The eight-step training model has significant overlap
with TLPs, making it especially effective for leaders at the
company level and below. Leaders can implement the eightstep
training model to develop effective training and simultaneously
implement TLPs.
Although the eight-step training model is numbered,
leaders must realize that it is not meant to describe events
in sequence. As with TLPs and the military decisionmaking
process, the eight-step training model is not linear. Leaders
most effectively implement these approaches incrementally,
by thinking through all the steps and identifying where and
how information is related. Leaders frequently revisit these
steps to ensure integration. For example, leaders need to
identify the type and technique they will use for their rehearsal.
This specific guidance needs to be published in the
written order, and leaders must be trained and certified to
ensure that they are adequately prepared for a specific task.
A leader who follows the eight-step training model in a lockstep
manner will miss this integration.
As the Army transitions from frequent deployments and
adjusts to a more limited budget, effective training will become
increasingly important. Preparing junior leaders to
train is essential, and the eight-step training model is a
simple and proven technique that can be applied to a wide
spectrum of training. Engineers have applied it successfully
to construction operations, and units have used it to train
coalition partners in Iraq.3, 4 It’s time for a new training circular
that describes a way to prepare for training events. It
might be called A Leader’s Guide to the Eight-Step Training
Model and would make explicit what Army leaders have
been doing for years.