Training Management and Troop Leading
The eight-step training model
Plan the training; train and certify the trainers; recon the site; issue the plan; rehearse; execute; evaluate; retrain. Commanders own training; NCOs plan, resource, and execute it. Training is described by task, condition, and standard, and is evaluated against that standard - not against the clock or against whatever time was left in the schedule.
Troop-leading procedures
The eight steps: receive the mission, issue the warning order, make a tentative plan, initiate movement, conduct reconnaissance, complete the plan, issue the OPORD, and supervise and refine. TLPs are how a leader moves from a mission to a plan. Be ready to say where your own reconnaissance fits and what you changed because of it.
Evaluation
An after-action review is not a critique. It answers four questions: what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, why the difference, and what will we do differently. AARs are leader-led discussions, not report cards, and they feed the retrain step.
Traps
- Mixing the eight-step training model with the eight troop-leading procedures.
- Believing the mission essential task list is written at squad level - it belongs to the commander.
- Treating a published training schedule as evidence that training happened.
Rule of thumb
Plan backwards from the standard: define what the Soldier must do and under what conditions, then justify every resource and minute against that standard.