Planning Section Chief

[JohnKachenmeister]

I have just recently qualified as a Ground Branch Director (pause for the cheers of the crowd to fade) and I started looking at the next level of requirements.

It looks like the next higher step is something called "Planning Section Chief" followed by "Operations Section Chief" before I can start training for "Incident Commander."

I hate to sound like a boot here, because I've been on a LOT of missions.  But I've never been on a mission with all those chiefs.  Normally we're lucky to get enough indians.  Am I reading these SQTR's correctly? 

Normally, the IC has an Air and a Ground branch director, and once in a while an intelligence officer.  How do I get experience as a Planning or Operations section chief trainee, and where do I find a chief to train me?

This NIIMS stuff is really annoying!

[isuhawkeye]

O Man....


Planning Section is the pace to be. 

I used to be in your shoes.  I never though planning did anything, and I couldn't understand its role.  That was of course until I went out on my first large scale mission.  I had the opportunity to have gentlemen named Paul Burke as a mentor.  Paul was a retired Alaska state trooper with thousands of really big missions under his belt. 

Paul showed me that the planning chief is the brains of the mission.  The planner gathers all of the information forom the debriefings.  He and his staff determine where teams go, what they do, and who will be playing tomorrow. 

The Ops chief looks at what is happening now, while the planning chief looks at what will happen next.  This guy looks at the map, and reeds the situation.  He weighs what has been done with what should be done next, and he writes the assignments for the crews. 

A good planning chief will walk into the second Operational period with three different plans of attack.  He/she  will have sorties and assignments ready to go to meet the needs of this plan. 

As the day unfolds the planner will send assignments to the Ops chief for implementation. 

In a well oiled mission this guy is the one who puts the puzzle together.  He thinks hard, and uses his resources to determine what the next move is. 


If you hadn't guessed I really enjoy the Planning role. 

Now remember.  A simple ELT search doesn't get a planning chief, and if the mission is small enough the position is never activated, but in MY wing.  We get deployed on approximately 6-7 large scale multi day operations, and manage upwards of 200-300 personnel. 

Lots of fun!!!!


Come visit Iowa.  Ill train you, and put you to work.

[RiverAux]

I have started to see the Planning Section Chief position used more lately though I don't really think everyone really has a handle on its purpose since it is still fairly new to CAP. 

[Tubacap]

Ironically enough, I was just looking at this very same topic today!  I am a newly minted AOBD, and on small scale missions, I have never seen it.  I have however been involved at the mission base level on several large scale missions where it was used.  I am definitely excited to be starting this level of training because it is definitely the "Brains" of the operation!

[isuhawkeye]

As Iowa has developed we found that our Ops Chiefs were actually doing the job of the planning section.  Once you separate those positions (on larger missions) everything functions much smoother.

[Tubacap]

I second that notion!  I think it's all about using ICS to your advantage in knowing when to call reinforcements and split positions.  In the ICS world, even under the AOBD, there are tons of sub-positions to deal with anything that would come up on a mission.

[JohnKachenmeister]

I read the ICS stuff on it.  The Planning Section Chief does a lot of what the G-2 or S-2 would do on a military staff.  I've just never been on a mission big enough to use it.  That's really all ICS is, a bastardization of the concept of a military staff, with names changed to make it comfortable for those folks from the 60's who burned their draft cards.  The functions are all the same, just new terminology.

[RiverAux]

That's really all ICS is, a bastardization improvement of the concept of a military staff

[ZigZag911]

ICS system is designed so it expands as the mission requirements increase.

On your typical ELT mission that the IC runs from his den, the IC is the OSC/PSC/FASC/LSC/CUL/MSO  (ops, planning, finance-admin, logistics, comm & safety)....plus 'butcher, baker and candle stick maker')

However: once we go into a group or wing level SAREX, SAREVAL, REDCAP, or multi-day disaster relief mission, essentially Ops Section Chief is "tactical" ("What do we do now?"), while Planning Section Chief is "strategic" ("Based on what air & ground teams have done, and the information we've fathered, what do we do next")

For a large mission, if you have the personnel available, you want a true planning section, which at minimum ought to consist of the section chief, an experienced aircrew member (a spare AOBD or mission pilot, ideally) and a first rate ground pounder (GBD/GTL, preferably).

If one or more of these individuals knows the operational area well, that's an added bonus....otherwise, see if you can latch on to someone awaiting assignment who does.

PSC feeds ideas to IC; once IC makes a decision which way to go, OSC sees that the plans are executed.

[isuhawkeye]

Great inputs. 

