For Large SAP & Digital Transformational Programs, a New Communication Approach is Needed: The Commander's Intent

For Large SAP & Digital Transformational Programs, a New Communication Approach is Needed: The Commander's Intent

Introduction

This Is the fourth of a series of introductory blogs discussing the Why, What and How (including the difficulties) of Large Transformational Programs like SAP and Digital change.

With Transformational programs becoming ever more complex, the CEO and C suite members struggle to grasp the need to manage the amalgam of Business, Technology and Change to achieve successful outcomes.

The 70-90% “failure rate” is ever-present, and “We will be in the 10% club is delusional”.

With these large Programs, Communication is a Success Factor that is required, can we learn from an “Industry” that had to overcome this very same problem decades ago …The Military.

Enter “The Commanders Intent”.

The Commanders Intent

What is it?

Commander’s intent is an essential tool to express the concept of the mission and the vision to all team members clearly and concisely. It keeps everyone focused and together. It’s a short communication describing what success looks like covering the Why, What, When and Who in the following 3 points:

Mission
Key Tasks
End state

The goal is that the group leaves the room clear on the Commander’s Intent because then everyone can move ahead aligned on the mission. No matter what gets thrown at the team, they can continue with the Why, What, and When objectives in mind.

That’s it. Commanders Intent: aligning the key players and team members on the Why, What and When of your organization's goals and objectives, empowering them to execute the How.

Why it's needed.

In increasingly complex and integrated S4 HANA & large digital transformational programs communication is becoming critical and more difficult with multiple stakeholders, Vendors & Si’s, consultants, and projects teams On and Offshore, a communication tool that provides:

Clarity of Purpose
Flexibility in decision-making.
Empowering teams to take decisions based on the big picture.
Alignment across the entire project team on goals
Clear communications across the Project teams

Is required.

History

The US Army formally included Commander’s Intent in its field manual in 1982 following failures of centralised decision-making and large detailed plans in the 1970s.

A quote attributed to Mike Tyson says, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.

US Army doctrine writers used the German army’s Aftragstaktik (mutual contract), first introduced in the early 19th century, as a model for today’s concept of commander’s intent. Aftagstaktik was developed in response to the French Revolution and Napoleon’s method of waging war, which swept away the traditional armies and their linear tactics, iron discipline, blind obedience, and intolerance of independent action. Aftragstaktik was not a set of procedures but a philosophy, a social norm within the German army. At its foundation was the realization that battle is marked by confusion and ambiguity. Fundamental to the success of Aftragstaktik in the German doctrine was trust. Thrust between superior and subordinate is the cornerstone of mission-oriented command.

Commander’s Intent has been adopted by the UK Military (Army, Navy & Airforce) and many others worldwide as the preferred tool of communication in difficult conditions.

Overview

In the US Army Field Manual 6.0 paragraphs 1-68 (US Army, 2003), Commander's Intent (CI) is defined as follows:

Commander's Intent is a concise and clear statement that outlines what the force must achieve and the conditions they must meet to succeed in relation to the enemy, terrain, and desired end state. Its primary focus is on attaining the desired end state and aligning with the intent of the commander two levels above. Commanders create and communicate their intent to establish the boundaries within which subordinates can exercise initiative while maintaining overall unity of effort. To avoid excessively restricting subordinates' freedom of action, commanders impose only minimal constraints for coordination.

In Western military forces, NATO, and Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries, the Guidelines for Operational Planning (GOP) produces a five-paragraph order (OPORD)...Operational Order.

The five-paragraph order, depicted in Figure 1, consists of the following sections: Situation, Mission, Execution, Service and Support, and Command and Signal.

