Donald Rumsfeld planned the Iraq war with PowerPoint slides. I shit you not. Click the photo and see if you can make sense of it. A slide that disorganized wouldn't last five minutes in the business world. This is an excerpt from Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks' book Fiasco.
[Army Lt. General David] McKiernan had another, smaller but nagging issue: He couldn't get Franks to issue clear orders that stated explicitly what he wanted done, how he wanted to do it, and why. Rather, Franks passed along PowerPoint briefing slides that he had shown to Rumsfeld: "It's quite frustrating the way this works, but the way we do things nowadays is combatant commanders brief their products in PowerPoint up in Washington to OSD and Secretary of Defense…In lieu of an order, or a frag [fragmentary order], or plan, you get a bunch of PowerPoint slides…[T]hat is frustrating, because nobody wants to plan against PowerPoint slides."
That reliance on slides rather than formal written orders seemed to some military professionals to capture the essence of Rumsfeld's amateurish approach to war planning. "Here may be the clearest manifestation of OSD's contempt for the accumulated wisdom of the military profession and of the assumption among forward thinkers that technology—above all information technology—has rendered obsolete the conventions traditionall governing the preparation and conduct of war," commented retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich, a former commander of an armored cavalry regiment. "To imagine that PowerPoint slides can substitute for such means is really the height of recklessness." It was like telling an automobile mechanic to use a manufacturer's glossy sales brochure to figure out how to repair an engine.
I have read that senior Bush, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft did not want to read documents. They would have department officials recite key passages. These people just don't like to read. That's why I find it hard to believe Bush read 60 books this year.
I thought that the Power Point slide was very easy to understand.
ReplyDeleteDid you even bother to read it, Michael? :)
I thought that the Power Point slide was very easy to understand.
ReplyDeleteBryan, you true believer. No one can understand that mess. PowerPoints aren't suppose to be that cluttered. You don't use PowerPoints to plan. Only for presentations. Why don't you write a blog post AT YOUR SITE and explain it to me.
"Bryan, you true believer. No one can understand that mess."
ReplyDeleteUh--which one of us is a true believer, again? On what basis do you doubt my ability to understand the slide?
"PowerPoints aren't suppose to be that cluttered."
It was so cluttered that you decided not to read it?
"You don't use power points to plan."
Could a Power Point presentation be used to review a plan that had already been forged, perhaps? Or must we believe otherwise?
"Why don't you write a blog post AT YOUR SITE and explain it to me."
I want you to try reading it, first.
Bryan, I have. It's a fucking eye sore. Rumsfeld's own people thought it was stupid to plan on PowerPoint.
ReplyDeleteThe PowerPoint makes a cluttered attempt at explaining how phase 3 goes into phase 4. With the tribal and religious factions living in harmony. (Gee, how did that plan go?) You can't plan that on a PowerPoint. It's still an eyesore and horribe planning. Are we really seeing fewer incidents of violence? I think not.
"Bryan, I have. It's a fucking eye sore. Rumsfeld's own people thought it was stupid to plan on PowerPoint."
ReplyDeleteSo, your complaint isn't that the slide cannot be understood, but rather that it is not constructed for optimal clarity?
Your hyperbole wasn't quite obvious.
"It's still an eyesore and horribe planning."
What plan should have been followed in lieu of the one sketched in the Powerpoint slide?
That's what I thought you'd say.
ReplyDelete;)
Bryan, you can't plan on a PowerPoint. Companies don't do that. Tribel conflicts can't be explained that simpliticly.
ReplyDeleteBryan, you didn't try to explain the PowerPoint. I doubt you understood it. I was just feeding my troll. Even you get hungry.
There is one severe problem with the PowerPoint. Which is what makes it diffecult to comprehend. How were they going to do this stuff.
Write a blog post at your site explaining the PowerPoint. You want to play you gotta pay.
Explain to me what you can do with paper that you can't do with Powerpoint, Michael.
ReplyDeleteOther than folding it up to construct a paper airplane, of course.
The PPT is dead easy to understand.
Iraq was known to be a nation built from ethnic and religious fragments, chiefly Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis.
Bearing that in mind, observe the title of the slide ("Achieving Representation"). The slide thus concerns the framework for achieving a unity government. With me so far?
Great.
The framework flows from left to right, following the typical English convention. At the left, the lines enclosing the aforementioned divisions among the people of Iraq narrow as they move left, to graphically illustrate the hoped-for unification.
Still with me? Great.
The "Phase III" activities indicated by the arrows are more concretely represented by the stars within ("stability," "security," and "presence" are the ones I can make out).
Pretty easy so far, eh? Don't worry, the toughest part is already over with.
The arrows marked with text along the outside of the narrowing cone represent the authority structure. In the first section, coalition forces provided the significant authority. In the middle phase, underscored with "Military lead" the actions indicated with stars are accomplished under Centcom,the Joint Task Force (JTF) and Iraqi nationals. There are plenty of stars in this middle section, so I'm not going to list them. Hopefully it wasn't seeing all those stars that confused you.
By the last phase, the civil authorites are expected to take the lead in producing the effects represented by the stars.
The bar running over the cone explains the general idea (conditions for coexistence/decreased violence/conditions for cooperation).
An even easier way to explain it is that the stars are designed to bring the Easter-eggs together.
There. Now you'll stop dodging?