new
situation or state, more satisfactory to the sponsor’s
desires, would look like. This creation is a strategic
act that provides necessary detail for the sponsor’s
11
 guidance. This, in turn, makes possible the operational
decisions involved in translating broad strategic goals
into temporal and spatial patterns of sufficient clarity
to take action.
Based on their now deeper understanding of
existing circumstances and relationships, designers
propose changes to the observed system’s defining
relationships and governing conditions that, if
accomplished, might lead to creation of a new more
desirable and hopefully sustainable state or situation.
The action is highly subjective and provisional. At the
theater or regional level, even in occupied districts, the
action involves positing new or revised relationships
among key actors and proposing modification of
conditions estimated to produce identified negative
tensions and trends toward manageable levels or
desirable directions. Where military forces are involved,
this will normally include removal of certain actors
from the system entirely, or at least forceful limitation
of their freedom of action. Goals at this point are
broad and general. Designers take a holistic view
and do not limit themselves to military or security
goals. The desired state should be portrayed similarly
to the observed system, that is graphically with an
accompanying narrative. Creation of the desired
system sets the context for the climax of the design
process, called the Cognitive Transition.
The Cognitive Transition
Arriving at the problem statement is the unique
contribution of the phase of design called the Cognitive
Transition.49 This particular sequence is critical to the
logic of the process or methodology of operational
design. It represents the climax or turning point of
operational design because it effects the shift from
learning to creation, from the description involved
in System Framing to the formulation of action in
Operation Framing.50 This turning point imposes
a different character on the inquiry. The Cognitive
Transition is decisive in the design process because it
is the core of the translation of system understanding
to creative action, from strategic choice to operational
form, defining “in text and graphics, the areas for
12
action that will move existing conditions toward the
desired end state.”51
The Cognitive Transition provides for the identification
of changes required in the current system to allow for
transformation from the existing or observed to the
desired state. It does so by identifying the relevant and
practical considerations useful for shaping a system
of intervention in the construction of the Operational
Frame. Creation of a problem statement, indicating
what must be done, completes the bridge to move
from System Framing, a process of describing the
existing and desired state, to the Operational Frame,
a portrayal of intended actions expressed as a broad
pattern organized sufficiently in spatial and temporal
terms to guide more formal planning. This requires
further system study in light of the desired goals.
Once the design team has created a vision of its
desired system, designers must go back to their
Current System Frame and identify the actors who
could be expected to resist such a change, those who
would support it, and those who would be interested
but not become involved if handled with care. Further,
they must identify those negative tensions and trends
that would retard movement forward and those
positive tensions and trends that, if reinforced, would
accelerate the change. Finally, designers make a
tentative assessment of available sources of energy
from all sources that might be marshaled to encourage
or force the desired transformation.
Designers revise and reorganize their understanding of
the current system. They create three new conceptual
systems: a system of opposition,52 a system of
command,53 and a system of logistics or support.
The system of opposition describes, as a system,
those actors, trends, and conditions that must be
overcome to accomplish the desired transformation.
The system of command describes the organizational
and cybernetic structures that will be required to
accomplish the desired transformation.54 The system
of support, or logistics, describes those features of
the current system that can be exploited to make the
desired change.
This new design stage is as complex as the earlier
System Framing, and it is carried out the same way,
by discourse and debate. It is important to realize
that building the system of opposition is not simply
collecting opposing actors. There may be features
within oneself or one’s allies that will be an obstacle
to doing what the design team feels must be done.
One recurrent US example is the division of authorities
and responsibilities for aspects of US strategic policy
between the Departments of State and Defense.
Different structures and different institutional priorities
often challenge the ability of US agents on the
ground to create unity of effort without expenditure
of significant effort to overcome divisions that make
very good sense in Washington.55 A second example
involves allies unable or unwilling to have their forces
participate in certain activities. The presence of allies
is still part of the system of support but their caveats
and reservations may be seen as part of the system
of opposition, requiring accommodation or effort to
resolve. Similarly, the opposing forces may have certain
ideological configurations or certain contradictions
in their structures, beliefs, and actions that can be
made part of the system of support, as features to be
exploited.
Based then on the understanding gained by this
tripartite refinement of the System Frame, the design
team can describe the cognitive distance between the
two states—the current state and the desired state—
in terms of the conditions, actors, and relationships
that need to be changed to move from one state
(the existing system) to another (the desired system)
in order to transform the current situation into the
desired state. This action is called problematization,56
and from the results, designers should develop
a problem statement, a brief document defining
graphically and in narrative their hypothesis about what
needs to be done to effect the changes desired.57
Operation Framing
Operation Framing involves formulating a theory of
action,58 turning it into an operational design,59
and transmitting it in useful form as commander’s
guidance. It identifies the functions that need to be
accomplished and stipulates the form, as a pattern
of actions in space and time, to be performed in a
particular ensemble, to transform the existing situation
into the desired state.60 Design is not planning,
although designers left to their own devices will intrude
on planning, so seamless is the line dividing the two.