Figure 1. 5 Paragraph Operations Order (OPORD)

Situation: Describes the organization's own forces, adversary forces, and the environment. It includes information on recent actions of adversary forces, their current situation, and expected actions. The expected actions, or the anticipated effects thereof, are the assumptions made by the commander regarding the adversary's impact on the battlefield.
Mission: Provides a concise statement or paragraph describing the unit's essential task or tasks. It clearly indicates the action to be taken and the rationale behind it. The mission encompasses the elements of who, what, when, where, and why, focusing on the reasons rather than the specific how.
Execution: Describes the Commander's Intent, the Concept of the Operation, and tasks assigned to manoeuvre units. The Commander's Intent emphasizes the desired end state and is presented in narrative or bullet form, typically not exceeding five sentences. The Concept of the Operation outlines how the operation will utilize and synchronize battlefield operating systems to translate the commander's vision and envisioned end state into action. It encompasses the scheme of manoeuvre and the concept of fires. Tasks assigned to manoeuvre units detail the missions or tasks given to each manoeuvre unit reporting directly to the issuing headquarters.
Service and Support: Provides information on support concepts, material and services, health and service support, and personnel service support. The support concept outlines the commander's priorities as well as the support priorities of the next higher level.
Command and Signal: Describes the geospatial coordinates for command post locations, including at least one future location for each command post. It identifies the chain of command if not already addressed in unit Standard Operational procedures and lists signal instructions not specified in unit Standard Operational procedures.

Commander's Intent is explicitly stated and represented within the execution section of the five-paragraph order, but there are also intent statements within the mission and concept of operations sections.

Additionally, there is a structured definition of a Commander's Intent that provides further insights into its components:

Commander's Intent links the mission and concept of operations. It describes the end state and key tasks that, together with the mission, serve as the foundation for subordinates' initiative. Commanders may also utilize Commander's Intent to explain a broader purpose beyond the mission statement. Both the mission and Commander's Intent should be understood two echelons down. This definition expands on the previous one by not only defining the end state but also including the purpose. It consists of seven parts:

The purpose of the task, representing higher-level goals.
The objective of the task, envisioning the desired outcome.
The sequence of steps in the plan.
The rationale behind the plan.
Key decisions that may need to be made.
Antigoals: refer to unwanted outcomes or unintended consequences.
Constraints and other guidelines.

Commander's Intent can also be divided into explicit and implicit intent. So far, we have discussed explicit intent, which is shared through direct orders between commanders and subordinates. It is a publicly stated description of the end state in relation to forces, entities, people, and terrain, as well as the purpose of the operation and key tasks to be accomplished. On the other hand, implicit intent is developed over a longer timeframe before the mission and consists of “expressives”, concepts, policies, laws, and doctrines agreed upon by military and civil organizations, agencies, nations, and coalitions.

“Expressives” are a component of a Commander's Intent that describes the style of the commanding officer in terms of experience, willingness to take risks, use of power and force, diplomacy, ethics, norms, creativity, and unorthodox behaviour.

Furthermore, there is a connection between the Commander's Intent and the three levels of situation awareness: perception, comprehension, and projection. Staff members need to perceive explicit intent and comprehend implicit intent to understand how Commander's Intent will impact future events and generate an effective campaign plan. This shared awareness implies that team members with a similar understanding of the environment and the Commander's Intent will demonstrate effective team performance.

CI and Decision Making

Awareness, intent, and planning are integral parts of the decision-making process. The commonly referenced decision-making model in military applications is the OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) loop model (Boyd, 1996, Boyd, 1987).

This pioneering Decision-making tool has been extended into a Dynamic OODA loop that is collaborative between levels of command.

The Dynamic OODA-Loop preserves the fundamental concept of a decision-making process that surpasses the adversary's speed while equipping the commander with effective assessment methods to evaluate both their own and the adversary's strengths, weaknesses, abilities, and capabilities within the current situation. This results in heightened situational awareness, ensuring that each decision and corresponding action aligns with the commander's desired objective. This ability to achieve decision advantage in military terms is known as Decision Superiority.

Decision Superiority – better decisions arrived at and implemented faster than an opponent can react, or in a non-combatant situation, at a tempo that allows the force to shape the situation, react to changes, and accomplish its mission. (Joint Vision 2020 (Joint Chief of Staff, 2000))

To achieve better decisions CI needs to be disseminated to all subordinate commanders.

