Opinion on Unit Strength

[NIN]

We've had this discussion here once or twice, but I thought I'd update it a little.

Presently, CAPR 20-3 (Charters & Organizational Actions) states that CAP squadrons and flights must have a minimum of 15 members (squadrons) or 8 members (flights), with at least 3 senior members in each instance.

Consider that these numbers have been in use for probably 40 years, before the advent of the Cadet Protection Policy, among other requirements, and when there were many, many more CAP units in existence (not a "unit on every street corner" but surely units were much closer together and generally covered less geographic area and population than units today do).   So are these numbers realistic in today's organizational environment?

What got me to thinking about this is that a unit that I know of has 7 seniors on their books, but only 3 showing up regularly for whatever reason.  Their commander freely admitted that of the other two active seniors, they're never both at the same meeting at the same time.  I actually went to one of this unit's meetings one night, and had I not shown up, there would not have been a second senior member present.  Bad news indeed, when you think about it.

Apart from the CPP implications, what does this do for things like leadership development, unit management, volunteer management and workload?

while we hear frequently "the administrative requirements are too darn high!" (not disagreeing), I also think trying to run a CAP squadron with three people (or 5 people, or even 7 people) is just not realistic, no matter how much the admin requirements might be reduced.   

[Spam]

I've run Groups a couple of times now, and have seen this several times.

Once, I had one subordinate unit which had lost all but the bare minimum (on paper), and which had approx. 2 - 3 cadets and one to two officers showing to weekly meetings. Talk about exposure to risk, let alone lack of leadership training opportunity (who is there to practice leading)?  I tried to visit several times, but twice sat in an empty lot to find out they'd cancelled the meeting because one of the two cadets planning to attend was unable. My phone calls and emails went unreturned, and I heard they'd complained to Wing about me, having never spoken to me once. When I finally made the recommendation to close the unit (partly also based on repeated, utter lack of safety currency, which was mandated at the time, but also for evasiveness and for falsehoods of representation to me), nothing happened. They later flunked an inspection. Nothing happened, and the last I heard of them, they were cycling 2 - 4 new cadets in every year, who hung around one year then quit after encampment, once they'd seen how piss poor their home unit was by comparison.


When a unit falls below "critical mass" for too long, the difficulty of a restart multiplies asymptotically, as you really need to inject existing officers from the outside to break the "failing business as usual" model to snap a string of failure. If Wing or local management resist that needed change, citing the fallacy of Tradition, or equivalent excuses, then the battle is lost. (See Plato: Allegory of the Cave, or if you like, Dr. "Hows That Workin For Ya" Phil).


In my opinion, CAP is just as addicted to force structure as the active duty and Guard/Reserves are (point to: the BRAC wars, the vast swelling growth of field grade and flag rank billets in the past decade, the bloat such as JIEDDO). You'll only rarely, if ever, see a CAP Wing willingly close a marginal unit which might have huge ORM exposure, if only in the ever-unfulfilled hope that this small dysfunctional unit would miraculously heal itself somehow... somehow... somehow...


It takes a rare leader to step back, take a perspective view and listen to inputs from outside his/her blind spot, and then hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats (with a Form 27), but as you point out, the risks of avoiding those steps are huge.


V/R
Spam

[NIN]

Some years ago, when I took over a composite squadron that had.. "issues" (3 active seniors, 12 active cadets), I said to the wing commander "How about we re-designate the unit as a cadet squadron  so I can cut down my manning structure for a bit?"  (the unit was, primarily, a cadet-focused composite squadron anyway).

The wing commander said to me "I don't think the wing is in a position to lose a composite squadron right now..."

Er, what did you mean there, boss?  Its not like we had "thou shalt have x # of composite squadrons and y # of cadet squadrons" requirements.  Changing a cadet focused composite squadron into a cadet squadron is literally the stroke of a pen on a CAPF 27.  (to be fair, this wing commander had only pinned on a Red Service Ribbon a few months after being made wing commander.. to say he didn't know much about CAP was really an understatement)

Took that unit from those numbers to Region Sq of Distinction in 4 years.  It was work, but it was worth it.

At a certain point, however, we started to hit something you hit on Spam: critical mass.  A certain number of members, and I'm not exactly sure what the exact number was, and things started to become more self-sustaining.  I think it happened about the time my deputies and I were able to divest ourselves of doing 3-5 jobs each and start to concentrate on actually running the unit.  That took staffing, training, a lot of mentoring and hand-holding, but ultimately it paid off.

