OFFICER Max (Hammer 5)

[Impulse 9]

I am applying for Officer of Public Relations.

My real-world experiences prepared me for this type of position. I spent 6 years in the US Army with half of that time as an Armor Officer. During this time, I spent considerable effort understanding how to properly resource, train, execute and learn from events¹. Instrumental to my success was effective delegation of tasks to subject matter experts. However, I also learned that you can delegate authority but not responsibility. I currently work at Intel where I project manage initiatives that improve systems and processes.

 

As an Officer I would have three (3) immediate objectives:

 

Objective 1: Increase event frequency

Currently, there are approximately 1-2 events per month. My metric for success would be an additional pre-slotted, pre-planned event every month. If elected, I can devote approximately 15-25 hours a month on two main tasks. Task one, would be leading mission creation and validation. Task two, would be standardizing event execution. I cannot do this on my own and I will require additional help from the community.

 

Objective 2: Increase community participation

In prior events, I enjoyed helping to increase community participation. I learned that the more the offices of UO work in a coordinated manner, the greater the event. UOAF members have been a great resource to help address unrehearsed air-ground integration tasks in past events. I would also like to work with UOTC to see if they can support the AARs for events and to utilize the training sever during prescheduled times to facilitate rehearsals.

 

Finally, I want to involve the general community in order to find reliable volunteers to share the workload. To achieve this, I will leverage the forums as the primary means to solicit help. Specifically, I would look for those who can contribute towards the mission creation and validation process.

 

Objective 3: Process improvement

I want to better understand all aspects of the event process and identify areas for improvement. Once these areas are identified, I will come up with a proposal for improvement and put the decision out for general voting. The scope of these improvements would encompass all aspects of an event starting with concept creation and ending with the post-event AAR.

 

GO UNITED OPERATIONS! VOTE FOR MAX!

 

1 - Events such as small arms ranges, multi-purpose gunnery ranges (tanks, apaches, bradleys, HMMWVs), Combined Arms Battalion operations at the National Training Center, and situational training exercise up to the platoon level.

This Vote requires a simple majority lasting two weeks, ending on 2017-11-02.

This vote was put up at Regular Request.

[Gusy]

Yes from me, more events and more manpower to coordinate those events.

[SgtDeadly12]

Yes from me. Max is one of the most driven and committed people in UO. Having him as a PR officer is going to be great.

[Haggerty]

We need more gantt charts, also I will vote yes if you go an pet the penguins with me... 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Haggerty

[Blue]

 It's a strong yes from me, motivated can plan events correctly and respectful able to communicate with people. It's a strong yes from me I hope to see this go through max puts a lot of effort in planning. 
 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Bluef16

[Yugoslav]

Yes, but only if you agree to not got to the Aquarium with Haggerty.

[kalohepirate]

Have you been in contact with the other officers in this department and what was their response to your proposed objectives? This is already a crowded office, could you not accomplish these objectives currently and how will being an Officer change that?

[znoop]

An easy decision, yes.

[Matty93]

Easy yes from me! Max is just the right person for this role. Highly motivated and highly respected within the community. Great person to get such events well organised. Good luck!

[kail]

Yes.

[Nathan]

All I read was Max for PRO. Yes.

[Kingslayer]

Voting yes. Max is a great resource for UO, and I think would do really well in this role.

[HeadShot]

Short and to the point, we need more PRO's and people motivated to do outreach and media development. With Max joining the PRO, we can get a lot more done, and use his wealth of knowledge on the subject to better organize and target key areas, such as events and advertising.

 

A solid yes.

Edited October 20, 2017 by HeadShot

[beta]

I am not of the opinion there can be too many officers in an office.

 

I think Max will do a good job.

 

Yes.

[Huntersaurus]

Yes

[Jak]

Goddamnit max, I was hoping you'd go UOTC and I was gonna try for PRO... You bastard


Resounding Yes.

