The key to OPD’s [Operations Division’s] success was its streamlined staff procedure, which emphasized delegating authority to make recommendations or take action to the lowest possible level. Personal conferences by designated action officers, often junior staff members, with responsible officials of other agencies possessing needed information, replaced written concurrences submitted through formal staff channels.
The belabored decisions reached by traditional staff procedures would have come too late to have any effect, and a wrong decision based on hasty research was considered better than a tardy one based on more thorough study. Special requests for action from General Marshall required a reply within twenty-four hours and were known as Green Hornets from their readily identifiable cover and the consequences of delaying action too long.
That was from James E. Hewes Jr’s excellent work, From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration.
In 1942, Chief of Staff Marshall reformed the Army by raising his office and creating three new commands. All combat units were grouped into either the Army Ground Forces or Army Air Forces, and the various technical services were consolidated into the Army Service Forces.
In order to coordinate the three commands with respect to resource allocation and operational planning, Marshall created the Operations Division (OPD). However, because each command had its own staff better suited to the tasks, the OPD became displaced. The OPD focused on monitoring theater planning and making those decisions which bubbled up to the top.
Notice how Marshall delegated a lot of authority, and when special action was required, he gave it within 24 hours. This kind of military staff planning — streamlined with an avoidance of micromanagement — was rebuked after the war by the Patch Board. It found that military staffs must take greater authority to coordinate all the disparate parts. That took more time and overhead, but downstream benefits were expected to accumulate.
This “active view” of staff planning, where there is a single strong administrator with a large staff, was pushed by many in the Army, and was also championed by Herbert Hoover. In 1953, the Secretary of Defense had a large number of “functional” Assistant Secretaries to control the services, leaving the Service Secretaries with far less power. The trend continued in 1958, and by 1961, Robert McNamara completed the most complete version of military staff planning — almost utopian in its metaphysics.
For more on the Operations Division, read Ray Cline’s classic, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division.
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