Automation of Strategic Planning Frameworks

Based on both operational lessons learned and experimental analyses there is a strong requirement for more innovative means to support USG interagency planning and assessment of stabilization and reconstruction operations, as well as to illustrate to both USG and the non-government community the adaptive nature of chosen defense, diplomacy and development plans and tasks within a complex engagement space. The objective of this proposal is to highlight to the US military and their USG inter-agency partners an innovative concept and methodology for an automated capability to employ the principles and framework described in the USG Draft Planning for Reconstruction, Stabilization and Conflict Transformation, version 1.0, (USG R/S) as well as the Essential Task List (ETL). Phase 1 will provide strategic and theatre-level operational planners with a conceptual systematic approach that will represent, categorize and translate USG objectives into sound, executable strategies and tasks. It will then present a tool suite that visualize the USG R/S and the ETL into easily understood and practicable applications for planners to efficiently enter and understand: a) policy goals; b) strategic aims; c) operational end-states; and d) associated evaluation criteria to then select individual tasks defining Major Mission Elements, linked to applicable goals, aims and end-states. Phase 2 will further refine and prototype this effort within concept development and experimentation venues, such as Unified Action and Multinational Experiment 5. This entails a two-fold analytical approach that is unique to the field: first the project will begin to integrate a risk outlook methodology that will apply modeling capabilities that illustrate to policymakers and operators the dependency relationships amongst plans and tasks and therefore the `risk' associated with decisions to take one course of action to achieve a strategic aim versus another (or) the decision to emphasize one task versus another. Second, the project will enhance its collaborative capability to include bi-level classification situation awareness `pages' that allow for both situational awareness and inputs from USG and non-government organizations. This is a truly interagency concept that proposes the integration of several methodologies and tool-suites.