 

 

kalohepirate, on 20 Oct 2017 - 07:11, said:
Have you been in contact with the other officers in this department and what was their response to your proposed objectives? This is already a crowded office, could you not accomplish these objectives currently and how will being an Officer change that?

 

 

 

 

Counter question: what defines a "crowded office" and how exactly is that a negative thing? We all know we could do with new blood. More public relations officers can only further that goal.

Edited October 21, 2017 by JakCurse

[kalohepirate]

Goddamnit max, I was hoping you'd go UOTC and I was gonna try for PRO... You bastard

 

 

Resounding Yes.

 

 

 

 

 

Counter question: what defines a "crowded office" and how exactly is that a negative thing? We all know we could do with new blood. More public relations officers can only further that goal.

This not the place to start a debate but a avenue where people can ask applicants questions. So I will ask if you wish to do so start a separate thread as I wait patiently for Max’s response.

[Max (Hammer 5)]

Kalohepirate,

 

The only response I received from other officers was regarding the third objective. I think there is a reasonable concern about changing too much too quickly - a valid and understandable issue. But if there are better ways to facilitate the event process I believe those options should be analyzed for feasibility, put to a vote for desirability, and beta tested to confirm/disprove its efficacy.

 

For overstaffing concerns, I don’t think the best metric for determining overstaffing is the number of officers or overall headcount. I think the better metric is how many hours each officer can contribute every month towards the event process.  If the summation of these hours falls short of the ideal number of events per month, then we are not overstaffing.

 

Finally, why is being an officer materially different than doing this as a regular? Some of these objectives could be accomplished from a regular position. Some could not be as you specifically need an officer to facilitate the event process. As an officer, I would be able to coordinate and lead all aspects of the event process effectively.

[Impulse 9]

What will your availability be? How long will it take for any of us to receive a response in office on discord, or on forums once you are an officer?

[Max (Hammer 5)]

I can typically respond to discord/forum messages within 30 to 120 minutes. It depends on what I have going on. These responses and any associated actions would have to come out of the 15-25 hours a month I can commit though. I made a promise to my girlfriend to keep this initiative in check and I have to work on keeping that commitment.

[Soviet_Slime]

Not only is Max a magnificent leader in game, he has shown me that he is a magnificent organizer. If I could vote, I would approve this in a heartbeat. The events Max has either helped with or fully organized have lead to some of the most serious fun I've ever had in Arma.

[VPope]

I have a lot of time for Max but i do have some concerns that I would like to put to him directly.

 

The PRO is already the largest of the offices, with the addition of another officer how would you propose to address the problem we already face of poor internal communication ?

 

You state in your application that it is your intent to increase event frequency, which is something we would all like to see. However my personal experience of the last two events you organised (Vanguard Forward) , were mired with problems owing primarily to a failure to adhere to the pre-existing event guidelines and procedures. I am therefore concerned that as with those events that your plan to push forward with an increase in frequency would fall back in to the same  traps.

 

After working with you on both the Vanguard events it became clear to me that you are used to administering by delegation, one of the issues you will face in this role is a lack of willing people to delegate to, which was the cause of many of the mission creation issues in the first run of that event. Do you feel that if necessary you would be able to take on all the work yourself ?

 

I have no doubts about your commitment or determination to see things through, and I am also sure that your experience would be well suited to organisational tasks. If you tell me that you can address my points listed then I would not hesitate to vote yes.

[Max (Hammer 5)]

Vpope,

 

I'm not sure what internal communication issues you are referring to? Do you mean communications with officers inside of the PRO?

 

With regards to prior events, those events you referenced certainly had issues. But I did come away with valuable lessons learned. I think most of the critical issues were mission-making related and I've learned how to better control this process and ensure proper testing. I also identified reliable subject matter experts who are willing to help with this process.

