Summary:

• All Marine leaders are taught a basic effective planning process. 

• This helps them quickly make and execute good decisions.

• I recommend three steps for a high-level planning process: 1.) analyze the problem and come up with options to solve it, 2.) actively get the most important information to decide between options and  3.) decide and execute. 

WAR

 

Planning and preparation are huge drivers of success. The military figured that out a long time ago. They implemented standard planning processes to train Marines to deliberately plan their operations.    

This article will focus on the most basic planning process called BAMCIS. 

Like most processes in the military, BAMCIS is an acronym. 

This acronym stands for the following:

• B – Begin planning 
• A – Arrange reconnaissance 
• M – Make reconnaissance 
• C – Complete the plan 
• I – Issue the order 
• S – Supervise  

This process is taught to young Marine officers and non-commissioned officers to develop an executable plan to successfully complete their mission. 

It is drilled into the young leaders, so they naturally think of using this process when in combat. The more repetitions and the more thoroughly a leader has studied this process, the better their decision-making will become.

The following are the details of each step in BAMCIS. 

 

Begin Planning

 

The first letter in the BAMCIS is B, which stands for “Begin planning.” It’s the initial evaluation of the information that is given to you by your commander.

 

Under ideal conditions, the Marine has been given a plan by their commander. This plan should be in the form of a five-paragraph order or fragmentary order (Frag-O). In this plan, the Marine’s leader should give them information about both friendly and enemy units in the area, your mission, the plan of attack, coordinating information, and all of the supporting assets that will be at your disposal. 

The Marine will use this information to start planning. This process is called a METT-TC (mission, enemy, troops and fire support, terrain and weather, time-space logistic, and civilian) which feeds their five-paragraph order. Subsequent articles will provide additional detail about a METT-TC and the five-paragraph order. 

With Begin planning, the outcome is a detailed analysis of all the information that was given to you by your commander and an initial plan of how to successfully accomplish the mission. 

Part of your initial planning will be to identify risks and assumptions. Those risks and assumptions are gaps in information that, if known, would greatly increase your chance of success. 

Making a plan to confirm those assumptions will drive Step Two in BAMCIS.

Business takeaways:

• When you’re assigned a problem to solve, an opportunity to capitalize on, or a project to lead, spend some time doing the initial planning.
• The main output of this initial planning should be to identify what information is needed to make the best possible decisions.
• What part of the task do you need to understand better? What data is available? Who has information that has worked previously on this? Who else needs to weigh in with their opinion? Is questions could go forever.
• This information will drive your information gathering phase, which is the next step in the planning process.

 

Arrange Reconnaissance and Make Reconnaissance

 

The next two letters in BAMCIS are A and M. They stand for Arrange Reconnaissance and Make Reconnaissance respectively. I will combine the two separate execution steps for simplicity. 

In the initial plan, the leader will have risks that are usually connected with unconfirmed assumptions. Those assumptions can be associated with all parts of the plan. They could concern the route, enemy, vehicles, communication, etc..

Those assumptions will be prioritized and arrangements will be made to do reconnaissance on those assumptions. This reconnaissance will specifically be intended to validate the assumptions, that if wrong, would have the greatest impact on the success of the mission.

The Marine will confirm those assumptions using any available means. They could call for a drone to recon it, send out snipers or ask people who have taken this route before. There are many available options. The most common method is the ‘leader’s recon’, which they do themselves.  

In the ‘leader’s recon,’ the leader will go themselves or assign a subordinate leader to go and confirm the assumptions. This is the most common tactic because it is always available. You may not have other reconnaissance assets to assist you but you’ll always be able to do the work yourself.

To arrange the leader’s recon, you will prioritize the information that you must gather and assign someone to find that information. They will then execute that reconnaissance. While doing this the leader will have to leave a large portion of the platoon or company. It’s a very risky move. Many things could possibly go wrong. They could get killed or lost or the Marines left behind could get attacked. However, the recon is worth it. 

The Marine Corps has learned the hard way that it is riskier to go into combat with too many assumptions in your plan. Therefore, making a leader’s recon is an important part of the planning process. 

 It is interesting that the Marine Corps separated arranging and making reconnaissance. They wanted to make it a point that during arrange reconnaissance, you should think about all of your assumptions and be as creative as possible in confirming them. If they would have just said make reconnaissance and skipped arrange, if they did that the proper amount of weight would have been put on how important it is to really think about how to execute reconnaissance efficiently.

