Measuring Common Intent during Effects Based Planning

Abstract : Common Intent (CI) describes a socio-psychological phenomenon that seems to be evident amongst a team that achieves a common objective. In the context of Effects Based Planning, a team of planners generate a plan that encapsulates Commander's intention to achieve various strategic objectives and desired effects. The hypothesis is that high CI will lead to an effective plan while low or no CI will lead to an ineffective plan. The Multi-National Experiment 3 (MNE 3) provided an opportunity to measure CI in a Joint Interagency Multi-National (Public) environment, and to compare the independent measure of CI to other key dimensions including EBP process, organization, technology, Sleep Deprivation, and Workload. During this event CI was measured between medium and low, and recommendations were made to improve CI for the next event. The key result is that CI is a robust method for measuring team effectiveness in complex environments.