I hope it answers John's concerns. 

Lets try to keep this thread focused on the planning section.  I would hate this discussion to spiral out of control

[arajca]

At the risk derailing this discussion, I strongly advise taking the Inland SAR Course as soon as you can. You'll learn a great deal from that course about planning. BTDT. Also, take ICS 300 and 400. 300 is geared toward planning and you'll learn alot about ICS forms - whether you like it or not.

Since PSC's aren't used that much in CAP, you can help maintain your skills by helping with or doing long-range planning for your unit.

[JohnKachenmeister]

I don't think I'm going to have any problems with this, I was an S-2 for an Engineer battalion for a while, and I was S-2 in a Military Police brigade as well.  The S-2 is responsible for a lot of the planning, and for developing information on both threat forces and weather that may effect the mission.  In the engineer battalion, he has the additional duty of developing information on local engineer resources that can be foraged: soil for fill, timber, etc.  My only problem is that we seldom have missions or exercises of the scope necessary to establish planning or operations sections.  Like I said, the chain usually is IC - GBD/ABD - Worker bees.

I've reviewed the NIIMS planning form.  The military 5-paragraph order is a little easier to work with, but the same information is there.  RiverAux may consider it an improvement over the military, but I don't.  The military staffing model has worked for a couple of hundred years.  All NIIMS really does is take the military staffing model and change the terminology.  There is a slight shifting of some responsibility, but not much.

[floridacyclist]

When ICS was developed, they went to a lot of places looking for ideas on how to organize it. They looked at business, the military, existing emergency management etc and took only what they thought would work best from each, what folks these days like to call "Best Practices".

You will recognize some aspects of each management system in bits and pieces through ICS, but at the same time it will seem like a bastardization because it is; the developers purposely changed enough of each idea that they stole so that the end result didn't really resemble anything and thus nobody could claim that ICS was based on their system.

Maj McCord asked me to put together an ICS training class for September that you might find interesting.

It will be at the Florida Fire College in Ocala the 2nd weekend of September (7-9). The instructors will be Lee Newsome, the owner of Emergency Response Educators (a professional emergency management education company - www.erecinc.com - he is donating the class to us as a tax write-off) and Capt Mike Hilliard, the Lake/Sumter Co EMS trainer, who will be teaching 100/200/700. I will be an asst instructor for the 300 course. Food, books, and dorm lodging is included in the total cost of $45.00 for the weekend.

Two courses are being taught - ICS100/200 and NIMS IS700 is being taught in the basic course, and ICS300 is being taught for the advanced students. Cadets are encouraged to participate - my 15yo has taken all the classes and will be in the 300 course. He's actually excited about how this will help make him more useful around a mission base - strong words from the Hawk Mountain Staff Honor Cadet. The idea is that all the old <noxious gases with a raspberry sound> can load their vans full of young <noxious gases with a raspberry sound> and go to the courses side-by-side.

Go to http://www.tallahasseecap.org/ICS for details, or just go to the Tallahassee homepage and click on ICS Training if you're not in a position to look it up now. If you click on register, it will take you to a form to fill out and then a link to pay the $20.00 deposit online.

[sardak]

Here's my perspective, as the PSC on our county Type 3 Incident Management Team, a GIS specialist (part of the plans function) on a federal Type 3 team, having assisted a federal Type 2 team in the plans section on a large missing person search and been an agency rep on an incident managed by federal Type 1 teams.  In that function I attended lots of meetings which all involved the plans section. None of these activities are/have been as a CAP member, though my CAP and non-CAP SAR background has been useful.  Among the classes I've taken are the NASAR Plans Section Chief and Incident Commander courses.

Yes, ICS is based on the military structure and was developed by the wildland fire community in the 1970s.  The names were changed way back at the start to better reflect the functions for civilians.

Many CAP members can go through their ES career without being on an actual mission that requires expanding the ICS structure to the level of having section chiefs.  Where the full structure is used most often is on SAREXs and currently USAF expects the full structure on evaluated ones.  However, the time frame on SAREXs is so compressed that functions don't really get to perform their jobs.

As mentioned, the PSC is the strategy person, thinking at least one operational period ahead.  But the plans section also has the situation, resource and documentation units, as well as assembles the IAP.  Even with a staff to help with these, the PSC can be the busiest person on staff.

Under the original ICS and two-eyed NIIMS, intel was not a specific function or position, but was generally considered part of plans.  In the current one-eyed NIMS, intel is a specific function, which can be placed anywhere in the ICS structure.  Cops like to make it a separate function at the command or general staff level.  Most everyone else seems to put it under plans, adding to that workload.

