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James,

I was looking at your War College photos at the WG.

Although I have never done a staff exercise as described, none the less, the photos immediately left me with a touch of sadness for not being there. I mean what software engineer could resist charts hanging on a wall, rows of colored markers, and post-it notes all over the place. About the only piece of my professional culture missing was a white board.

So, does it work the same way in military planning as it does in software engineering? Meaning if you make enough notations, complex drawings, and use some big terms ... can you hide the fact that you don't have a plan and that the situation has gotten completely out of control? From there, of course, any one who really understands the coming disaster does his or her best to get transferred before the proverbial s**t hits the fan.

Dave, looks pretty focused there. I almost mistook his cell phone for a side arm. Everyone should attend conferences with side arms ... it would encourage less disagreement during the Q&A.

http://www.wargamer.com/article/2901/origins-2010-day-1

Actually, we *had* a whiteboard -- Brant brought this really nifty whiteboard that's highly flexible & has a stickynote glue on the back, so you can slap it up just about anywhere. It got a *lot* of use!

And while you can hide the fact that there's no plan, in both cases, reality eventually gets a veto. [:)]

Hey, check out this really interesting shot of Dave's eyes.

http://www.wargamer.com/files/articles/ ... 081750.JPG

So, did you film the panel discussion?

Argh -- no, we did not film it.

Dave was pretty shattered at that point; due to some bad weather, he had an awful trip from Leavenworth to Columbus, complete with a 24-hour layover and very little sleep. He got in from that, went through another 8 hours or so of staff exercises, got not-enough-sleep, and gamely got stuck into testing a strategic counterinsurgency game as seen above.