Unified Land Operations defines the Army Operational Design Methodology (ADM) as “a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize and describe unfamiliar problems and approaches to solving them. operational design methodology incorporated into Army doctrine serves as a method for integrating military decision making (MDMP). purpose is to address complex problems with a non-linear approach. The ADM helps the commander to answer questions to the problems. However, only a collaborative effort of an operational planning team (OPT) will achieve the approach needed to respond to complex problems. Doctrine alone does not provide the answer to complex problems, but rather offers guidance for solving them. To conceptualize the MDMP, planners must incorporate ADM to provide a better understanding, visualization, and description of the problem. The purpose of this document is to provide the framework to support why WMD is required in the MDMP. The Army has incorporated the concept of planning into doctrine to emphasize the importance of developing an understanding of complex problems and ways to solve them before conducting detailed planning. Holistic design understanding of unique situations is achieved through critical and creative thinking, mediated by discourse and drawings. The ADM takes a different approach to providing the ends, ways and means to answer the commander's question. The first part of this article will explain how understanding the problem provides the framework for the initial approach. The second part will demonstrate how problem visualization allows the commander to conceptualize. The third and final part explores how to figure out…half of the paper…how to get them right. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1996.HQ, Department of the Army. Army Doctrine Reference Publication 3-0, Unified LandOperations. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2011.HQ, Department of the Army. Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2008.HQ, Department of the Army. Field Manual 5-0, The Operational Process. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2010.Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. 4th ed. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006.SAMS Design Student Text, see 2.0.Senge, Peter M. The fifth discipline: art. New York: Doubleday, 2006.Slim, Viscount. From defeat to victory. Hong Kong: Papermac, 1987. US Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-0 Joint Operations. Washington, DC: Headquarters Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2011.