When properly formulated, CI conveys the desired End-State and necessitates observing, measuring, and assessing action effects. Observers interpret this information to make decisions, initiating a new OODA loop cycle with a fresh plan. The commander's observation and orientation are influenced by their abilities, knowledge, and experiences, which in turn shape future actions. Through coordinated efforts, these actions establish effective effects at the appropriate area and time, steadily advancing towards the desired End-State and successfully accomplishing the mission.

Alberts (2007) introduced 3 new concepts of Command and Control:

Agility
Focus
Convergence

“Agility is the critical capability that organizations need to meet the challenges of complexity and uncertainty; focus provides the context and defines the purposes of the endeavour; convergence is the goal-seeking process that guides actions and effects”. (Alberts 2007)

Even if the information is interpreted correctly, the methods and procedures in implementing operations call for a shift from describing the actions towards describing the desired Effects and End-State.

The Operations Intent & Effects Model (OEIM)

The Operations Intent and Effects Model (OIEM) is a Command-and-Control model of Commanders' Intent that combines:

CI
Decision-making process (OODA-Loop)
A planning process (NATO Doctrine)
An Information fusion model (JDL)
Doctrine/Guidelines
Expressives/Personal attributes of the Commander

The model introduces CI as a key component in order, planning and assessment with the purpose of formally combining CI with the Commander's personal attributes and Guidelines in a decision support system.

The OIEM model, shown in Figure 2, consists of a State® Order®Action®Effect ®State diagram showing the linkage between the desired End-State and appropriate action.

Figure 2 The Operations Intent and Effects Model

The OIEM consists of two parts:

1) the Model, shown in Figure 2, describes the OIEM causality and introduces an Intent-Effect representation for planning.

2) The Dissemination, shown in Figure 3, describes the impact of CI in a command structure considering the Doctrine/Guidelines, and Personal attributes/expressives of a Commander. The model and dissemination support collaboration between teams and actions in complex endeavours.

The flow in the diagram in Figure 2 is, at a top level, that a State (Current Reality) produces an order that describes Actions that cause Effects that change the state into the desired End- State.

The detection of the initial state (Current Reality) must understand the Undesirable Effects (UDE’s) and their Root Causes that effectively produce a plan that consists of an order that describes Actions to be executed. The Effect of the actions then changes the initial state to another state.

The Act in the OODA-Loop is expanded to visualize the causality relation in the Model (Order- >Action->Effect->End-State).

In a planning scenario, the commander uses a Decision Making (DM) process and produces an order, e.g., OPORD. The order expresses the End-State by using a representation of CI that is as unambiguous as possible, the curved arrow between Order and End-State. The arrow labelled changed-by expresses the Effect needed to transition between two states, here the initial state and the End-State.

An Effect can then have one or more Actions associated with it and are represented by the curved arrow “caused by”. The Actions are then described in the “Order”, the curved arrow “described by”.

The OIEM can also be used to assess the Effects needed to reach the desired End-State. These effects are provided by Actions that are delivered by some capability. Thus, a chain can be formed where the End-State is the focus in planning the actions to deliver the needed Effect.

One approach is to identify the desired End-State and backtrack – chaining from the End-State to Effect to Action to the ability and capability of the force at hand, to find the first solution that might fulfil the mission. The solution found is then assessed towards situations that might break the chain. A solution is a sequence of actions that together or alone cause the effect needed to change the state to the desired End-State.

Using the OIEM above provides a model for both forward and backtracking planning, in a collaborative planning process the commander then expresses the End-State and the other staff members then can assess what effects that are necessary to fulfil so that the End-State is reached. With a set of desired Effects the search for an appropriate action with corresponding force is looked for.

Figure 3 Intent and Chain of Command

WARNOs, OPORDs, FRAGOs

In the military, there are three types of orders: Warning Order (WARNO), Fragmentary Order (FRAGO), and Operations Order (OPORD).

The Operations Order (OPORD) is a comprehensive plan that includes all the necessary details, timelines, resources, coordination, supplies, and staff. It consists of five paragraphs: Situation, Mission, Execution, Sustainment, and Command and Control.

In business terms, it can be likened to a business plan or project plan, meticulously documented with annexes and attachments.

