Do you know the saying “no plan survives contact with the customer?” It comes from the military saying “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. Since the army knows that this is true they came up with a high level concept in the 1980s that is called the Commander’s intent (CI). CI is a crisp and clear statement that is used at the top of every order. It specifies the plan’s goal and the desired end-state of the operation. On different levels of the organization there can be different CI’s. A high level example might be “Make Afghanistan peaceful”. The Army suggests 2 questions to arrive at the CI
1. If we do nothing else during tomorrow’s mission, we must …
2. The single, most important thing the we must do tomorrow is …
Read “Made to stick” from Chip & Dan Heath if you want to learn more concerning CI and many more valuable concepts. What is your Commander's Intent?
