An essential part of both ABOLC and IBOLC, as well as several other BOLCs, is learning how to develop a platoon-level OPORD. As a future leader, you are working toward becoming an effective planner. While you will continue to learn and grow once you arrive at your unit as a platoon leader, you must show up with a solid foundation in planning.
In learning how to plan at BOLC, various points of confusion arise for the students regarding the relevance of the TLP process and the associated OPORD. This article addresses various points that can help increase your understanding of why planning matters, why the TLPs are beneficial, and how this information will serve you once you begin as a platoon leader.
This article contains information references in ATP 3-21.8, ATP 3-21.10, and the Ranger Handbook, as well as references the Blue / Green OPORD Blue Book.
Understanding the TLP Planning Framework:
Military planners typically use one of five planning methodologies to develop plans: the Troop Leading Procedures (TLPs), the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP), Army Design Methodology (ADM), the Rapid Decision-Making and Synchronization Process (RDSP) and Army Problem Solving. At the platoon level, the focus of BOLC, you will be primarily working with the TLPs.
The troop leading procedures (TLPs) are an eight-step process that helps small-unit leaders, such as platoon leaders, prepare for an operation in a structured and properly sequenced manner.
Preparing includes:
- organizing and executing specific physical tasks, like preparing equipment, packing rucks and trucks, filling up water, and unit movements, like moving to a location that puts your unit in an advantageous position; these will obviously not be done during your graded OPORDs at BOLC, but are very relevant for real-world application
- developing overall plans for those preparation tasks and the rest of your operation by developing mission orders - warning orders (WARNOs), operations orders (OPORDs), and fragmentary orders (FRAGOs).
The leader is vital in the TLPs because it is a leader-centric planning process. While other planning methodologies have staff support to help the leader, the company level and below do not. The leader is driving and managing the process, so they must develop expertise.
The TLPs:
- Receive the Mission
- Issue the Warning Order (WARNO)
- Make a Tentative Plan
- Initiate Movement
- Conduct Reconnaissance
- Complete the Plan
- Issue the Order
- Supervise and Refine
What is an OPORD and How it Connects to the TLPs:
An OPORD is a directive issued by a leader to subordinates for the purpose of effecting the coordinated execution of an operation. In other words, it’s a plan for the operation. An OPORD is built in a similar format each time it is made. While the contents change, the format remains the same.
Your OPORD consists of five portions, known as paragraphs. They are:
- Paragraph 1 – Situation
- Paragraph 2 – Mission
- Paragraph 3 – Execution
- Paragraph 4 – Sustainment
- Paragraph 5 – Command & Signal
As you move through the steps of the TLPs, you will gather and craft what you place into your OPORD format. While much of your “pen to paper” OPORD creation occurs in Step 3 and 6, all the steps are mutually reinforcing.
Using the TLPs to craft your OPORD is not necessarily more work than completing an OPORD by moving from Paragraph 1 until completion. Instead, it is a slightly different order that is properly sequenced to improve the quality of your planning.
How the TLPs Help Build a Complete OPORD:
A common criticism is that the TLPs and the OPORD format constrain creativity in planning. It’s common to hear individuals express that they just want to 'plan without the burden of the TLPs,' or something similar. But using the TLPs, and the OPORD the TLPs help you produce, aren’t a limitation. Instead, it’s a comprehensive framework design to ensure no critical detail is overlooked.
When you follow the TLPs to work through preparation, you’re able to ensure important tasks are completed, and a comprehensive, feasible, and well-thought plan is captured in your OPORD. That OPORD format is a representation of a complete plan. When leaders skip the TLPs, haphazardly work through them, or neglect portions of the OPORD format, they are skipping key steps that are vital in helping your unit be as prepared as possible.
The TLP framework, and the associated OPORD, were designed because they help you be as prepared as possible for your operation. That is a fundamental responsibility of a platoon leader – brand new or not.
Why the TLP Process Improves Planning Quality:
When you create an OPORD, you should be creating it using the steps of the TLPs. The OPORD is not a product created in isolation; it is created using the TLP steps. Although you cannot do every step of the TLPs at BOLC (naturally, you cannot conduct Step 4 or 5 when you’re planning alone at a desk), you can still execute the other steps.
Doing so is not just “because doctrine says so.” Using the steps actually helps you develop a better plan.
The movement through the correct sequence, specifically TLP Step 3, helps you gather the right baseline information in the right order before developing your broad plan (your course of action), and then your specific plan (your scheme of maneuver). When you develop an OPORD by simply starting with Paragraph 1 and moving through until completion, you risk missing critical steps that can result in an incomplete, unfeasible, or poorly planned OPORD.
We provide two examples of issues that can result from not using the TLPs to form your OPORD:
Example 1 - when you skip mission analysis in TLP Step 3, you are skipping your mission variable analysis in areas such as sustainment (troops and support available). You’re also skipping the consideration of communications required in Step 3 per ATP 3-21.8. Doctrine purposely includes this - it isn't non-sense. If you develop a course of action before analyzing these factors (which you would if you just move from Paragraph 1 to 5 as your OPORD production process), your plan is built on incomplete information. The result is often a course of action that is substandard or even unfeasible.