However, developing a fully detailed plan can be time-consuming. It's not practical to wait until every single detail is worked out before acting and rallying resources towards the objective. This is where the Warning Order (WARNO) and Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) come into play.

A WARNO serves as a quick heads-up or warning to the team. It may not contain all the information or details, but it provides enough guidance to get the team started in the right direction. Rather than withholding information until all the details are available, a good leader shares the essential information early on, enabling the team to begin preparation and key tasks promptly.

On the other hand, a FRAGO is a plan that lacks the final details. It contains more information and most of the crucial components, but not all the specifics.

Think of it as an outline or an incomplete plan. The important aspect here is the timing of sharing the information. Like a WARNO, a FRAGO is provided to the team as soon as reasonably possible.

A competent leader shares critical information and plans with interested parties as early as feasible. For instance, if a company is planning a new S4 HANA implementation execution phase, the leader wouldn't wait until a month before to unveil the plan. Instead, they would provide a heads-up (WARNO) to the team quickly, followed by additional information (FRAGO) in a month, and finally, the full-blown plan in 60 or 90 days.

The emphasis lies not only on the military format but also on effective leaders' timely communication and sharing of essential information.

Info Sources: CCIR, PIR, FFIR, ISR, I&W

The Commander’s Intent is not only an effective short communication tool describing the Mission, key tasks, and desired End state but also a cascading Decision making and feedback system that provides the Commander with Essential Information at Key decision points that ensures that Orders will result in the correct actions and effects that will deliver the desired End state.

The Commanders’ CCIR (Commander’s Critical Information Requirements) is made up of 2 elements:

PIR (Priority Intelligence Requirements) and
FFIR (Friendly Force Information Requirements)

“What information I need to make the correct decision”.

PIR (Priority Intelligence Requirements)

“What I need to know about the enemy”.

In a Military context, the PIR relates to the Enemy, Terrain, Weather, civil etc, in a business context this would relate to the Market, Ecosystem, Competitors, and Industry regulators.

“If PIRs don’t change, you’re fighting the plan and not the enemy.”

“PIRs aren’t just an intelligence function, they’re a whole-of-staff requirement to ensure that decision-quality information is getting to the commander,”

“What does the commander need to know in a specific situation to make a particular decision in a timely manner?”

FFIR (Friendly Force Information Requirements)

In the Military context , the FFIR relates to friendly force and supporting capabilities and in a business context this would relate to business capabilities and resources.

“What I need to know about my own forces”.

EEFI (Essential Elements of Friendly Information)

EEFI is Information, which necessitates safeguarding from enemy influence or intelligence gathering. These EEFIs comprise critical components of friendly force information that, if exploited by the enemy, could jeopardize the success of the mission or the accomplishment of strategic objectives. In business this could be new product launch or new marketing strategy etc .

ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance)

ISR provides decision makers & action takers with comprehensive insights into the enemy’s activities and movements enhancing the likelihood of mission success through coordinated acquisition, processing, and timely dissemination of accurate and relevant information to bolster a commanders decision making process.

I&W (Indications & Warnings)

Indications and Warnings (I&W) would be a pre-event undertaking detecting events leading up to an attack e.g., Russian Troops massing on the Ukraine border with Missiles targeting strategic infrastructure etc. Is there a progression in time/threat leading to an imminent attack.

The above CCIR, PIR, FFIR, ISR, I&W information must be feedback to the commander in a timely , accurate manner in order that the Commander can make the correct decisions at the right time enabling the desired end state to be realised (figure 4).

Figure 4 CCIRs & The Commander’s Decision Cycle

“OK this Military stuff is fine and dandy but how do We apply it to our S4/HANA or Transformation project?”

We suggest it is applied to your Project in the following way:

Communication: Clearly communicate your Mission/Vision, the Key tasks and most importantly the Desired End State (including what you don’t want) to all team members and the Business. These large programmes are complex and it’s easy to get caught up in the detail (remember the Military has found out from experience that centralised planning fails in the heat of battle). Let the subordinate teams (within limits) carry out the “How”.