[lordmonar]

Ah....now you are beginning  to go down the road I've always wonder about.

Okay........Unit Strength should be determined by some objective mission driven requirement.


I.e.   Your unit has been assigned an aircraft......you need to have on the books and "actively participating"  10 mission pilots, 10 observers and 10 Scanners/Aerial Photographers. (that's 30 people).   You need to have an least three qualified AOBD (that's 33 people).   That's your base line.  You fill your admin/PD/Logistics/ES etc from either these people or you add to that.

If you had something like that for each and every unit....then you could have a day to day snap shot of where your unit is in readiness and what help you need to get up to snuff.

On the cadet side we do the same thing.   Unit X is in town Y with a target cadet population of 3000.  We want a market penetration of, say 1%, that means we need 30 cadets.   A good senior to cadet ratio is at least 1:5 so that means at least six seniors just to run the cadet program.  Add to that PD/admin/logistics.

Again....it gives us an objective measure of how we are doing and meeting objective mission driven requirements.

The other question we have to ask....is what is the optimal unit size.

I'm a big proponent of that the base line operating unit should be the element of 30-50 people max.  Elements should be specialized to a very narrow aspect of one of CAP's three missions.

So a Air SAR element, a Ground SAR element, a North Town Cadet element and a South Town Cadet Element, a Comm element.   The elements are organized into flights either geographically or functionally.    and the flights all report to a county level Squadron.  One squadron per county.  10 or so counties per group.

Once you get beyond 30-50 people....it starts to become really hard to manage as a volunteer organization.
As you increase in size the overhead work load builds up tremendously.

[Storm Chaser]

Regardless of what the regulation says, if you have 15 members you're operating like a flight, not a squadron. I, for one, would like this number to be revised. But more that changing the number for what constitutes a squadron, I would like to change some of the requirements to what constitute a flight. As it stands today, a flight is not much different than a squadron when it comes to requirements. Considering that many units start out as flights, I think the requirements for a flight should be reduced and delegated to the parent unit. That would allow the flight some breathing room to grow into a proper squadron. I also think that reduced requirements may allow flights to continue operating as such under a squadron, group, or wing, with the parent unit able to meet some of those staffing or functional needs.

[RiverAux]

I don't think that a senior or composite squadron can really function without at least 25-30 senior members.  Cadet squadrons can get by with many fewer senior members, but I think they probably need at least 20 cadets to make it worthwhile. 

[killion1506]

I know, I am new to the current CAP, but I was heavily involved when I was active, and look to do the same again. The squadron I am joining has fluctuated greatly over the years and has about seven cadets that regularly attend meetings and about the same for seniors. From what I understand, there are many more on the roster, they just don't attend. I am looking for ways to get into recruiting and retention methods that work today. The world has changed a lot in the last couple of years, and an organization like CAP is not popular in my area by any means, and I want to find the best routes to start rebuilding as well as motivating cadets to advance in the program. It is a great squadron with amazing members and I want to see them really grow.

[lordmonar]

That is another question that needs to be asked on the cadet side.....how many cadets do you really need to make the program work?

There currently is no minimum number of cadets in a squadron.

You could in theory do the cadet program with a single cadet.

So....the question is.......it that what we really want?  How many cadets do you need to make the program "work" as intended?

And on the other side....how big is too big...that is the logistics and admin get too great to be done efficiently.

[NCRblues]

Another question to add to this.

When is it time to call it quits on a unit?

I know most Group and Wing CC's hate to even think about disbanding a unit, but sometimes it may be the best option.

I have watched a unit over the years slowly bleed out. it once was strong with 25-30 Senior 40-50 Cadets with most active. Over time the unit has descended into 3 active Senior and 4 active Cadets, with 15 total on the roster currently. Recruiting event after recruiting event yields only minimal help for this unit, and those that do sign up only stay a little past level 1/Encampment. IMHO it is time to shutter the unit, as it is on year 5 of this agonizing cycle, but it seems no one even wants to think of this option.

(I also believe that this units supply and logistical property could be better utilized in other units. I.E. the Van, radios ext ext)

How does a Group or Wing CC bite that bullet and make a hard choice? What is the magic number? Or is it a time thing? For instance, 2 years of flat line? 3 years? 5 years?

