Bounding Wicked Problems: The C2 of Military Planning

Defining C2 as “the establishment of common intent to achieve coordinated action”, Pigeau and McCann outline a spectrum of approaches for coordinating action, ranging from explicit control through to spontaneous emergent behaviour. They further emphasise the role of creativity in Command. We examine application of Pigeau and McCann’s concepts of C2 to military planning in a headquarters. Many cases of military planning involve complex problem solving, strongly dependent on human creativity, with no straight path from initial problem statement to problem solution. Problems of this nature have rightly been characterised as “wicked”. Explicit control may limit innovation in challenging situations, while spontaneous emergent behaviour could impede progress towards an acceptable solution. We argue that depending on the novelty and complexity of the missions under consideration, choosing an appropriate boundary between nonlinear creative elements and an overarching process-based structure can promote innovation while facilitating timely solutions. Such adaptation in the degree of “process-centricity” in planning for different challenges needs to be accompanied by a corresponding adaptation in the headquarters structures for developing and integrating specialist inputs. Using an organisational model developed by Hollenbeck and collaborators, we explore how variations in centralisation and departmentation can facilitate structural adaptation.