Effective communication is a “two-way street”, we support relevant/accurate feedback of Project information at the correct time for senior management (commanders) to make correct timely decisions.

Decision Making: Feedback of CCIR type of information in a timely manner to suit critical decision points. Concentrate on constraints, showstoppers, and flashing red lights not the myriad of typical Project/PMO reports and opinions.
OPORD vs PID: A PID (Project Initiation Document) covers the scope, Business case, risks, roles & responsibilities, and high-level plans etc however it’s not an excellent comms tool as it is only read by the few and is generally used to secure the budget and thereafter never sees the light of day.

Whereas the OPORD (Operations Order) is a working document describing the situation the unit faces, the mission of the unit, and what supporting activities the unit will conduct to achieve their commander's desired end state. The issuance of an OPORD triggers subordinate unit leadership to develop orders specific to the role or roles that the unit will assume within the operation. This more narrowly focused order borrows information from the original, or base, order and adds additional details that pertain more to the actions a unit is tasked to conduct in support of the overarching operation.

Feedback by lower echelons of commander enables the Commander to make timely decisions keeping the desired end state in focus.

OPORD Contents

An OPORD based on the “5 paragraph Order” but for a S4 HANA or Transformation Project should contain the following structure:

Situation

Current Reality
UDE/CRC
Constraints
Existential Change & Threats
Competition Change & Threats
Internal Capabilities (or lack off)
Goals
Business Transformation
Biz Tech Change
Changing Capability
Platform Strategy
Change Strategy
COM to TOM

Mission

Who, What ,Where, When ,Why
Stakeholder Map
Value Case
Implementation Strategy
Greenfield, Brownfield ,Bluefield
Global/Local
Waves
Commanders Intent End State
Strategic Intent/Driver for Change to Biz Tech Competitive Advantage
Connect Change to Operations
Operationally Align Strategic Goals
Strategically Transform Operations
Harmonize Biz Tech Platforms
Build Biz Tech Change Capability
Align Biz Tech Change
Adaptive Business Strategy
Adaptive Business Capability
Adaptive Business Leadership

Execution

Commanders’ intent
Mission, Key tasks, End State, Anti Goals
Prepare
Project Team
Customer Team
SI/Vendor Team
Knowledge/Tools
Value Road Map
Transition (Current Reality ,Transition State, End State Planning)
OCM planning
Kick Off Workshop
Customer Sign Off
Explore
Design/Blueprint Workshops
Fit to standard Workshops.
Differentiation/Signature Processes
Changing Capability
Customer Sign Off
Realize
Build & Test
Configuration
Customisations
Sprints
Integration Testing
Regression Testing
Performance Testing
Data Migration
Cleansing, Creation, Migration Cycles
Security & Job Roles
User Acceptance Testing
OCM
Customer Sign Off

Service & Support

Deploy
OCM activities
Training
Ops Readiness
Production Cutover
Master Data/Transactional Data
Transports
Job Roles
Execute Cutover
Production Hypercare Support
1st Offs
Ticket/Issue Management
BAU level achieved.
Handover to Support
Close Open Issues
Customer Sign Off
Run
OCM Embed
Value Capture & Realisation
Roll Out
Wave
Localisation
Regression & Performance Testing
Update & Improve
Retire

Command & Control

Commanders Intent
Project Governance via CTO & TMO (to Commanders' Decision Points)
Standards Board
Project Comms & Reporting
Plans, Schedule, Budget
Project Team Logistics & Infrastructure
Document Repository
Project Monitoring & Control
Risks, Issues, Changes
Communicate Progress
Feedback to Commander (Decision Points)
AAR (After Action Review)

Conclusion

In these large complex Transformation programs, the Communications Protocols and reporting structures have not changed in decades, is it a coincidence that the failure rates in these programs have not improved from the 70-90% rate (disappointment to failure) in the same timeline…is Communication a required Success factor?

The Military think so…they moved to a Commanders Intent cascade…learned from bitter experience in Battle that centralised planning and control simply do not work well and lead to misunderstanding and failed initiatives.

The Commanders Intent with its brief description of: