Results for planning

Planning and Orders Production

FM 5-0 is the Army's reference for planning: the military decision-making process, troop leading procedures, Army design methodology, and the formats for plans and orders. If you have ever needed the five-paragraph OPORD format at midnight, this is the book. The November 2024 edition supersedes the 16 May 2022 version and the posted file incorporates change 1, dated August 2025.

Commander and Staff Organization and Operations

FM 6-0 is how a staff is organized and how it actually runs: staff sections and their duties, running estimates, briefings, rehearsals, and command post operations. When the 2022 edition was published, the planning material moved out to FM 5-0. Use the two together.

Sustainment Operations

FM 4-0 is the Army's manual for planning and executing sustainment operations at echelon. It carries the detail behind ADP 4-0: how sustainment units are organized, how support is planned, and how the force is sustained through large-scale combat. The March 2026 edition is one of the newest publications in the Army's doctrine library.

The Army Safety and Occupational Health Program

AR 385-10 establishes the Army safety and occupational health program and assigns the responsibilities that go with it. It requires risk management to be applied to operations and everyday tasks and sets the framework for accident reporting and investigation. Commanders own safety; the safety officer advises.

The Operations Process

ADP 5-0 is the doctrine for how units plan, prepare, execute, and assess operations, and what commanders and staffs each owe that process. It is short, and almost every staff argument you will have traces back to it. FM 5-0 carries the detailed procedures.

Training

FM 7-0 is the unit training management manual: how leaders plan, prepare, execute, and assess training and how they report proficiency. The June 2021 edition re-established the training management cycle as the framework and supersedes the October 2016 version. It is the working companion to ADP 7-0.

Building and briefing a training schedule

What has to be on a training schedule, who approves it, and what it means once it is published and locked.

The company training meeting

The weekly meeting where planned training becomes resourced, executable training, who attends, and what actually gets decided.

The military decision-making process

Seven steps that turn a mission from higher into an approved plan and an order, plus what each step is supposed to produce.

The operations process

Plan, prepare, execute, and assess. Four activities that overlap continuously, plus the six things a commander personally does throughout all of them.

The training management cycle and the unit training plan

How a unit gets from a mission-essential task list to a training schedule, the three planning horizons, and what a unit training plan actually commits the commander to.

Troop leading procedures and how they differ from MDMP

The eight troop leading procedures, which of them run in parallel rather than in order, and why a company or platoon uses them instead of MDMP.

WARNORD, OPORD, and FRAGORD

Three kinds of combat order, what each is for, and why the warning order is the one that buys subordinates their planning time.

What is the T-week concept?

T-week is a backward-planning framework that ties the weeks before and after a training event to the actions required to prepare for and follow up on it. The week of execution is week T. Week T-6 is six weeks out; week T+1 is the week after. Companies use it in the training meeting so preparation happens on a schedule instead of at the last minute.