 

The most important improvement I see - and this is a direct result of the lessons learned from Vanguard Forward - is that we need an effective weekly review of the progress of each event during the planning, execution, AAR stages. I find it strange that this isn't being done in a more public manner - maybe it happens behind the scenes but I cannot evaluate its effectiveness due to the opaque nature of the process. Ideally, we should run the event planning process similar to how the US Army plans training events. Typically, the planning horizon is 10-weeks. Weeks 7-10 are resourcing and refining the training objectives. Weeks 3-6 are assigning tasks to stakeholders in accordance with a troops-to-task-matrix (or a work breakdown structure). Weeks 0-2 are for any prerequisite training tasks and rehearsals.

 

We should have a similar process for events. We should make this process as public as possible and, at a minimum, keep the regulars informed about where each event stands and what help is needed. We should not limit this to regulars however. Most of the significant help I received in prior events was from those who were non-regular/officers at the time.

 

I do rely on delegation during the event creation/execution process. I think delegation is necessary if we want to utilize the collective capacity of this community to have more frequent events. However, we need to do a better job soliciting help from community members. Only by asking and assigning these members clearly defined tasks can we identify who is a reliable member that can help drive the process forward. More often than naught, I am surprised by the willingness and ability of community members to help than those who will not or cannot.

[Impulse 9]

With regards to prior events, those events you referenced certainly had issues. But I did come away with valuable lessons learned. I think most of the critical issues were mission-making related and I've learned how to better control this process and ensure proper testing. I also identified reliable subject matter experts who are willing to help with this process.

We already rely on the MMO department for mission testing/stability and testing, they are the current authority on mission stability within the community. What changes would be needed?

 

The most important improvement I see - and this is a direct result of the lessons learned from Vanguard Forward - is that we need an effective weekly review of the progress of each event during the planning, execution, AAR stages. I find it strange that this isn't being done in a more public manner - maybe it happens behind the scenes but I cannot evaluate its effectiveness due to the opaque nature of the process. Ideally, we should run the event planning process similar to how the US Army plans training events. Typically, the planning horizon is 10-weeks. Weeks 7-10 are resourcing and refining the training objectives. Weeks 3-6 are assigning tasks to stakeholders in accordance with a troops-to-task-matrix (or a work breakdown structure). Weeks 0-2 are for any prerequisite training tasks and rehearsals.

What does any of this mean in simple English? Are you expecting event participants to be required to show up to multiple rehearsals weeks ahead of time for any event participation?

 

 

We should have a similar process for events. We should make this process as public as possible and, at a minimum, keep the regulars informed about where each event stands and what help is needed. We should not limit this to regulars however. Most of the significant help I received in prior events was from those who were non-regular/officers at the time.

I do not understand what needs to be addressed in this reply, are you stating that you wish to make some sort of public status tracker, unique to each event?

 

 

I do rely on delegation during the event creation/execution process. I think delegation is necessary if we want to utilize the collective capacity of this community to have more frequent events. However, we need to do a better job soliciting help from community members. Only by asking and assigning these members clearly defined tasks can we identify who is a reliable member that can help drive the process forward. More often than naught, I am surprised by the willingness and ability of community members to help than those who will not or cannot.

What delegates do you wish to see created for the office?

What PRO responsibilities would you task from the PRO onto these delegates?

[Max (Hammer 5)]

Impulse,

 

Showing up for rehearsals shouldn't be a requirement for participating in an event. But we should help facilitate this process as much as possible for those interested in participating. Rehearsals are important especially when the tactical mission tasks involved become more complex or if some members of the player-base are unpracticed at these tasks. I've seen very positive results in past events when adequate time was given to rehearsals.

 

I don't know the degree to which a tracker should be made public but some better form of communication should be considered.

 

In terms of delegated tasks, we need to create and agree upon a detailed work breakdown structure complete with Gantt chart. Only then will we have a list of tasks that can be evaluated as to which tasks can be delegated.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Max (Hammer 5)