Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 102

(Photo by Mark Brown, Hawaii Army Weekly)

The process a family goes through in the planning and execution of a permanent change of station move can be comparable to the use of
operational art to plan and conduct extended military operations. Both are complex, and both require synchronization of multiple tasks
to achieve a successful outcome.

on developing an operational approach. These include
considering both direct and indirect approaches as well
as arrangement of actions along lines of effort.13 Army
doctrine defines a line of effort as “a line that links multiple tasks using the logic of purpose rather than geographical reference to focus efforts toward establishing
operational and strategic conditions.”14 Since the tasks
or actions along a line of effort are related by purpose,
the line provides an overall theme or topic describing
the tasks. Actions along these lines of effort may use
defeat or stability mechanisms, or both, to create conditions that lead to the desired end state.
Developing the lines of effort and actions along
them is a combination of brainstorming and organizing.
Start with the desired end state. Write down all of the
major actions or tasks that must occur to get you from
where you are currently to where you want to go. Attempt
to group these actions or tasks by similar topics or themes,
and give each grouping or theme a logical name or title.
These themes will form the basis of your lines of effort.
Let us use the Smith family PCS again to illustrate
this. The desired end state for the Smith family is to
smoothly move all personnel and property from Kansas
to Germany. Now we brainstorm to determine all of
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the tasks that must be accomplished in order to meet
this end state. This includes official military actions,
family actions, and any other event associated with the
move. In no particular order write down every action,
task, and objective that comes to mind.
Next we want to organize these seemingly random
tasks into categories. Tasks that are linked to one another
as part of a topic or purpose should be grouped together.
Thus, we rearrange the tasks into logical groups and label
these groups with intuitive names. Figure 2 provides an
example of how to organize these tasks.
Now arrange these groups of tasks in a linear,
sequential fashion. You can work on one line at a
time, but understand that eventually you will have to
synchronize the lines with one another. These groups
become lines linking multiple tasks using the logic
of purpose; they are lines of effort. Establish an end
state for each of these lines of effort. Once you have
sequentially ordered the tasks on each line, you will
want to display the product in a manner in which
you can see all of the lines together. Thus, you have
developed an operational approach. It is a graphical
representation of actions that you must accomplish
over time to go from your current conditions to your
July-August 2015  MILITARY REVIEW