Operational Design & Art Operational Design is a methodological approach used by U.S. military command personnel to make it possible for officers and soldiers to know how to be creative in their use of combat and confrontational tools and tactics. It's a learning, assessment and re-learning structure that allows for space for Operational Art in the command structure, or the freedom to use creativity grounded in understanding and experience (Joint Operation Planning, 2011). With Operational Design, a solid framework for understanding and comprehending a situation is provided. With Operational Art, personnel from top to bottom are provided the decision-making elements for using flexibility in the face of unexpected and often unpredictable circumstances.

The struggle with these two companion approaches centers on ensuring that they each accomplish their goal and still allow for the military to sustain authority and control. It remains possible that adding many layers of command and operational complexity will go too far, or that in offering flexibility, command authority will be compromised. As one writer put it: "Military leaders may value individual creativity, critical...

Pressures to try different strategies came from two general directions. New communication and monitoring technologies now provide for fast and nearly instantaneous feedback in very real-time settings, thereby permitting much greater degrees of command flexibility. Top leaders can see more quickly and reliably what is actually happening and lower-level operational personnel can respond to variations that fall outside of the expected decision structure (Joint Operation Planning, 2011).
But a second reason why the new design and artistry elements have been developed arises from the fact that past models have simply come up short; top-down, even complex planning strategies are not working (Wass de Czege, 2009:12). Historically, it has basically been taken for granted that either military force would not be introduced…