Once the leader is back from making reconnaissance, they’ve confirmed assumptions and are ready for the next step in the process. 

Business takeaways:

• In the previous step, you identified all of the information you need to make the best possible decisions. It is now time to make a plan to go gather that information
• Prioritize the most important information based on impact to the plan and timeline, by when it’s needed. This could involve gathering the sales data, performing a financial analysis, or talking with the engineering stakeholders. Whatever information would help you make the best decision, is what you should get first.
• The next step is to make a plan to go get it. This will require you to delegate within your team or to do it yourself. Whoever gets the information needs to be properly tasked with exactly what information they need to get and why.
• This will require you to find the data, set up meetings with stakeholders, build products to review, review historical information, review competitor or market information, etc.

 

Complete the Plan

 

The next letter in BAMCIS is C, which stands for: complete the plan.

After arranging and making reconnaissance, all assumptions will have been confirmed or proven false. This new information will allow the leader to make the final decisions and accept the risks, knowing that all preparations have been made. 

This is the leader’s opportunity to make modifications to the plan or change it completely, based on the reconnaissance results.

The hill they wanted to use as a machine gun position might actually be a cliff, so it must be shifted to a different spot.  Another situation could be that the river they need to cross only has one out of the way crossing, which requires a change in the route. A third possibility is that the size of the enemy force is twice as large as predicted by intelligence.  

Whatever is learned, will be incorporated into the plan. 

This is a good example of the Marine Corps being adaptive and not falling in love with their plans. There has been a lot of blood spilled to learn this lesson. Rigid plans based on too many assumptions can lead to defeat. 

Now that the plan has been updated with the new information, it’s time to brief the team. 

Business takeaways:

• As you get your questions answered, update your plan and refine your business decisions.
• The best way to do this is to update a document that everyone is working on.

 

Issue the Order

 

It is now time to brief the Marines on the order. The intent of this step is to make sure that your team knows the plan as thoroughly as possible. 

The Marine Corps does this in the five-paragraph format. This format allows information to be clearly conveyed in a familiar flow that also ensures no key information is left out. 

If the leader hits every paragraph and subparagraph, then all the necessary information has been passed.

It’s now time to execute. 

Business takeaways:

• The business world equivalent to issuing the order, is to hold a kick-off meeting and make sure that everyone understands what is expected of them.
• The outcome is that everyone is aligned on the plan and understands what their piece of that plan is.

 

Supervise

 

The last letter in BAMCIS is S, which stands for supervise.

When I was learning BAMCIS, my instructors would ask ‘what’s the most important step in BAMCIS?’ We would all yell ‘SUPERVISE!’ (Marines like to yell)

The final step in the planning process is to actually make sure the work associated with the plan is getting done.

The first thing to supervise is confirming the understanding of expectations. The best way to do that is by making key leaders ‘back brief’ you on what the overall plan is and what their responsibilities are within it. That usually looks like them giving the almost exact brief you just gave them, with you correcting them as they make mistakes. We do that until all of them can brief the entire plan with no mistakes. 

Once that level of understanding has been reached, they do the same to their teams. The intent is to have everyone know the plan inside and out.  

When the actual execution starts, the leader needs to set an example, place themselves at the friction points between units and ensure that everyone is working together as a team towards the accomplishment of the mission. This will take many forms. However, it usually means being with your team, while they are working. 

There are many times when all the work has been delegated. As a result, the leader doesn’t have very much direct work to do in execution. The work that is needed from a leader is to be present to deconflict teams, make timely decisions and accept the quality of work as complete.

That is how the Marine Corps uses a simple and basic planning process to help every leader come up with an effective plan that helps them win. 

Business takeaways:

• Supervising is the most important step of the planning process.
• Check-in with your team and show them that you are working with them.
• Help deconflict teams, make decisions and accept work quickly, so the team can keep moving.

 

BUSINESS

 

I think it would be very helpful for all people to have a basic planning process that can be taught and followed by their leaders. This should be coupled with a communication format. However,  that is an entirely different topic. 

A basic planning process will allow business leaders to make good decisions. It will train them to consider everything that needs to be considered within their department. 