The perfect world division of duties between ops and plans is like this, which doesn't agree with the CAP model. 

- Ops determines tactics to meet incident objectives
- Ops selects the kind and type of resources to perform a particular task, i.e. ops determines work assignments and resource requirements
- Plans selects the specific resource to meet ops needs and orders additional resources (through logistics) as needed
- Plans prepares the Division Assignment Form 204 (104 and 109 in CAP)
- Ops briefs the resources
- Ops manages the tactics
- Ops manages and monitors the assigned resources
- Plans debriefs the resources
- Plans updates the situation status based on input from ops, field reports and debriefings

Plans and ops work out the resource needs at the pre-planning or tactics meeting.  The IC has no need to be involved in this process.  Ops presents the tactical plan at the planning meeting where the other functions are asked for "buy-in" to the plan.  Plans then prepares the assignment sheets for the next period.  Remember, except for situation status, and gathering intel if assigned, plans' activities are for the next operational period.  This is why on a short duration incident there will not be a plans section, but will be an ops section, since it deals with the current situation.

This is the full up version of the plans function, which is rarely needed.  However, knowing what the plans section does on a large incident helps focus the plans function on smaller incidents.

John, when you say you reviewed the "NIIMS planning form", do you mean the 201?

Mike

[JohnKachenmeister]

That's it... the 201.

I'm a LOT more accustomed to the "Situation/Mission/Execution/Service-Support/Command and Signal" plan, but I can learn to use the civilian one.

I'm also a lot more accustomed to the OPS guy doing both planning and operations functions, with input from intel, log, and pers.  The G-3/S-3 is sort of the center of the battle staff, and writes the "Execution" portion of the plan.

[Dragoon]

The biggest thing an Army guy has to learn about ICS are the differences

1.  For some unknown reason, the plans guy is the one ordering resources.  So he's kind of the S2, the S3 Plans and S1 (for mobilization).

2.  For some other unknown reason, Comms is under logistics, instead of working for the S3.

I got no answer as to why they set stuff up this way.  I just work here.

[Dustoff]

My short take on ICS 300/Planning Section Chief goes like this:

In the ICS 700/100/200 classes you learn how to function in ICS when you get invited to somebody else's party

In ICS 300 you learn how to make ICS function for you when you are the one giving the party!

Now to answer the questions:

The biggest thing an Army guy has to learn about ICS are the differences

1.  For some unknown reason, the plans guy is the one ordering resources.  So he's kind of the S2, the S3 Plans and S1 (for mobilization).

2.  For some other unknown reason, Comms is under logistics, instead of working for the S3.

I got no answer as to why they set stuff up this way.  I just work here.

1)  The Planning Section Chief (PSC) is the one that puts together the plan to accomplish the Incident Objectives, as determined by the Incident Commander/Unified Command.  The PSC looks at the objectives and develops strategies and tactics to accomplish those objectives based upon the resources that are available.  If the needed number of resources are available, then press on with the plan.  If not, then the PSC contacts Logistics to make up the shortfall.  If Logistics can't get those resources, then the PSC has to go to plan B (or C, D, etc)   The Logistics Section Chief (LSC) is the one who is responsible for getting stuff, and taking care of the stuff after it arrives.

"So Planning contacts Logistics and says that we need 27 boxes of Blue Widgets to accomplish our objectives in the next operational period.  We have only 5 on hand, can we get the other 22?  And they have to be the blue ones, the green ones won't do."

And don't forget that the Finance/Admin Section Chief has to PAY for those 22 boxes.  That's a whole 'nother subject.

2)  Comm is considered a Logistics function.  Their job is to obtain, set-up, and maintain all the comm hardware.  They don't do the actual communicating, they just develop and maintain the infrastructure.  That includes radios (of many different colors/flavors/varsities) along with the IT infrastructure (semaphore/smoke signals also included).

The actual communicating is done by the folk who actually need to talk.  Lots of operations stuff.  Very few RTO's here, usually only seen at at bigger incidents at the IC level (because the IC has much better things to do than talk on a radio).  Just give him/her the data and let them make the decisions.

Hope this helps.

Jim
Disaster Preparedness/ICS Instructor

[Dragoon]

I'm fine with Comms under log if it means "Comms Logistics Officer."  But CAPs implementation, frankly, sucks.  The Comms guys are trained to run the radios, not hand our radios.  As a matter of fact, I don't think there's a single task under CUL concerned with distributing and accounting for gear.  The CUL tasks are all about running a Comms room.

