As part of my doctoral research at Colorado Tech, I am engaged in a prototype Action Research inquiry into our change managemnet curriculum. One of the outcomes of the preliminary rounds of action-feedback-reflection-planning, was the establishment of a blog that would serve multiple purposes in connecting various stakeholder groups and their needs to an emerging community of practice. here are my more detailed notes on how that’s been going so far.
Discussion:
Here is one of the positive consequences of our project already. It emerged from stakeholder discussions that we needed ways of expanding the resource base for our curriculum and to have outreach to graduates and the wider professional community. Our students wanted a place to discuss with people from other classes. Our instructors wanted access to readings, ideas and discussions to supplement our formal readings and to help keep the discussions fresh. Instructors at remote sites across the country needed a way to get immediately connected with the most current thinking and issues in an area where they are almost never professional experts. So, after some collective brainstorming, we established a blog on our command homepage as a way to meet those desires.
Our faculty technicians agreed to help me “seed” the blog with some started essays that are representative of the kinds of things we are looking for (blogging by example), and the text below is the first “roll-out” announcement letting the wider community know we are open for business at the Blog of Log.
Initial results: we are already getting over 100 hits a day, and have generated some student questions. I used the blog as a resource in the classroom in a recent faculty certification course to provide a rapid reading and an experiential learning moment. I had a requirement to demonstrate my technique in a 30 minute class (so that i can be certified to teach for another 5 years without supervision). Since I had as my “students”, many remote site faculty present for their certification, I turned it into a mini-cooperative inquiry to solicit their stated needs and goals as instructors of our lessons back at their home station. We hit it out of the park, and they are prepared to use the blog in their classroom, and as a portal to connect to the “mother ship” of force management curriculum theory and practice at our college.
The project is already past the tipping point and has unstoppable momentum. Pandora has opened the box and now we shall learn what that means on down the road.
Below is the text of the Blog of Log “rollout” announcement
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At the CAC Blog homepage, you will find the bright, shiny, new “The Blog of Log” (tell your friends). http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/BLOG/blogs/dlro/default.aspx
Our initial stated purpose:
The Department of Logistics and Resource operations is the proponent at CGSC for F100, currently an 18 hour block of instruction that examines DoD and Army Force Management. It is typically seen as one of the most technical, challenging and difficult of the blocks in the Core Curriculum because officers have not seen their connection to the process so far in their career in the Operating Force. We want to make the case that at the field grade level, a professional understanding of how your organization creates an Army, and performs all of the critical Title 10 functions is a necessary part of your education. The initial purpose of this blog is to help you make the connection between your personal experiences with Army change in the field and the operating principles of the Generating Force. We are open to the possibility of the blog going wherever it needs to go to improve the relevance and your understanding of this important mission area.
Bottom line? We are looking for ways to help our officers see the value and relevance of force management now, while they are here, rather than 1-2 years from now when they typically realize why we include force management in the course. This blog can serve as an important resource for classroom prep and professional discussion that goes beyond the boundaries of the classroom walls.
Some highlights already:
With a new administration, ‘tis the season” for significant security and defense policy recommendations, and we have a number of short essays on the topic including:
A reflection on the Army’s first serious consideration of going to a Brigade based Army in 1995-1996, and the insider politics that led to a retaining the Division-centric structure. A conservative decision at the time, it drove us to making extraordinary force structure changes in the middle of a war, forced by OPTEMPO considerations to re-organize in the middle of a fire fight.
In The Fallacy of Technical Rationality , Dr Chris Paparone discusses the conceptual issues that are inevitable based on the use of our rational, analytic planning model, which values certainty and control, in an complex, adaptive system. He argues that the mismatch between the situation and our response will reliably generate problems in the future. http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/BLOG/blogs/dlro/archive/2008/12/05/the-fallacy-of-technical-rationality.aspx
The most recent posting comes from MAJ Eric Hollister who examines the strategy and force structure recommendations of Andrew Krepinovich. His essay is a model of analysis and thoughtful critical thinking, as he itemizes a number of serious shortcomings and disconnects in Krepinovich’s reasoning. His essay is at: http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/BLOG/blogs/dlro/archive/2008/12/11/flaws-in-csba-report-quot-an-army-at-the-crossroads-quot.aspx