[Spam]

How about this:

With the collective wisdom here, could we draft a generic "emergency get well plan", to offer to the Wings for such units?  The KISS principle would really need to apply, of course. "Do this, this, and this, with the following ____ assumptions of committed support from Group and Wing, and reevaluate against ____ objective (not subjective) metrics, as expressed by progress checks at 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months".

The first step "as they say" is to admit that the unit has a problem (so, entry criteria to the get well plan needs to be defined). It would be helpful to have an early trigger to the plan BEFORE the unit falls to only 5 people... so, a set of plan initiation triggers might be: "red" metrics in eServices on the dashboard for retention, or yellow for > x months. Additional metrics I've used included test completion rates, average test scores, milestones, safety meeting currency (when that was mandatory, it provided an index of who was truly active).

Next, the unit and Group/Wing must commit that the unit will accept, and the Wing will provide, outside help. That means recruiting volunteers from the IG team and many other specialties who commit to come in as a crisis team to both augment the staff through modeling effective behavior, to help examine the root causes of the admitted problem, to set realistic and S/M/A/R/T goals, and to assist the local folks to recruit new help against realistic goals. I'm not proposing a cast of thousands, just perhaps a team of four volunteers.

Signing such a get well plan could seal a commitment to fixing the situation - just as an employee with a problem commits to a get well corrective action plan in a paid position. If the unit refuses help, or the support falls through, regardless of finger pointing, the unit should be shuttered if it fails to meet the agreed upon, realistic, ORM based goals.

Any thoughts? Pipe dream?


On the end strength question Lordmonar raises (good point):
Strongly concur that end strength goals need to be set based on desired mission performance. If the unit has an aircraft, it needs for example to meet a minimum of 200 hours annually on the aircraft; therefore, a per pilot average could be determined from existing records to help size the optimum and minimum pilot goals. A remote unit with a small number of guys flying wont meet the requirement, so the unit will (SHOULD!) lose the aircraft.

The same sort of analysis for cadet recruiting targets could be done not with percentages of population, but from expected outcomes:  with cadet progress expectations, use existing, observed ratios of Mitchell and Wright completions to set a total strength goal aimed at producing a minimum of at least 1 Mitchell every year, within 2 years from start. That, to me, would be a minimal healthy level (ratio of cadet officers to C/NCOs to total head count). This is basically a TLC case study problem...

V/R
Spam

[NIN]

I think thats certainly a given

Many units that are "unwell" (to borrow a term) aren't given a course to "get well."

Its like leadership counseling: ""OK, we've identified this issue. here's what you need to do to fix it."

Units that are failing/not meeting the grade need to be identified and "put on a plan" to subsequently meet the minimum standards.

So every year, say, during Charter Review, a wing commander/group commander should be casting a critical eye on his or her units and their heath, and saying "OK, what unit needs the most help?"

If a unit is identified as "needing assistance," then the unit (and the commander) need to be put on notice that they are failing to meet the grade in this area, and heres what they need to do in the next 6 months, 8 months, 12 months... Or else this happens...

[Eclipse]

The reality is that it is impossible to run a squadron "properly" and to the expectations of the brochures, with the charter minimums,
probably impossible even at a factor of two.

Anyone dual-hatted (or worse), is now doing a full-time job at 1/2 speed (or less).  The three major directorates AE, ES, and CP are all full-time CAP
jobs, as is Commander, the CDs, and most of the primary staff roles.  That's 6-10 senior members right there.

"but we don't have enough work for those people to only have one job"

That's because you don't have enough people, or a plan, or a program, or are not doing personnel development.  CAP has gotten so used to running
below minimums that it seems "normal" for members in a squadron to have 12 hats.  The other reason for this is NHQ continuing to
push unfunded mandates of required roles where there is no person, or perhaps need to fill that job.

A few years ago NHQ decided CAP's issue was not enough PR.  Did it launch a national marketing campaign with canned resources for
local use?  No.  It mandated a PAO be appointed at every unit.  In many cases that just became another hat for the CC to get past the SUI.
Result - zero to negative effect.

On the cadet side, it's a similar, more pressing issue do the perishable nature of cadets.  For the proper experience as a cadet, you
first need other cadets to follow, then you need cadets to work with (peers), and finally cadets to lead.

Units at charter minimums can't offer this, so you wind up with 4-year cadet CC's, or Flight Sgts who are wearing one stripe, etc.  Or, the
occasional random recruiting success or large family brings in a group of cadets all at the same level who move up (and out) together, with no
models for their performance, nor anyone to model for.