An architect sketches a commission in line with the
piece of ground on which it is to sit. So the operational
design team lays out the activities necessary to
achieve the desired transformation against the
knowledge they have acquired in their learning, in
accordance with a sense of time and priority. They
leave it to the planners to perform Ridgway’s second
step of breaking tasks down into workable parts and
assigning each to appropriate units.61 Design is
not planning. It is, in essence, a form of mediation
between the strategist or goal setter and the tactician
or actor/ artisan.
Operation Framing is the point where talent and
creativity reap their greatest rewards. Faced with the
need to design a building, an architect may produce
a perfectly functional but pedestrian concept, or he
or she may move the boundaries of the possible, use
materials in new ways, and create the Sydney Opera
House. The “designers” who could envision using Army
bombers from the decks of aircraft carriers to make a
one-way flight over Japan in Doolittle’s raid showed this
gift of creativity, as did the Al Qaida terrorists who saw
that box cutters and intercontinental airplanes could
be combined, turning sophisticated transportation
platforms into weapons of mass destruction.62
There is a well-known tendency of design students,
concerned to properly frame the task they have been
assigned, to expand their project and forget their task.
Bryan Lawson, Dean of the Faculty of Architectural
Studies at Sheffield University, attributes a story to
J. P. Eberhard, Chairman, Faculty of Architecture and
Planning, Carnegie-Mellon University, about a student
assigned to design a doorknob for a government office.
The student begins by questioning whether a doorknob
is the right piece of hardware. Then he questions the
need for the door. Soon, he decides to abolish a staff
13
 division, and ultimately he comes to his instructor
with a solution that recommends reorganization of
the whole government, instead of designing a piece
of functional hardware.63 The current necessary
emphasis on developing whole-of-government solutions
to complex situations abroad, a concomitant to
the mixed nature of contemporary struggles, feeds
this propensity. Booz Allen experience in the past 2
years observing midgrade officers doing operational
design has demonstrated that an ambiguous initiating
directive can easily turn into “a work order for the
Secretary of Defense to submit to the rest of the
executive branch.”64 In part, this reflects the reality
the commander lives in. He or she must negotiate
the total design with those whom he cannot direct,
or be prepared to adjust his ambitions and planning
accordingly. Designers and planners must keep this in
mind, ultimately producing an executable concept for
the forces assigned, or likely to be assigned, for the
part of the design the commander will control and for
which he or she will be responsible.
Theory of Action
Operation Framing begins with creation of a theory of
action, a description of the actions necessary to move
from the current or observed system or state, to the
desired system or state, thus resolving the issues
identified by the problem statement.65 The theory of
action serves as a basis for the commander’s intent
statement, indicating what he intends his forces and
others responsive to his lead (within existing limits66)
to do. In turn, the theory of action serves as the
basis for development of an operational design67
that provides sufficient detail to serve as a basis for
planning by subordinate commanders, supporting
and coordinating authorities, and the commander’s
own staff. The theory of action, as the basis of the
commander’s intent statement, should properly come
from the commander himself, expressing his vision.
This suggests that the commander needs to join his
design team to participate in the actions we have
referred to here as Operation Framing.
14
The Operational Design
The operational design consists of a statement of the
tasks the command as a whole must perform, laid
against those that collaborating authorities and allies
should accomplish if the design is to be realized,
expressed in a way that indicates the temporal-spatial
pattern of action the commander desires in order to
have the most productive effects. Where adequate
forces and resources are not immediately available,
the concept should indicate as much and estimate
the risk to success if identified needs are not met.
The concept is translated into planning guidance
from the commander to interested subordinates and
collaborators. The detail of this commander’s guidance
is whatever the commander feels necessary, and it will
vary with his audience and tasks.68
Normally, a commander’s guidance will include the
commander’s statement of intent, that is his or
her vision of how the various tasks identified for
forces under military command or direction will
be accomplished, what they entail in broad terms,
time considerations and anticipated resources, and
guidance about the strategic communications message
with which operations are expected to be consistent.
Resources and timing considerations will be subject
to questioning and modification in the planning
process as practical realities become more evident.
Finally, a narrative and graphic portrayal of the design
and design process should be passed by the design
team to the planning staff to serve as a reference.
Experience indicates this is most often done in the
graphical form of lines of effort, accompanied by a
narrative explanation. More than one operational plan
may be required to implement a given design.
In addition to operational considerations, the
commander’s guidance should contain direction for
regular review of the collective understanding in light
of new observations. Provision for regular deliberate
review is required to ensure the general understanding
remains relevant to observed facts and to ensure the
actions growing out of that understanding continue to
be effective in light of the changes to the system state
engendered by the infusion of energy through action.
The commander should indicate possible evolving
conditions that would cause him or her to reconsider
the fundamental understanding, or trigger reframing.
Simply put, reframing is called for when the existing
understanding can no longer account for observed
system behavior. At the same time, the commander
must guard against allowing the sensitivity to reframing
moments to undermine the “strength of character”
that allows great commanders to prevail in uncertain
circumstances.69 This choice between adaptability
and steadfastness is a complicated act for which little
useful advice can be given.
The design team meets periodically during execution
of an operation to share new insights and new learning
and to evaluate whether any of this rises to level
requiring reframing. Does the understanding currently
held, still account for the behavior of the system as it
is observed? If it does not, the design team advises
the commander to reframe his or her understanding.
