text: Chapter 4
  Planning
  4-1. Planning is the art and science of understanding a situation, envisioning a desired future, and laying
  out effective ways of bringing that future about (ADP 5-0). Planning helps commanders create and
  communicate a common vision between commanders, their staffs, subordinate commanders, and unified
  action partners. Planning results in a plan and orders that synchronize the action of forces in time, space, and
  purpose to achieve objectives and accomplish missions.
  4-2. Commanders, supported by their staffs, ensure IO is fully integrated into the plan, starting with Army
  design methodology (ADM) and progressing through the military decisionmaking process (MDMP). The
  focal point for IO planning is the IO officer (or designated representative for IO). However, the entire staff
  contributes to planning products that describe and depict how IO supports the commander’s intent and
  concept of operations. The staff also contributes to IO planning during IO working group meetings to include
  assessing the effectiveness of IO and refining the plan.
  PLANNING OVERVIEW
  4-3. Planning activities occupy a continuum ranging from conceptual to detailed. Conceptual planning
  involves understanding operational environments and problems, determining the operation’s end state, and
  visualizing an operational approach to attain that end state. Detailed planning translates the commander’s
  operational approach into a complete and practical plan. Generally, detailed planning is associated with the
  science of control including synchronizing forces in time, space, and purpose to accomplish missions.
  4-4. ADM helps commanders and staffs with the conceptual aspects of planning. These aspects include
  understanding, visualizing, and describing operations to include framing the problem and identifying an
  operational approach to solve the problem. The MDMP helps commanders and staffs translate the
  commander’s vision into an operations plan or operations order that synchronizes the actions of the force in
  time, space, and purpose to accomplish missions. Both the problem the commander needs to solve and the
  specific operation to advance towards its solution have significant information-related aspects.
  IO AND ARMY DESIGN METHODOLOGY
  4-5. ADM is a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize, and
  describe unfamiliar problems and approaches to solving them (ADP 5-0). By first framing an operational
  environment and associated problems, ADM enables commanders and staffs to think about the situation in
  depth. From this understanding, commanders and staffs develop a more informed approach to solve or
  manage identified problems. During operations, ADM supports organizational learning through reframing—
  a maturing of understanding that leads to a new perspective on problems or their resolution.
  4-6. Problems typically facing Army forces and unified action partners, within a given area of operations,
  are human-centered. Human problems are driven by human decision making, which can be affected directly
  or indirectly through the use of IRCs, including effects produced by movement and maneuver. Therefore, the
  most essential part of ADM from an IO perspective is framing the current state of the information
  environment to determine key decision makers and the ways by which their decision process can be altered.
  This analysis identifies and creates understanding of decision makers’ beliefs, motivations, grievances,
  biases, and preferred ways of communicating and obtaining information.
  4-7. Framing the current state and desired future state of the information environment are key aspects of
  framing an operational environment and developing an operational approach. The operational approach
  provides a guide for more detailed IO planning, to include determining the effects necessary to bring about