Broken on both sides.

Getting back to the seniors, you also need a pool of "members" - pilots, ground resources, base staff people, and general ad hoc resources
who are either the wrench turners or FNGs who are working towards become a useful resource.

A new CAP member is pretty much useless for the first 3 months, and barely a resource in the first 6, by the first year they should be
up to speed enough to be looking at a staff job or assistant role, if they are interested.  Yet we bring people in with wet ID cards
and announce how they are going to "save the ES program" before they know what those letters stand for, provide no mentoring,
and are shocked when they bolt in 2 quarters.

The fix for this is to re-assign strong, graduated commanders with a track record of success to struggling units as "commodores"
for the sitting CC with a limited time to adjust attitudes and mentor the unit's leadership.  This is a function the Group CC's were intended
to fill, and is abdicated in many cases to the determent of the whole.

The tools to identify the problem already exist, things like QCUA and the SUI are treated with disdain, because they have been improperly
utilized as "final exams" instead of "snapshots".  A unit should be able to be called on a meeting night for a quick SUI, have it done in an
hour, and everyone moves on with life.  Instead they are 8-hour root canals with documents post-dated the night before, and the the discrepancies
are ignored until the last day, because again, no one actually cares. And the reason they don't care, is that the manpower to care evaporated
ten years ago.

I would say that to function properly, a unit needs at least 50 members, 50/50 cadets to seniors (not empty shirts, active members), with most coming to
most activities, and the cadets being an evolutionary group that is progressing on both ends.

[Storm Chaser]

I was deputy commander in a fairly successful composite squadron, quite active in all three CAP missions. We had about 100 members (60 seniors and 40 cadets), where maybe 2/3 of the members were truly active. That's still a significant number compared to the typical CAP squadron.

We were able to satisfactorily meet all requirements, participate in all missions, run most programs, submit all reports on time, score highly successful in SUIs, and be self sufficient in ES (meaning we had most specialties covered and personnel available), and many members were rewarded with wing officer of the year awards, meritorious services awards, commander commendations, etc. But even then, we still had many members who were dual (or, triple, quadruple, etc.) hatted. Even with the additional personnel (not counting empty shirts), we still faced many similar staffing challenges to other squadrons with less personnel.

I just don't see how a unit can fully participate in all CAP missions, run all programs, and meet all requirements with less that 50 members. I guess it's not impossible (I'm sure there are plenty of successful units out there), but it's certainly challenging.

[Holding Pattern]

I'm trying to imagine a squadron of 3 cadets and 2 SMs. The only thing I can think of them doing is basic D&C along with basic AEX. The 2 SMs would be there for mentoring, cadet protection, and recruiting. The only plan the squadron that size should have would be to double in size every month with a goal of hitting 12 cadets/8 senior members. If they can't make that happen, then it is time for a deactivation.

At that squadron size (3 and 2) admin work isn't the problem. A strong recruiting initiative is ardently necessary at that point. If 90-120 days go by and you still have 3 and 2, stick a fork in it, it's done.

[Garibaldi]

I'm trying to imagine a squadron of 3 cadets and 2 SMs. The only thing I can think of them doing is basic D&C along with basic AEX. The 2 SMs would be there for mentoring, cadet protection, and recruiting. The only plan the squadron that size should have would be to double in size every month with a goal of hitting 12 cadets/8 senior members. If they can't make that happen, then it is time for a deactivation.

At that squadron size (3 and 2) admin work isn't the problem. A strong recruiting initiative is ardently necessary at that point. If 90-120 days go by and you still have 3 and 2, stick a fork in it, it's done.

There's a little more to the story, IIRC. The unit, from what I heard, was a colossal FAIL across the board, but still was allowed to be active. Spam obviously has the whole story, if he wants to relate it.

[Eclipse]

Another issue, which calls to manpower / strength is where units are.

Wings aren't doing demographic studies and interest surveys, units are either...

     Where they have always been (for good or bad, usually because of some specific resource like an airport, military base, etc.)

     Where the CC lives.

     Where they can randomly find the first place to meet.

Units trying to meet in the downtown areas of major cites fall victim to commuter problems in that "no one lives here after 5"

Rural areas have driving distance issues.

Being on a military base seems like a "great idea", but can actually be a detriment, because you can't run open houses,
the local population is both transient and many times "not interested in being in uniform on my off time" and / or the kids have had "enough of the military".

