Reply to the following:
In choosing a particular project, there is a lot of financial planning that must take place. In the Marine Corps, we also use a planning process in developing plans for appropriate action. This process consists of six parts: problem framing, the course of action development, the course of action war-gaming, the course of action comparison / decision, orders development and transitioning.
- During the problem framing stage, it is determined exactly what the problem is by gathering all required intelligence on the issue at hand and why it occurred.
- Next, it is on to course of action (COA) development, where a "think tank" comes up with an array of plans to solve the problem.
- After that, the team "war games" or experiments with the COA's, to determine the pros and cons of each.
- When complete, all findings are brought to the table and feasible solutions are discussed, thus resulting in COA revision/decision.
- Orders for the ways ahead are then established for the accomplishment of the objective and issued to the right personnel for the job.
- Lastly, during the transition phase members of the unit assigned the task to begin to prepare for the mission.
We can equate this process to a project manager's decision-making practice, in that there is a lot of information that is gathered and framed, planned, experimented with, compared, revised/decided upon, drafted and executed.
References:
MCWP 5-1, Marine Corps Planning Process retrieved from:
https://www.mca-marines.org/files/MCWP%205-1%20MCPP.pdf
Ross, S. Westerfield, R. and Jordan, B. (2013) Fundamentals of Corporate Finance standard edition 10th edition. McGraw-Hill/Irwin