At some point, whether or not the broad system
understanding has broken down, all initiatives will
reach the point of diminishing returns beyond which
they should not be pursued. So the design team
should also ask the question: Are ongoing actions
still relevant to the movement from the existing
system to the desired system that the team originally
envisioned? If not, adjustments must be made to
actions.
15
 III. Methodology
Leading Collaborative Learning
Collaborative learning does not come naturally to
hierarchical organizations. Armies work well tactically
because they can be employed rapidly in response
to a single will, each actor behaving in a relatively
predictable fashion. The natural move by Soldiers
entering a room is to see who is in charge by virtue of
rank and position and to defer to authority expressed
from that direction. Discursive learning is quite
different. The intent here is to engage the full intellect
and imagination of the entire group, with each member
engaged fully and contributing as he or she can, either
by virtue of some unique expertise or acuteness
of judgment or vision. This sort of sharing will not
take place if the protocols of hierarchy are strictly
observed. Each member must come to the discourse
as an equal, free to disagree about any expressed
understanding so long as disagreement is based
on evidence and logic. The challenger is prepared,
equally, for his or her argument to be contested in turn,
again based on evidence and logical inference. For
collaborative learning, there can be no understanding
privileged beyond criticism because of its origin and
yet, it is ultimately the commander’s understanding and
decision that will go forward. The challenge is how to
conduct the learning collaboratively while maintaining
respect for the authority of the commander to decide
and direct.
The role of the commander or leader is critical
in the conduct of design. In an ideal situation,
the commander would spend a good deal of time
organizing the design team, guiding its work and the
learning of its members. However, while individual
staff leaders may have time to devote directly to
such efforts, the commander seldom will. Indeed,
his or her formal design group in the staff will likely
be just one of the designing groups in which he or
she participates. Others will involve subordinate
commanders and leaders of coordinating organizations
16
and, very likely, the commander will be a participant in
a design group led by his or her superior. So, at best,
the commander probably will give guidance and interact
with his or her design team only at critical points.
If that is the case, the commander must appoint a
design team leader to stand in for him or her to guide
the work and keep the learning focused and on track.
And, when the time comes, the commander must
engage the design team, challenge its work and permit
its members to challenge his or her understanding
until he or she has made the learning common and the
understanding his or her own.
Design teams may be ad hoc organizations, called
into being only when the commander or leader
recognizes the need to develop a deep, multi-
perspective understanding of a given situation, or they
can be standing teams with whom the commander
is comfortable testing his or her ideas. The groups
may be formal or informal, large or small. The large
group can represent more perspectives and do wider
research but will inevitably have to subdivide to
conduct the kind of searching critical discourse that
design calls for to tease meaning from assembled
facts. The small team, because it can learn more
about the techniques of design over time, may do
better distilling meaning from fewer facts but may
suffer from narrowness of view or development of tacit
rules of behavior that can lead to “group think” and
unwarranted satisfaction with existing interpretation.
It is essential that there be some familiarity with
the conduct of design in the group in either case.
A useful compromise may be to have a small core
to which others can be added as desired to expand
the perspective set, expertise, or access to external
knowledge. Where design intends to comprehend
future actions of external agencies or authorities, it
is wise to bring their representatives into the process
so their particular sensitivities and agendas can be
considered from the outset.
To lead collaborative learning in design teams, a
commander must do three things. First, he or she
must make it clear that disagreement is invited, indeed
considered a duty, for each member of the design
group. Second, the commander must demonstrate that
this is so by the way he or she responds when his or
her understanding is challenged. Finally, it is helpful if
the commander, or group leader, remains in the middle
distance from the process itself, what Harvard Kennedy
School of Business professors Ronald A Heifetz and
Marty Linsky call “taking the balcony perspective,”
giving broad guidance, organizing the learning group,
and then standing outside the process of learning and
observing how the group works, intervening only by
exception as the learning process unfolds.70
This is often not difficult because the commander
is normally too busy to participate in the detailed
learning that begins the design process. Generally, the
commander will be represented by a designated leader
and will interact periodically to check on progress,
influence the direction of inquiry, and sometimes apply
pressure for progress when time is a compelling factor,
recognizing that completeness may be sacrificed.
These interactions, expressed in Heifetz’ terms,
occur when the leader comes down on the dance
floor, metaphorically, to see where the dancers are
going, ask questions, and provide adjustments where
required. The commander, who circulates abroad
more than the staff and engages with a wider circle
of executive contacts, will bring a good deal of useful
information to these sessions about how things look
on the ground and what the boss really has in his
mind in assigning the current project. Early in the
design process, there may be long periods when the
design team is self-directing. As the process moves
toward concept development, the commander must be
more involved with the evolution of his design, as he
develops his guidance for planners, subordinates, and
collaborators based on the design team learning that
he must make his own.