Units should be seeded / moved to areas with demographics that support membership, especially if they are withering, that takes strategic planning
on a scale few wings / regions engage in, and the fortitude to enact 3-4 year plans.

Having a place to meet without limitations is critical to growing a unit.  I know mine could not sustain the numbers NIN is showing in our current meeting
location - even PT is starting to be an issue due to our size.

There was a brick-and-mortar initiative about 6 years ago, whatever happened to that?

[Spaceman3750]

Another issue, which calls to manpower / strength is where units are.

Wings aren't doing demographic studies and interest surveys, units are either...

     Where they have always been (for good or bad, usually because of some specific resource like an airport, military base, etc.)

     Where the CC lives.

     Where they can randomly find the first place to meet.

Units trying to meet in the downtown areas of major cites fall victim to commuter problems in that "no one lives here after 5"

Rural areas have driving distance issues.

Being on a military base seems like a "great idea", but can actually be a detriment, because you can't run open houses,
the local population is both transient and many times "not interested in being in uniform on my off time" and / or the kids have had "enough of the military".

Units should be seeded / moved to areas with demographics that support membership, especially if they are withering, that takes strategic planning
on a scale few wings / regions engage in, and the fortitude to enact 3-4 year plans.

Having a place to meet without limitations is critical to growing a unit.  I know mine could not sustain the numbers NIN is showing in our current meeting
location - even PT is starting to be an issue due to our size.

There was a brick-and-mortar initiative about 6 years ago, whatever happened to that?

At least from what I've seen myself, running a meaningful program and successfully engaging with the community seem to be a bigger issue than area demographics. Most communities over 50k can probably support a CAP squadron just fine, it comes down to actually executing a program worth joining.

And as for meeting place issues, all I can say is something along the lines of what I said on a phone call last week - "It's amazing that CAP even exists on the community level. Nationally, we do lots of awesome things and are well funded in many areas, but when it comes to simply finding a roof to put over your squadron, you're completely at the mercy of the benevolence of building owners in the area, plus dumb luck."

[lordmonar]

I get what Eclipse is say......that unit location should be determine by population.

I kind of agree with that to a point.

My basic idea would that each and every county in your state would have a CAP unit assigned to it. (let's call it a squadron).

What that squadron is actually tasked to do is based upon need of the overall WING OPLAN.
Not every squadron is going to need to do Air OPS or Ground OPS.  Some squadrons may have to have 300 cadets, and some may only need 30 based on student population.   Not every squadron needs to full on ES operations and training.   Some squadrons existance is just to have a presence at the county level ES meetings and to make contacts with the local airport to keep and maintain plans if CAP ever needs to deploy out of the local air port.

Some squadrons with an Aircraft will have to do the same thing...but also keep 30 aircrew members on staff and flying regularly (like every month).  They will have to train and keep trained mission base staff.

Now....what unit gets those taskings will most certainly be driven by population size.  But the end goal would be for CAP to have a "squadron" in each and every county doing the three missions of CAP.   Some of those squadrons will be just 30-40 guys in a single unit.  Some of those squadrons will be 300-400 guys in several units doing specialized tasks.

The point being.....we know at the wing level of where and how big units should be....before we stand them up.   We can get effective snap shots on a day to day/Month to month basis and we can see well in advance before a unit gets sick and send in help to get it well.

[Eclipse]

"One per county." Put that on a t-shirt, seriously.

That is an excellent idea. My wing would more then triple with 102 units, and even if you could only
hit that mark by 50% it would still more then double.

Some counties are huge, buy 1PC is a great place to start.

[lordmonar]

"One per county." Put that on a t-shirt, seriously.

That is an excellent idea. My wing would more then triple with 102 units, and even if you could only
hit that mark by 50% it would still more then double.

Some counties are huge, buy 1PC is a great place to start.

That was my basic idea.
Some small counties would just be the one squadron much like we got today.  20 or so cadets and 20 adult members doing the mission on a small scale.

Some squadrons would have multiple flights with multiple elements of 20-40 members doing specific tasks (cadet program, comm, Air Ops, GSAR, AE, etc).

One squadron per county is a goal.  It is measurable.  It is reasonable (assuming you scale their missions).
It clearly identifies lines of responsibilities (i.e. in a county with multiple squadrons who's job is it to meet with the county ES guys to coordinate missions and make MOUs?).