Welcome to this Roadmap Update, the purpose of this update is to communicate changes in the UNITAF Roadmap (https://unitedtaskforce.net/roadmap)
I wanted to update you on our immediate plans and the Big 4;
Eagled eyed readers will note the absense of the Role Certification System (RCS) so what's the deal?
Some time back in August we began work on discussing changes to Tiers and PCFs while addressing some blue-on-blue incidents and during the course of that some decisions were made and for the time being at least, the initial plans for RCS were shelved. That said, we're still committed to the purpose of RCS, which is ultimately quality control and ensuring that everyone who is in a role has earned the right to be there and follows the SOP for it. What I'm going to outline below is still a work in progress but it's a good (albeit not final) summary of the new direction of these efforts - and while I will be cautious of making any date promises, the order of these items on the roadmap is quite clear - these are the 4 main priorities.
The purpose of sharing some of our work in progress is to keep you up to date with the direction of travel and where we can, get your input.
The approvals process will streamline the approval and management for default arsenals, loadouts, SOP, operations, FTXs and deployments. This is a roadmap change which came from a realisation that we should unify our core systems rather than developing seperate systems across these areas.
After initial implementation of the above, the next step will be to grant Approval Portal access to involved non-orgcoc members (including those with the Recruitment and Retention Center), to remove barriers for contribution to all areas by enlisted. This system will unclog many bottlenecks across the authorisation spectrum which are causing much frustration to many of you, specifically the approval of changes to SOP.
When the approval portal has been fully implemented, the next focus that has been discussed quite a lot on senior command level is a Tiers and PCF system overhaul.
For a while, we've adopted Lesson Plans for all practices - but this is not yet something we have fully integrated into our systems.
The Lesson Plans database will allow us to;
As this is a bit further down the list, details on the topic are still emerging and those details that we are presenting here are subject to, and likely will change as discussions are ongoing. What we do know is that the development of the Role Certifcation System has for a while now been shelved in favour of more fundamental updates to the Tier system.
Evident from this update from UNISTAFF in August:
"UNISTAFF have over the last few weeks, consulted with J6 and other relevant teams regarding issues with SOP compliance, which we now feel requires a priority change from the planned rollout of changes in 2022. We believe that RCS is not fit to solve the issues highlighted and that a fundamental change to Tiers is required with high priority to enact the required changes and move forward."
Our initial focus when revisiting the Tier system;
The purpose of these developments is to combat evidence of slippage of SOP compliance in order to improve quality across all ORBATs, and to address some long term improvements to Tiers.
Some of the currently developed actions are:
Limiting the calculations of all Tiers to a maximum of 18 months of practice hour data (see Tier Decay below)
Changing the requirements to achieve different Tiers based on the slot frequency of a combat area
Reducing the overall number of Tiers and dynamically assessing the requirements for those levels per combat area
Creating 7 new combat areas, as follows:
Spliting the Combat Support Area and its respective SOP, Roles and Tiers into the following new areas;
Fire Support (IDF)
Combat Engineering (EOD/CE)
Logistics
Unmanned Vehicle Systems (Ground/Air UAVs)
Spliting the Mission Support Area and its respective SOP, Roles and Tiers into the following new areas;
Mission Support
Roleplaying
Spliting the Field Leadership Area and its respective SOP, Roles and Tiers into the following new areas;
Combat Leadership (Squad Level)
Field Leadership (Platoon and Company Level)
Remove Tier 6, making the maximum tier, Tier 5
Review the practice requirements for Tiers 1-5 to make them suitable and tailored to each combat area
Introduce an update to the combat flagging system (PCFs) to better track SOP compliance
Re-tier roles in all areas so that the majority of roles sit in Tiers 1-3, with Tiers 4-5 being used for where most experience is required
Ensure all role areas have T-0/entry level roles or where not possible, utilise the L slot system
Tier decay has been discussed for some time now and will either be implemented alongside the improved PCF system or have its own update during the Tiers 2.0 update since it relies on the practice area’s to be split up before implementation. The purpose of it's introduction would be to ensure members stay up to date with current SOP through revisions and improvements. This is a long term consideration and many details need to be worked out and so it's form is not final but it's important that we are clear about it's confirmed status as roadmapped.
We will reiterate that this is being communicated as work in progress and there are no definitive dates set at this time and all items may be subject to change, but that it has been decided that this overhaul to the Tier system will take place prior to any continuation of RCS developement, and the need for RCS will be re-assessed following a review of this update.
The Procedural Correction Flag (PCF) system is currently used to correct SOP non-compliance currently only has one type of flag. That flag is applied to correct a breach of SOP, preventing uptiering in the relevant practice area until the flag is cleared and issuing fatigue penalties.
The roadmapped changes see this being developed further with 4 stages of PCF, by allowing users to see PCFs via their Dossier Management it will be possible to more accurately track SOPs which need to be worked or improved on we want to change this system from a punative one to one that is there primarily to help users understand where there are SOPs they need to improve on.
Stage |
Purpose |
---|---|
Compliant |
User is deemed compliant until no adverse action is observed. |
Advisory |
To alert a user that they need to correct or improve compliance with a SOP |
Warning |
To alert the user that they have not corrected an advisory flag to a sufficient standard or in sufficient time, and to minimise their ability to be exposed to roles requiring this SOP |
Critical |
To alert the user that a warning flag has still not been corrected and/or sufficient improvement has not been made. |
By default everyone continues in the Compliant status which is identical to the current system with no positive or negative effects.
The Advisory stage will provide a heads up of where improvement is needed before any permissions are removed whilst still keeping track of SOP breaches. Much attention is being placed here to ensure end-users have dossier level access to this data so they are able to track their progression and make improvements.
The Warning stage will work similarly to the current single flag system - disallowing up-tiering and adding fatigue in the flagged area to encourage action on the relevant SOPs, this happens when Advisory notifications are ignored or not acted upon.
The Critical stage will disallow the slotting in all roles in the flagged area. Once the flagged user has proved they should be allowed to slot again, they will be placed once again on a Warning flag, now able to work their way back to Compliant status, to reach this status a user would have to show no interest in Compliant action on multiple occasions.
So, that is a top-level summary of the 4 main priorities at present - the detail will almost certainly change, but I hope it gives you an indication of the direction of travel and our comittment to making our Deployments the best they can be by developing our SOPs through continual learning and importantly exposing those SOPs unit-wide in the easiest way possible. I said that our focus this year is quality and really that is the summary of these items. Don't forget there are some fantastic ideas further down on the Roadmap, especially Master After Action Reports (MAARs) which hopefully will get applied in due course.
Tomorrow, I'll be taking questions at HQin22 at 1930hrs UTC, so if you have any questions regarding this update, you can use the /ask command on Discord.
Major James
Commanding Officer