There are two major parts of the design learning
process. One is a research effort—seeking information
from whatever sources are available. The second part
involves evaluating the role that specific information
plays in creating a provisional but comprehensive
understanding of the situation at hand, teasing
meaning from factual data, and accepting that the
total available data is always incomplete and subject
to revision. While some design proponents believe
only the interpretive function matters, it is more logical
to believe that more facts, well understood, are more
likely to provide the desired, nuanced understanding
of the situation than a much smaller number of facts
exquisitely tortured for understanding. One of the most
important qualities of a design effort is the extent to
which it draws on multiple perspectives and sources
of expert counsel. On the other hand, the design team
must balance the desire for the greatest possible store
of data with the need to conduct an adequate cross-
examination of the data it already possesses.
The learning process itself must be self-conscious
and reflective. The design team must organize its
campaign of learning deliberately, in light of what it
knows to begin with about the nature of the situation
and the commander’s requirements. Participants must
frequently pull back and take an introspective view
of how their approach is working and how well the
members are collaborating. Then they must adjust their
behavior as required. As new information is developed,
new lines of relevant inquiry will suggest themselves,
and the team should be reorganized to pursue them by
either breaking off an inquiry team or bringing in new
experts. Sometimes just reorganizing subgroups will
generate new perspectives on stalemated problems.
17
 Periodically, the whole team must get together to share
its learning and test the findings of one group against
the perspectives of others. At the end of the day,
time should be reserved to evaluate how the learning
process itself is going, identify required information,
and develop a plan for continuation the next day. The
group should be self-critical, insisting on participation
and contribution by all members and on demeanor
that respects the person while disagreeing, sometimes
intensely, with the understanding. Groups progress
best that keep a running narrative, employed self-
critically to sharpen the logic of group conclusions.
Discourse
The method of collaborative learning is called
discourse. Discourse is carried out best by small
groups, although small groups can meet together as a
large group and meld their insights, once developed.
“Discourse is democratic and asymmetric.”71 It is
democratic in that everyone is expected to participate.
It is asymmetric in that it respects differences in
knowledge—where these can be backed up with
evidence and reason. The goal of discourse is a
shared understanding of the broad situation, where
shared understanding does not imply consensus.
Consensus implies agreement on all particulars.
In discourse, shared understanding provides for
disagreement on particulars. Discourse is satisfied
with common understanding of the limits of agreement
and of the relevant discontinuities, which become
areas for further research.
18
In discourse, members lay out their interpretation of
the meaning of facts, first, with regard to portraying the
web of relationships that define an existing situation.
They do so, expecting their understanding to be
challenged by their peers, using different perspectives
and bases of fact. The explanations are then modified
to the extent that agreement can be reached on a
common understanding. Where agreement is not
possible, the differences are captured and defined and
the question left open. Gradually, a narrative is built and
captured that describes how the human system under
observation works and why it works as it does under the
circumstances as they are known and understood.
Discourse is a time consuming and sometimes painful
process. Not everyone is capable of separating
themselves emotionally from their positions or of
attacking understanding rather than the believer.
Discourse works rather like Thomas Kuhn explained
the process of normal science in his classic text, The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions.72 The collective
learning or understanding increases, along with a
set of unresolved issues, until the list of exceptions
requires a new explanation, a new paradigm that
comprehends both the facts explained by the old
understanding and the set of exceptions. In operational
design, this reinvention or explanation is called
reframing and it may occur at anytime that the current
understanding can no longer explain the observed
behavior of the system. Sometimes the discourse will
become stuck as it progresses. Then, a process called
meta-questioning is called for.
Meta-questioning, Donald A. Schön calls it
“Reflection-in-Action,” means simply raising one’s
perspective. Meta-questioning is questioning one’s
own line of questioning to structure one’s process of
thought in order to discover why the discussion has
reached an impasse.73 In general, meta-questions
involve asking: “What are we doing and why are we
doing it?” Meta-questioning often involves thought
experiments to gain different perspectives on the
manner in which the inquirer is approaching the issue.
Sometimes it involves imposing a new angle of vision
or approach to break the stalemate. Meta-questioning
can lead to a “Copernican breakthrough,” as when reflection. The narrative also captures nuance that
the astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, discovering he gets lost in simple depiction.
could make no progress explaining the movements of
The product of all this work is a hypothesis about
the heavenly bodies while assuming the Earth was the
how the macro-system of actors, within which the
center of the universe, reversed his view and assumed
undesirable situation has developed, actually operates.
that the Earth revolved while the sun remained at
It is defined as a set of positive and negative
rest.74 In short, Copernicus reversed his perspective
relationships linking the members of the system. It is
and made the unexplainable explainable.
always subject to disproof if new information appears
or new observations are made that were not possible
Meta-questioning can free understanding by causing within the old understanding.
the questioners to unpack their metaphors and
Operational designers face two issues as they
evidence and reassemble explanations from a better
construct their description of the strategic system
vantage point. Eventually the web of understanding
confronting them. First, knowing the mission already,
will become so complex that it is overwhelming. It
they may begin to get ideas about approaches, which
is here that insight begins to come to the fore, or
are not useful for describing the system and which are
as one student at the Army’s School of Advanced
premature until a solid understanding of the system is
Military Studies once remarked, “Here is where the
built up. These should not be discarded, but set aside
magic happens.” Insight is not magic at all. In fact, it
to be considered and tested again later in the process.
