Operations Synchronization

By Ryan Coughlin

One of the most important elements for coordinated and effective activity at any unit is the synchronization of all activities.? It is the choreography of all operations at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, and ensuring aligned goals, objectives, and end states.? The best way to understand how operations should be synchronized is to understand the “ideal” state for operations planning and execution. Although an ideal state never exists, understanding the structure of plans and orders in an ideal world makes it easier to shift to a real-world scenario.? Following the discussion of the ideal state, I will address how to adjust from the “ideal” to fit your likely real-world situation.??

The most important thing to understand as an operations officer is that success is not defined one event at a time.? All activities within a unit should be linked, coordinated, and synchronized.? No one event should be taken as a single, individual activity.? This is probably the most common mistake for operations officers.? Most ops officers feel that they can apply MCPP to an individual situation as it arises, solve the problem, brief the solution, manage execution, and then wait for the next mission.??

City Planner - An Analogy

The best way to understand an operations officer’s roles and responsibilities is to use what I call “the City analogy”.? In this analogy, the Mayor represents the unit commander.???

The area of responsibility most appropriate for an operations officer is the city architect.? The design element represents the planning responsibilities of the operations officer and is the backbone of everything the operations officer will do.? Using this analogy a city architect needs to be able to design a building (tactical level), design a neighborhood (operational), design the overall city (strategic level), and design all the supporting capabilities (support planning).? It’s important to note that the city architect does not have to plan all of these, but needs to know how to plan all of these, and to provide guidance for the planning of all these activities so that they support each other.? Your average, run-of-the-mill city architect (operations officer) will understand the Marine Corps Planning Process and will spend their time designing individual buildings as the city needs them.? Good architects (operations officers) will design buildings and neighborhoods, but usually in an independent, unsynchronized, and uncoordinated manner.? Great architects (operations officers) will design the city, and then ensure that neighborhood designs are synchronized and coordinated with the city plan, and building designs are coordinated within neighborhood plans.? Essentially, all construction is planned in a synchronized, coordinated, and mutually supporting manner, from the highest level to the lowest.?

Using “the City Analogy” there is one level of expertise even beyond your great architects (operations officers).? The best architects (operations officers) will design cities, neighborhoods, and buildings in a synchronized, coordinated, and mutually supporting manner; and will also design all support structures and programs (i.e. water, sewage, transport, etc) in coordination and synchronization with the other designs.?

The end state for a city developed by a great architect is a well-coordinated, easily understandable city layout; a capable and functioning support system that meets all the city demands; and enough doctrine and guidance to enable multiple subordinate projects to be ongoing continuously and all in direct alignment with city objectives.

Conclusion

An operations officer should spend most of his/her time planning future activities.? Managing current operations takes up much less time.? An organization that does very little or very poor planning finds itself conducting crisis action planning on a regular basis and providing much more hands-on during operations execution. ? Units that do a lot of planning and have a hierarchy of plans have generated the right atmosphere to enable subordinates to deal with unplanned activities within a given context for a situation.? Once the context/situation is changed outside of the planned scope, HHQ or the parent command may need to get involved.??

A good operations officer will provide the correct architectural designs for everything that needs to be executed.? Additionally, he will oversee the building process to ensure compliance with specifications, and to deal with unforeseen issues affecting design execution.? All personnel and organization in the construction process provide the “meat to the bone” and actually turn the design into a tangible product.??

About Ryan Coughlin:

Senior Director of Business Operations, Enterey, Inc. and Retired USMC of 22 years - Chief Operations Officer – Lieutenant Colonel, “Operations Officer,”

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