I believe operating nets is an Ops, not Log/CUL function.  But ICS doctrine doesn't spend a lot of time emphasizing this, so CAP Comms guys have the wrong idea.  And, indeed, so does the CAP-USAF evaluation guide...


The Plans guy getting assets seems like a distraction from the primary task of making a plan.   Expecially if you actually have to call up folks, handle Demob, etc.  Seems to make more sense to keep the Plans guy focused on what the situation is, what's it's likely to be tomorrow, and what needs to be done.  Identifiying "we need 3 more aircrews" is fine - actually FINDING those crews seems to be a distraction to the planning functions.  Again, this may be a CAP implementation, but I've yet to find ICS doctrine that pins the "make the phone calls" function on anyone else.

[arajca]

The Planning section determines the resources needed and turns the list over to the Logistics section who gets the reources. So, Planning determines they need 3 more a/c and crews for the mission. They pass that to Logistics, who starts calling to get the resources. Now, if the PSC knows were the resources are avaialble from, he may attach a note to make the Logistics search easier, but the PSC shouold not be getting the resources.

The problem with Comm is no one really does a comm mission. Yes, comm is used in every part of an incident, but comm is not THE incident. ICS puts comm in a support role, similar to Food Service, Vehicle Maint, etc, because comm supports the everyone. For the most part, comm will base. A relatively new compnent in ICS is the Incident Dispatch, which, while still a part of comm and Log, moves the actual communicating to a separate function. Which is similar to what CAP does.

Logistics is a catch-all for every support/service activity on an incident. It is almost as unappreciated in CAP as Fin/Admin.

Operations is primarily the front line troops. They're the ones in the field loking for whatever. Comm is not a front line operation.

[sardak]

Identifiying "we need 3 more aircrews" is fine - actually FINDING those crews seems to be a distraction to the planning functions.  Again, this may be a CAP implementation, but I've yet to find ICS doctrine that pins the "make the phone calls" function on anyone else.

Andrew is correct.  Plans identifies resource needs and logistics orders them.

This is taken directly from ICS documentation.
"The Supply Unit is responsible for ordering, receiving, processing, and storing all incident-related resources. All off-incident resources will be ordered through the Supply Unit, including:
Tactical and support resources (including personnel)."

Now, the response will be, "A Supply Unit! We don't have enough people to crew the aircraft..."  True in most cases, but someone has to order resources.  It shouldn't be the PSC though, because as mentioned, making phone calls to find resources takes the PSC away from planning.

This is from the SOG for a federal IMT.
"The Planning Section's objective is collecting, evaluating, documenting, and disseminating information about the incident and the status of resources. This information is essential to: 1) understand the current situation, 2) predict the probable course of incident events, 3) prepare alternative strategies and tactical operations, 4) provide appropriate fiscal and logistical support, 5) accurately inform the public, and 6) document the incident. If the Planning Section fails, the whole team fails."

On to comm

I'm fine with Comms under log if it means "Comms Logistics Officer."  But CAPs implementation, frankly, sucks.  The Comms guys are trained to run the radios, not hand our radios.  As a matter of fact, I don't think there's a single task under CUL concerned with distributing and accounting for gear.  The CUL tasks are all about running a Comms room.

I believe operating nets is an Ops, not Log/CUL function.  But ICS doctrine doesn't spend a lot of time emphasizing this, so CAP Comms guys have the wrong idea.  And, indeed, so does the CAP-USAF evaluation guide...

A relatively new compnent in ICS is the Incident Dispatch, which, while still a part of comm and Log, moves the actual communicating to a separate function.

Again, direct from ICS documentation:
"The Communications Unit is responsible for developing plans for the use of incident communications equipment and facilities; installing and testing of communications equipment; supervision of the Incident Communications Center; and the distribution and maintenance of communications equipment.
Communications planning is particularly important in ICS, where an incident may grow to include numerous agencies. Determining required radio nets, establishing interagency frequency assignments, and ensuring maximum use of communications capability is essential.
If an Incident Communications Center is established, an Incident Dispatcher is responsible for receiving and transmitting radio, telephone, FAX, and computer messages, and for providing incident dispatch services." 

This part about Incident Dispatcher dates back to before 1994 , so I'd say its older than "relatively new." Other ICS identified positions within the communications section: radio operator, incident communications center manager, comm tech and comm unit leader.

I could go on an on.  CAP simply took its way of doing business and threw ICS titles and organization at it, but without really adopting what's behind the org chart.  Unfortunately, CAP-USAF pamphlet 12 reflects this, and is how CAP is evaluated.  But that's already another thread.

Mike