Military Decision Making Process (MDMP)

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In today’s military when a commander receives a mission they have to look at so many variables and come up with the best Course of Action (COA) to complete the mission without sustaining too much of a loss. These losses could be Soldiers or civilians, as well as equipment. Through the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) the commander and his staff is able to brainstorm, and come up with the best possible COA. In order to pick the best COA the commander and staff will war-game their ideas to see if the plan is feasible. In the following we will go over what MDMP is, why you need to know it, how much time you have for the execution and planning you have during the MDMP process, and what war-gaming is and why we war-game our COA’s.
MDMP is “a single, established, and proven analytical process. The MDMP is an adaptation of the Army’s analytical approach to problem solving” (FM 101-5, 31 May 1997, pg. 5-1). The MDMP has seven steps; the first step being receipt of the mission, this is when you issue the commander’s initial guidance through a Warning Order (WARNO) of what he wants the …show more content…

The commander will allocate at a minimal two-thirds the available time for subordinate units to conduct their planning and preparation (FM 101-5, 31 May 1997, pg. 5-5). “This leaves the commander and his staff one-third the time to conduct their planning. They then use the other two-thirds for their own preparation” (FM 101-5, 31 May 1997, pg.5-5). Time is of the essence, and will dictate more than any other factor. It determines how detailed the staff can plan. Once the timeline is made the commander must determine whether or not to do the full MDMP or to shorten the process (FM 101-5, 31 May 1997, pg.5-5). Ultimately the mission and the enemy will dictate what type of timeline the commander decides, but one thing that won’t change is the amount of the time they will spend on preparation and

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