Example 2 - if you ignore the TLPs, you will ignore the creation of your PIRs and general collection planning that would occur early in Step 3. Those PIRs and collection information are vital towards enabling reconnaissance assets to support you. If you were just developing your OPORD by working from Paragraph 1 until completion, you wouldn’t develop this at the platoon level until late in paragraph 3. By that point , you have lost significant time that could have been provided to a reconnaissance asset. This fails a fundamental of reconnaissance, and limits your access to information that could be vital to you plan.
As you can see, the use of the TLPs matters. Any discussion of OPORD that doesn’t include a discussion of the TLPs is incomplete. Simplistic training environments often form bad habits that result in students simply completing the OPORD, while ignoring the TLPs. This leads to substandard plans that might pass in the schoolhouse but will fail in an operational environment.
Applying the TLPs and OPORDs in the Operational Force:
A common point of confusion is how OPORDs are actually used once you're a platoon leader. When you are in an operational unit, you should be working through the TLPs to create an OPORD. With the results of your planning process, you are prepared for both your commander's backbrief, and a unit internal OPORD. These are two different things.
Your commander backbrief is your opportunity to present your completed plan to your company commander for their review and approval. This commander backbrief is likely not a full OPORD, and instead, just specifically selected portions of your order. By completing your full OPORD, you will be prepared for this. The desired backbrief format depends on unit SOP, unit competence, and ultimately, your commander’s discretion. This backbrief format is often called a CONOP (despite that CONOP means something doctrinally specific, the materials included this type of backbrief CONOP vary widely). This is presented to your commander towards the end of your planning period.
Separately from this backbrief, there is the unit internal briefing in which you present the full OPORD. This is why that full OPORD is needed. You need to have a complete plan for your unit. Anything short of a best effort on a complete plan for your unit is a failure on behalf of platoon leadership.
At BOLC, you complete your OPORD and brief it to a grader. This is an evaluation of your full OPORD, like you would be providing in a unit internal OPORD brief. This briefing is not simulating a commander backbrief. The same is true at Ranger School. You complete your final OPORD briefing to your unit. Although it is reviewed and graded by a Ranger Instructor, it is not simulating a commander backbrief.
Many young leaders arrive at their unit and find that they do not have to provide a full OPORD to their commander as part of a backbrief. They take this to mean they don’t have to produce a full OPORD in the planning process, and instead, only produce the items that are required for the backbrief. This is likely why many claim the full TLP process and production of an OPORD is an unrealistic schoolhouse scenario.
Just because your commander doesn’t want to receive a full OPORD, that doesn’t mean you are alleviated from the complete process. Remember that the TLP process and the associated OPORD is how you create a complete plan. If you skip steps of the TLPs and produce an incomplete OPORD, or only work to complete the requirements your commander wants to see in the backbrief, you are failing your subordinates.
An article in Small Wars Journal (Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail, by Thomas Doherty and Welton Chang, 2012) discuss the significant planning and execution issues that result from leaders only creating the material required for their commander backbrief and neglecting the production of a complete OPORD plan for their unit.
If you decide not to conduct terrain analysis, don’t consider how to integrate mortar fire, and don’t consider how civilians may affect your mission, for example, you are creating a plan without proper analysis. This results in an inadequate plan that endangers your element and your mission. While these deficiencies may not be exposed in your commander backbrief (because the commander may not have required a full OPORD), they very well can be exposed, with grave consequences, when you conduct the actual operation.
Practically, the sequence should look like this. After you receive the mission, you should work through the TLPs to develop a complete plan – covering every portion of the OPORD. A completed OPORD format is a complete plan. You’ll then use that information and transfer it into the format your commander wants to see for their backbrief, if it is less than a full OPORD. Once complete, you integrate the feedback and then execute your unit internal OPORD.
Regardless of how much time you’re given or how little your commander wants to see in their final backbrief (or they may not even want a backbrief as you are already approved for your mission), you are still responsible for your best effort in building a complete plan.
Mastering the TLPs for BOLC & Beyond:
During BOLC, you need to develop an in-depth understanding of the TLPs. It is your job as a future platoon leader to understand the concepts and be able to apply them with your unit. Fortunately, you will be afforded in-depth class at BOLC to help learn this process. As you learn at BOLC and conduct practical exercises and graded briefings, remember that you are working to excel as a platoon leader in the operational force, not just as a student.
To provide a primer before BOLC, as well as to have easy to understand material on hand while at BOLC, you can review the B/G OPORD Blue Book. This in-depth walk through of the TLPs helps enhance your learning with easy-to-understand language and examples. It provides direct language like is included in this article. This guide will serve you not only before and during BOLC, but in your Ranger School prep, when you are in the operational force, and before and during MCCC.
--
The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Photo from USAF, from Senior Airman Noah Sudolcan, of a USAF pararescueman from the 57th Rescue Squadron.
--
Blue / Green Training designs comprehensive materials for military athletes. Our goal is to enable success and capture potential. Our guides include carefully designed fitness programming and explanations to help our athletes understand the concepts behind it all - something we haven't seen anywhere else. We inspire confidence in our athletes by teaching them effective physical training so they can continue their progress after our programming ends. We guarantee you'll get value from our material.
Blog related to : IBOLC, ABOLC, BOLC, Troops Leading Procedures, TLPs, OPORD, OPORDs, Ranger School, MCCC, ROTC, Mission Planning, Army Doctrine, OPORD Example, Small Unit Leadership