There are many decisions being made without understanding the mission, confirming assumptions,  or thoroughly analyzing logistics and time. 

 The next section presents a solid business planning process.

 

Step 1: Analyze the problem and develop an option to solve it

 

In the analysis, there should be three sections, a specific problem statement, options to solve the problem, and the information needed.

In the first section, you should have a simplified statement about the problem. “Increase sales in Michigan”, “my team is not getting enough exposure and it’s limiting their promotability” are a few examples. The intent is to clarify the problem, so everyone can understand it.

In the second section, you should outline the different options for solving this problem. Everything has tradeoffs. You are trying to make the decision with the best terms for your goals. To formulate the options, you should brainstorm with as many stakeholders as possible. The output of this process should be two to four different solutions to the problem. You should then start to consider what questions, if answered, would facilitate making the decision between the options.

The last section is a parking lot for all of the questions that have come up while creating the first two sections. The intent is to have a list of questions and a plan for finding the information. These questions should be prioritized in the order of impact, so you can make the best possible decision. The better you understand the options, the more obvious the most important questions will become to you.

It may become clear during this option gathering session what the clear solution is to the problem. If it does, execute that plan. If the course of action isn’t clear, then you should pursue getting the information needed to make that decision.

The information that is needed will drive the next step in the process.

 

Step 2: Get answers to the most important questions  

 

After the basic analysis is done, you should have a prioritized list of questions. If all of these questions were answered, then you should feel that you’d make the best decision possible on solving the problem.

 It is now time to get as many of the questions answered as time permits.

Some of the questions will only require a quick meeting or an email. For others, getting the necessary answer will take several meetings and analysis. There may even be some questions that you won’t be able to answer. 

The focus should be to get the exact information needed to make the first decision and then move on. It is not necessary to get a mountain of data. There will likely be one or two critical pieces of information that will lead to a solution. The focus of your effort should be on getting that information.

Once the most important assumptions have been validated, you’re ready to decide and execute.

 

Step 3: Choose the best solution and execute

 

When you have as many of the questions answered as time will allow, then it is time to finalize the path forward and execute.

The best way to finalize a plan is to clearly state your tasks for your team and then confirm that they understand them. You should confirm their understanding, by having them repeat the necessary tasks. This can be done at a meeting or by having them develop their own plan, which is consistent with yours. It is critical that you confirm a clear understanding from each team member.

Once you have confirmed that the plan is understood, you need to execute it.

Execution is the hardest part. As a leader, you need to constantly ensure that the team is working together and moving in the same direction.

There are two main jobs of a leader during execution:

• Make decisions
• Deconflict and sequence your teams

There is a wide spectrum between being a micromanager and being totally hands-off. There are points in the execution of a project, where a leader is needed. In these situations, your team will be thankful that you are there. By contrast, at other times your presence will only create additional work.

You need to be there to make decisions. It is easy for you to tell your teams to work it out themselves. That will cause extra work and discussion for two peer teams to figure out a decision among themselves. It’s much easier for a leader to make the decision and keep all the teams moving.

Another major problem that must be fixed by a leader,  is to deconflict teams. The most common problem when there is a lack of leadership, is teams not working together. This usually involves one team starting their work too early or too late. This is always the result of a lack of communication from the leader, whose job is to deconflict teams and keep them working together. Nothing wastes more resources than The improper sequencing of teams results in the greatest waste of resources.

You should find the places where you can add value during execution. Look for friction points between teams and points when your team needs you to make a decision to keep them moving.

 

Conclusion

 

A leader is either taking action or preparing to take action. Part of the preparation is to formulate a solid plan. A plan must be executable and based on as many facts as possible. A planning process enables that, by teaching leaders how to come up with the plan. 

In the Marines Corps, the planning process is Begin Planning, Arrainge Reconnaissance, Make Reconnaissance, Complete the Plan, Issue the Order, and Supervise (BAMCIS).

In the civilian world, it can be anything that is suitable for your work.

My high-level recommendation is:

1. Analyze the problem and come up with possible options for a solution
2. Get answers to the most important questions
3. Execute the best option

The biggest lesson is that a basic planning framework that you follow should be taught to the leaders below you, to help you make the best decisions possible.

The better decisions that you make, the more successful you will be.