is a kind of pattern recognition based on the totality
Insights and inspiration should not be cast aside and
of one’s experience addressing similar appearing
lost. Second, when interpretations are undermined in
problems and the detailed learning that has gone on
the process of discourse, they too should be recorded
during the process of collaborative inquiry.75 The
for future reference. New, confirming information
observers must stand back and simplify the mass of
may surface that will restore an abandoned position.
insights into a useful summary. In doing so, they will
Design does not waste knowledge. Like confirmation,
seek to describe system tendencies and potentials,
rejection is always tentative, and the explanation of the
where the former indicate movement the system is
moment is never more than provisional, always subject
likely to realize in the absence of any intervention,
to reconsideration when warranted by new information,
while the latter makes a judgment about the extent
even when a given understanding has become the
to which the system is open to change.
foundation of action. Design offers the agility to move
Again, the process of discourse, of searching back and forth to respond to new information or new
assertion, challenge, and response (or description, questions, as required.
problematization, construction76) is used to
avoid the self-deception likely to occur when Rules to Guide Discussion Leaders
this conceptual leap is the property of only one Experience suggests some rules to guide discussion
observer. The process and result must be captured leaders. There are undoubtedly others, and not all will
diagrammatically and in narrative to document apply in any particular inquiry.77
the learning process and provide a reference for 1. Conduct collaborative planning for the next effort
others who will come to it later. As indicated above, prior to each work session based on current
experience in teaching design has shown that understanding. Revalidate the plan if there is a gap
the composition of a running narrative, reviewed in time between sessions. (People always learn by
periodically in the process, serves as a check reflection or individual effort between sessions.)
against logical leaps that cannot be justified on

19
 2. Full participation is expected. Those who hang
back must be drawn out by asking “What do you
think about this?” and “Why do you think that?”
3. Relevance to the goal is the test but it should
be applied with a light touch to avoid overly
constraining conceptual initiative.
4. Don’t bypass disagreement. Clarify it and
document it. You may change your judgment later.
5. Don’t discard inspiration. When possible solutions
jump out of initial inquiry, list them somewhere for
future reference. Meanwhile, get back to the task
at hand.
6. Identify gaps in knowledge. Take steps to fill them.
7. Seek the advice of experts to add to content and
to evaluate what you think you have learned from
their perspective. (Don’t accept their evaluation as
the new answer; question it where it differs so you
20
identify the sources of difference and whatever new
evidence the expert offers that you must reconsider.)
8. When discourse freezes, ask the meta-questions.
“What are we asking?” “What does the question
itself entail?” “Is there a different perspective that
might be more productive?”
9. Maintain a record of the learning—retain all diagrams
and produce a running narrative. Conduct regular
review of the narrative. The documentation will serve
as a check on the design team’s logic in process
and a reference for those who receive the design
to indicate how particular insights developed—and
perhaps reveal weakness in the process.
10. At the end of each session, allow time to reflect on
what has been learned and how the learning journey
has gone. (“Where are we?” “How has our learning
journey gone so far?” “How can we organize our
efforts and ourselves better to move forward?”)
IV. Conclusions
Operational design is a creative approach to
problem solving for leaders confronted with complex
situations—situations that conceal their actual nature
under a set of surface appearances. Operational
design is particularly useful to those required to
translate large, abstract goals into ensembles of
instrumental acts over time, those we call operational
artists. Operational design adopts a skeptical posture
regarding the finality of learning, or achieving stasis
in human situations. It assumes intervention in a
situation by one party will elicit a variety of responses
from other interested parties—an assumption often
omitted by military planners who behave as though
they believe they can act on a passive opponent before
a local and global audience that will interpret those
planners’ motives with the same sense of altruism
they assigned to themselves. Operational design offers
a conceptual framework that can revitalize moribund
professional theory and practice of operational art,
understood as the mediating activity between strategy
and action in the conditions and circumstances of the
day.
The US Army came late to the concept of operational
art, then quickly took the notion, created to deal with
clashes of symmetrical industrial armies, as settled;
failing to notice that the original conditions requiring
the triune differentiation—tactics, operational art,
and strategy—were largely disappearing from the
nature of contemporary war. Jim Schneider, whose
groundbreaking work has been discussed above, took
the position in his book that operational art requires
a symmetrical opponent.78 This paper has tried to
indicate, to the contrary, that Svechin’s definitions—
precisely because they do not tie the concepts to
temporally limiting features—in fact are still useful,
that operational art is still required but must develop
a new content. Indeed, following the direction
indicated by Sir Michael Howard—that contemporary
conflicts (in his case post-colonial wars of the 1960s)
should be seen in their political rather than military
characters—the operational art of today’s conflicts
requires new construction for every necessarily unique
situation, corresponding to the uniqueness of the
defining contexts. Operational design, then, becomes
the means to revitalize and rebuild a useful concept of
operational art, broader and more flexible in application
and practice than its predecessors under the old
paradigm. As understood by Schilling, design is just
as useful in designing strategies that recognize the
“interdependence of the adversaries’ decisions and…
their expectations about each other’s behavior.”79
There has been a strong reluctance to call operational
design a process, for fear it will harden into a
sequential series of actions frozen in posters on staff
college walls. This fear has led to a general neglect
of the governing logic of the actions that constitute
operational design, some of which must, logically,
come before others. Operational design is not a frozen
sequence but neither is it a random application of
cognitive tools. Some actions must be complete before
others are examined and, while turning back to earlier
stages is expected, operational designers must be
sensitive to the logic that says that if you reframe your
system understanding midway into the effort, this will
naturally require review of the subsequent conclusions
drawn from the old understanding.
