The Operations Process - Assessment

Guided Discovery.

Photo by Behnam Norouzi on Unsplash

How do you assess your life?

Suggested Reading

• ADP 5-0, The Operations Process

  • Pages 5-1 through 5-8 based on printed document (PDF pages 75-82)

  • An overview of assessment in the Operations Process

• Link to ADP 5-0 on US Army Publishing Directorate

• This week’s Study: Are We Doing the Right Things?

• All excerpts below are from ADP 5-0

Guided Discovery

Estimation of the situation is, however, a continuous process, and changed conditions may, at any time, call for a new decision.

FM 100-5, Operations (1941)

Do you structure how you assess things?

Do you include follow-on actions as part of your assessment structure?

Do you make time for assessment?

Do you make enough time for assessment?

5-2. …assessment helps the commander determine progress toward attaining the desired end state, achieving objectives, and performing tasks. Through professional military judgment, assessment helps answer the following questions:

• Where are we?

• What happened?

• Why do we think it happened?

• So what?

• What are the likely future opportunities and risks?

• What do we need to do?

Assessment is as much about what happened as what we need to do next. To answer these questions effectively, make decisions appropriately, and move to follow-on actions quickly requires both structure and time.

Where are you?
What is happening and why?
So what?
What opportunities or risks are presenting themselves?
What do you need to do next?

The military considers assessment to be both critical to the operations process and continuous in nature. So do companies, but assessments (formal and informal) are often one of the highest points of dissatisfaction amongst both leaders and employees.

Finding the time and mental/emotional space to truly assess your life can be even more challenging: it demands focus and vulnerability.

How should leaders structure assessment to improve decision-making and results and how should they make appropriate time?