Constraint-based naturalistic decision making in mission planning teams

Motivation – To understand the factors acting upon decision making of military planners prior to theintroduction of digital planning systems. Research approach – Participant-observation by the researchteam and direct observation of the planning process on exercises. Findings – Many different disciplinescontribute to the planning process in a co-operative and collaborative manner. Each stage in the planningprocess results in a further set of constraints being applied, each of which offer successive refinement ofthe plan. Research limitations/Implications –The research is limited to land-based military planning.Originality/Value – This research is based on field observation of military planners with tight deadlinesand a non-compliant opposing force. Take away message – ‘Military planning seems to be more aboutidentification of relevant constraints than optimization of decisions