Finally, the practice of operational design is predicated
on the practice of collaborative learning, which, in turn,
requires employing collaborative leadership, at least in
the development of design concepts. Because of the
hierarchical nature of the US Armed Forces, this can
only be done deliberately and self-consciously, with
sensitivity by the senior leaders to the added volume
their rank and position gives their opinions when they
are offered, particularly in heat, which may actually
reflect depth of belief more than a will to impose an
idea. Humility requires admission that you might just
21
 be wrong, depth of belief notwithstanding. Collaborative
learning will not just happen. It must be planned for
and arranged deliberately.
Operational design is an approach to addressing
complex strategic and operational problems. It
22
does not replace either efficient planning or tactical
virtuosity in execution. It does keep one, however, from
jumping on one’s horse and riding off in all directions
at once because one has failed to ask the proper
questions and ferret out the right answers before
beginning to act aggressively without evident purpose.
V. Endnotes
1 Ernest R. May, Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2000), page 458.
2 John Heskett, Design: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), page 5.
3 FM 5-0, Operations Process (Revised Final Draft) (5 June 2009),
para. 3-3, page 3-1.
4 Joint Publication 1-02[1], Department of Defense Dictionary of
Military and Associated Terms (12 April 2001: As Amended
Through 17 October 2008), page 397.
5 “Complex or just complicated: What is a complex system?” Fact
sheet prepared by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organization (CSIRO) Centre for Complex Systems
Science. Available online at http://www.csiro.au/resources/About-
Complex-Systems.html. Accessed on 22 July 2009.
6 Shimon Naveh, Operational Art and the IDF: A Critical Study of a
Command Culture (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment
(CSBA), September 30, 2007) for the Director of Net Assessment,
Office of the Secretary Defense.
7 Shimon Naveh, Jim Schneider, Tim Challans, The Structure of
Operational Revolution: A Prolegomena (1.0) (Leavenworth, KS:
Booz Allen Hamilton, 2009).
8 “Key Concepts of Operational Design,” Appendix B, FM 100-5,
Operations (May 1986), 179 et seq. In 1986, there were only
three: Center of Gravity, Lines of Operation, and Culminating
Points. JP 3-0 currently lists 17 “Elements of Operational Design.”
JP 3.0, Joint Operations (17 September 2006), Incorporating
Change 1 (13 February 2008), page IV-6.
9 JP 3.0, page IV-3.
10 Published by Booz Allen Hamilton.
11 Called the Environmental Frame in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft),
(5 June 2009).
12 Called the Problem Frame in the Environmental Frame in FM 5-0
(Revised Final Draft) (5 June 2009). The terms frame and framing
have fairly specific meanings in design. They are used here
according to the definitions of Martin Rein and Donald A. Schön.
“A frame is a perspective from which an amorphous, ill-defined
problematic situation can be made sense of and acted upon.”
“Framing is…a way of selecting, organizing, interpolating, and
making sense of a complex reality so as to provide guideposts for
knowing, analyzing, persuading, and acting.” In Martin Rein and
Donald A. Schön, “Frame-reflective policy discourse,” in Social
Sciences, Modern States, National Experiences and Theoretical
Crossroads, Peter Wagner, Carol Hirschon Weiss, Bjorn Wittrock,
and Hellmut Wollman, editors (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), page 263.
13 Called a “frame of understanding” in Naveh et al., The Structure
of Operational Revolution, page 62.
14 Called a “frame of intervention” in Naveh et al., The Structure of
Operational Revolution, page 62, and the “Design Concept” in FM
5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
15 FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), page 3-7.
16 Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations (17 September 2006:
Incorporating Change 1, 13 February 2008), page IV-2.
17 James J. Schneider, The Structure of Strategic Revolution: Total
War and the Roots of the Soviet Warfare State (Novato, CA:
Presidio Press, 1994). Schneider argues that operational art
emerged as a separate activity during the American Civil War with
U.S. Grant the exemplary practitioner.
18 Aleksandr A. Svechin, Strategy, A Translation of Strategiia
(Moscow: Voennyi vestnik, 1927), Kent D. Lee, editor
(Minneapolis, MN: East View Publications, 1991), pages 68–69.
19 Ibid, page 68.
20 Ibid.
21 Jacob W. Kipp, “The Origins of Soviet Operational Art, 1917–
1936,” in Historical Perspectives of the Operational Art, Michael
D. Krause and R. Cody Phillips, general editors (Washington,
DC: Center of Military History, 2005), pages 213–239. See also
Condoleezza Rice, “The Making of Soviet Strategy,” in Makers
of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Peter
Paret, editor (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986),
pages 648–676.
22 See, for example, G. S. Isserson, The Evolution of Operational
Art, Bruce W. Menning, trans. (Fort Leavenworth, KS: School of
Advanced Military Studies, USACGSC, July 2005).
23 Michael Eliot Howard, “The Demand for Military History,” The
Times Literary Supplement (13 November 1969), page 1295. This
outstanding essay, one of Howard’s best, has not been included
in any of his anthologies.
24 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Peter Paret and Michael Howard,
eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), page 177.
25 Raymond Aron, “The Evolution of Modern Strategic Thought
(1945–1968)” Chapter 10 in Raymond Aron, Politics and History,
Miriam Bernheim Conant, translator and editor (New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction Books, 1984; The Free Press, 1978), page 187.
26 Thomas C. Shelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Boston: Harvard
University Press, 1980), page 3 (note 1).
27 Ibid., page 5.
28 For US experience, see Brig. Gen. Harold W. Nelson, in “The
Origins of Operational Art,” in Historical Perspectives of the
Operational Art, Krause and Phillips, general editors, pages
333–348. Nelson is a former US Army Chief of Military History
and a long-time professor at the Army War College.
29 General Dwight D. Eisenhower to William Elizabeth Brooks,
November 12, 1946, number 1180 in The Papers of Dwight David
Eisenhower: The Chief of Staff, Vol. 8 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1978), pages 1372–73.
30 FM 100-5, Operations (20 August 1982), pages 2–3.
23
 31 FM 100-5, Operations (May 1986), 9-11. The 1986 FM 100-5
is also significant for its discussion of campaign planning,
which broadened the focus of the manual compared with its two
predecessors, which were almost entirely tactical in focus.
32 Krause and Phillips, general editors, Historical Perspectives of the
Operational Art, pages v, vi.
33 Colonel Arthur L. Wagner, Strategy: A Lecture Delivered by Colonel
Arthur L. Wagner, Assistant Adjutant-General, U.S.A., to the Officers
of the Regular Army and National Guard at the Maneuvers at West
Point, Ky., and at Fort Riley, Kansas (Kansas City, MO: Hudson-
Kimberly Publishing Co., 1904), page 5. Wagner attributed his
definition to the influence of British Major General Edward Bruce
Hamley’s Operations of War, a didactic text first published in
1864 and remaining in print through the First World War.
34 Para 6.1, FM 3-0. Operations (February 2008), page 6-1.
35 Available on line at http://www.marxists.org/reference/
archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1-12.htm. What
is particularly interesting is the dialectical relationship between
the general and the particular, the laws of war and the laws of
revolutionary war conducted in China. Accessed on 17 May 2009.
36 Schneider, Structure of Strategic Revolution, page 24.
37 Karl R. Popper, “Falsifiability as a Criterion of Demarcation,”
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Routledge (Taylor and
Francis Group), 1959, 2002), pages 17–18.
38 Department of the Navy, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 5,
Planning (1997), page 3.
39 Department of the Army, Figure 5-1, Battle Command, Field
Manual 3-0, Operations, page 5-3.
40 Environmental Framing in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
41 Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Peter Paret and Michael Eliot
Howard, trans. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976),
page 88.
42 Also referred to as the existing system.
43 Quoted in Adrian R. Lewis, The American Culture of War (New
York: Routledge, 2007), page 109. Ridgeway’s remarks, taken as
a whole, do make a case for design by any means. He goes on
to say of the next steps: “Then break it down into workable units.
Establish an organization that will enable each unit to accomplish
its particular mission. Then try to find good men to fill the key
spots. Give them full authority for individual action, but check
them relentlessly to see they speed the main job. And if they
don’t produce, fire them.”
44 Tension is defined as “the resistance or friction among and
between actors.” FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), paragraph 3-78,
page 3-12.
45 Both examples provided by LTG (Ret) Bill Carter.
46 In their introduction to the anthology, The Making of Strategy,
Williamson Murray and Mark Grimsley list as critical influences:
geography, history, nature of regime, religion, ideology, culture,
economic factors, and organization of government. The Making of
Strategy: Rulers, States and War, Williamson Murray, MacGregor
Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, editors. (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), pages 7–20.
24
47 See Manuel De Landa, A New Philosophy of Society; Assemblage
Theory and Social Complexity (New York: Continuum, 2006).
FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), paragraph 3-72, page 3-11, refers
to “groupings of actors that exert influence in the operational
environment, perhaps without even sharing a common goal
among the members.”
48 LTG (Ret) John H. Cushman. Fort Leavenworth—A Memoir.
(Annapolis, MD: Private Printing, September 2001), pages 46-47.
49 Called Problem Framing in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
50 Called Operations Framing in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
51 FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), paragraph 3-78.
52 Referred to by General Naveh at one point in his theory
development as The Rival as Rationale.
53 General Naveh called this focus area, Command as Rationale.
54 General Naveh describes this as “the systemic conditions, means
and measures affording reflective learning, critical understanding,
and effective execution of the operational framing in the course
of the campaign.” Briefing Operation Renegade, slide titled
“Hezbollah Directive.”
55 See NSPD 44, Subject: Management of Interagency Efforts
Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization, December 7, 2005.
56 Or “making a problem of.” This is the macro-use of the term
problematization. It is also used below in a micro-sense to
describe the part of the process of discourse where the assertion
of one interlocutor is challenged from another perspective by
another in order to achieve a more accurate synthesis.
57 FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), paragraph 3-89, page 3-13, says,
“The problem statement clearly defines the problem or problem
set that commanders must manage or solve.”
58 Called the Operational Approach in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
59 Called the Design Concept in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
60 FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), paragraph 3-90, page 3-14, says,
“The operations frame bounds the selection of possible actions
that together lead toward achieving the desired end state.”
61 Ibid, paragraph 3-92, page 3-14, which defines the operational
approach as “a visualization of the broad general actions that will
produce the conditions that define the desired end state.”
62 The Doolittle raid is one of the examples of creative operational
design used by General Naveh and Dr. Jim Schneider.
63 Bryan Lawson, How Designers Think: The Design Process
Demystified (Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006), pages 56–57.
64 An observation made by LTG (Ret) Mike Steele to a group
of operational designers at a US Army Training and Doctrine
Command wargame.
65 Theory of Action was a term used in an early doctrinal draft, Field
Manual Interim (FMI) 5-2 Design (DRAFT) (20 February 2009),
page 25. The draft defines the theory of action as “a single logic
that binds together the pattern of actions into a coherent whole.”
The draft combined the theory of action and what came to be
called the Problem Statement, continuing: “The theory of action is
defined as a hypothesis about the nature of the problem together
with a proposed solution.” Here it is used only the latter sense.
66 Other governmental agencies and supporting commanders
normally have limits set on their collaboration, either deliberately,
or de facto, by their higher authorities. Most often, the same
applies to allied forces under nominal allied command, often
hemmed in by various reservations.
67 Called the Design Concept in FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft).
68 FM 5-0 (Revised Final Draft), paragraphs 3-104 and 3-105, pages
3-15 and 3-16, list as minimum content for the Design Concept:
Narrative and graphics from the design activities; problem
statement; initial commander’s intent; operational approach; and
commander’s initial planning guidance. The planning guidance,
it says, “is the commander’s visualization and description of the
desired end state and its implications for future planning. The
planning guidance orients the focus of operations, links desired
conditions to potential combinations of actions the force may
employ to achieve them. Other information provided in the initial
planning guidance includes information integration, resources,
[and] risk.”
69 The term “strength of character” refers deliberately to the
discussion by Clausewitz in Chapter III of Book I, On War.
70 Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky, Leadership on the Line:
Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (Boston, MA: Harvard
Business School Press, 2002), pages 51–74.
71 Phrase used frequently by General Naveh.
72 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962, 1970), pages 5-6.
73 Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals
Think in Action (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pages 128-133.
74 This is a paraphrase of Immanuel Kant’s famous “Copernican
move,” which, coincidently (or perhaps not) is referenced by
Thomas Kuhn. Immanuel Kant, “Preface to the Second Edition,”
Critique of Pure Reason, Meiklejohn Translation, Vasilis Politis,
editor (London: John Dent, Everyman Edition, 1934, 1991, 1993),
page 15 [Bxv]. Kuhn’s first book was The Copernican Revolution
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
75 Schön, Reflective Practitioner, page 130.
76 General Naveh’s formulation of the same process. In this case,
problematization is used in a micro-sense to mean looking
for flaws in the assertion, that is “making a problem” of the
formulation. The larger sense of the term is explained above in
the discussion of the cognitive transition.
77 See Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1994), page 128
78 Schneider, Structure of Strategic Revolution, pages 50–51, 53.
79 Schilling, The Strategy of Conflict, page 3 (note 1).
25
 About the Author
Dr. Richard Swain (swain_richard@bah.com), an
Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, currently supports
UNIFIED QUEST and instruction in Operational Design.
Dr. Swain was Director of Fellows at the School for
Advanced Military Studies from 1994 to 1999, where
he taught courses in ethics, military history, and the
history of military thought. From 2002 to 2007, he
was Professor of Officership at the William E. Simon
Center for the Professional Military Ethic at the US
Military Academy at West Point. Dr. Swain is a
1966 graduate of West Point and holds a doctorate
from Duke University. He is one of the authors of The
Armed Forces Officer and he is the author of ‘Lucky
War': Third Army in Desert Storm; “Neither War Nor
Not War: Army Command in Europe During the Time
of Peace Operations; Tasks Confronting USAREUR
Commanders, 1994-2000” (SSI); “AirLand Battle,”
Chapter 11 of Camp Colt to Desert Storm; The History
of US Armored Forces; “Filling the Void: Operational
Art and the US Army," Chapter 8 in The Operational
Art: Developments in the Theories of War, and various
articles in journals and reviews.

Contact Information:

Richard Swain Bob Mayes Rolly Dessert
Associate Senior Associate Senior Associate
swain_richard@bah.com Mayes_Robert@bah.com Dessert_Rolland@bah.com
845/401-9104 913/682-3159 913/680-6571

26
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