Planning death from above, via PowerPoint

Recently there were a number of articles about Powerpoint. As I read this piece from the Financial Times (https://www.ft.com/content/728cb9a0-aa62-4cdd-a16a-cf3c7cb78b17) I had a flashback to a to an event while I was still in the Navy.

In 1998, I was with CVW-17, deployed on board USS Eisenhower, was in the daily grind of flying Operation Southern Watch sorties to hopefully deter Saddam Hussein’s regime from using air power against the Shia minority in southern Iraq.? Given the active threats to coalition aircraft from Iraqi air defenses, these sorties were large events with dozens of aircraft involved to provide both defense as well as a deterrence.? Sometime these missions were actually conducting strikes, other times they were there as a show of force. ?

The planning for these events was very involved, as Iraq still had a credible air force and had ground-based air defenses outside the southern no fly zone, and potentially hidden inside the zone, that could threaten coalition aircraft. Anyone who has been through the process knows how complex this task is.? Upwards of 30 planes from CVW-17, a dozen or more US Air Force and even the Royal Air Force aircraft, including tankers, AWACS, intelligence platforms, could potentially be involved in these missions. The sequence of events from who was going to get gas from which tankers, what time would the planes enter "the box", what radio frequencies would they use, which planes were going to strike which target with which weapons, etc... all had to be planned and coordinated.? Planning one of these was an important qualification for aircrew to complete as part of their professional development to be designated as “strike leaders”.? While the individual aircrews would plan their specific contributions to the mission, the strike lead planner(s) had to coordinate, collate, and combine all this information.? They would then present the mission to the entire strike package (upwards of 50 aircrew) and provide the same information to the participants not embarked on the carrier. ?

Strike planning might start after dinner, with the aircrews gathered in the Carrier Intelligence Center (CVIC), working out their particular parts of the mission.? As the evening wore on, the number of planners in CVIC would slowly diminish with individual aircrews peeling off to coordinate in their respective ready rooms.? Around midnight, the last few planners from each of the mission areas (SEAD, C2, fighters, etc.) would submit their information to the lead planners.? Then the lead planners would spend hours merging all this information into a single mission briefing. The vehicle to present this information to leadership and the aircrews was, of course, PowerPoint.? These presentations could be 30-40 slides.? But these slides were more than "just the facts, ma'am".? They became eye watering, with annotations showing the planes moving across a satellite image of the target, accompanied with explosion sounds, etc…? These slides could easily be multiple gigabytes in size back in an era when that was actually a lot!? Building these presentations took HOURS.? Frequently, the planners weren’t finished until 0300 or 0400.? Plenty of time to try to squeeze eight hours of sleep into three hours before the mission briefing at 0800!

This went on and on, mission after mission, with the PowerPoint presentations getting more and more elaborate...requiring more and more time to put together.? It was becoming insane.? Eventually, some of the more senior aircrew had had enough.? They had completed their strike lead qualifications in a time before PowerPoint.? In a time of that relied on paper charts and chart pack.? They decided they would put together the next mission briefing.? They spoke with a couple of the more senior (read “older”) enlisted Intelligence Specialists (ISs) and had them put together a large paper chart that covered the area of concern, from the launch point to the target areas.? The ISs, relishing a chance to use dormant skills, then plotted the known and suspected threats, and pulled together a series of satellite images of the target area, mounting them on boards in the front of the mission planning space.? After dinner, the aircrews rolled into CVIC and the planning started.? Using markers, pushpins, and chart pack, the paper chart evolved to show the entire flow of the operation from launch to recovery.? Timelines and communications frequencies were written on butcher block paper and posted next to the chart.? Kneeboard card packages were built and had been sent to the print shop, and by 2200 all the planners had departed. ?

At 0800, the rested aircrews showed up for the mission briefing.? The senior planners started the briefing by pointing out how rapidly the planning evolution had occurred the previous evening, and that everyone was able to get a good night’s rest before the mission.? They then gave the briefing with no degradation in mission clarity and the mission went as planned.? The senior planners were happy that they had made their point and felt confident the next mission planning sessions might just be finished in a reasonable time. ?

A few days later, the aircrew rolled into CVIC after dinner for the next planning evolution.? Around 2100, the senior strike leaders stopped by CVIC to see how things were doing.? Five minutes later they left, saddened.? The junior planners were neck deep in their PPT.? More images were included, more moving aircraft, more explosion sounds added, more animations.? And the planners hit the rack at 0400!? And it continued this way until we left the Gulf to go home.

What struck me about the whole event was how, even though they had been shown there was a different, EASIER, more efficient method, the junior aircrew immediately fell back to what they were comfortable with.? Sadly, I never asked them why they felt compelled to build these insane PPT presentations, or what they felt about the paper-based planning evolution that clearly involved less work (and was rewarded with more rack time).? But it was clear just how ingrained PPT was for some despite the limitations and penalties.? I was, and continue to be, amazed how PPT features that added nothing to the quality of the information being presented, but added to file size and workload, could consume more energy on the part of the planners than had they just stayed with the basic facts. ?

Years later when I retired, I went to work for a small company, Edge Consulting.? They took PowerPoint presentations to an artform.? They even published a small quick reference guide on the art of slide deck construction, and how to weave together slides to tell a powerful story.? I have never seen anyone else use PPT so well. ?It is hard to deny how well Microsoft has integrated the Office products, and it is fairly easy to use out of the box.? For more technologically savvy users, it can be made even more powerful.? I have great respect for it.? I have tried to switch from MS Office suite to the Apple counterparts but have found them lacking.? For all its capabilities, however, it is a tool built for a specific purpose, but, sadly, too frequently we see it as the solution to problems that don’t need it.

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