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Inspection Scheduling

Inspections are major activities that take significant manpower and time to execute.

Inspections must be scheduled in advance to allow time for the necessary coordination and

sourcing of resources. Inspection scheduling occurs on several levels which can be equated to

the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of warfare. The following paragraphs discuss each

level of inspection scheduling.

Strategic

Strategic scheduling involves deconflicting the actual on-site inspection dates from other

major activities the inspected unit or IG organization may be involved in. For the inspected unit,

this includes things like major deployments, JCS or MAJCOM exercises, weapon system

transitions etc. IG organizations must deconflict inspections dates due to limited manpower

resources. Strategic inspection scheduling then is the process of finding a set of dates that doesn’t

conflict with other activities by the inspected unit or IG organization doing the inspection. You

can think of this scheduling guidance as analogous to the Joint Force Air Component

Commander’s (JFACC) Air Operations Directive which provides the JFACC’s guidance for each

air tasking order (ATO) and the successive planning steps.

Operational

Once the strategic scheduling is complete, you should have a set of dates that shows

when the inspection will be and how much time will be allotted to that inspection. The

operational level of inspection scheduling deals with creating a schedule that coordinates the

activities of the inspection team to ensure the inspection is completed within the allotted time.

This schedule is known by several names such “Schedule of Events/Sequence of Events (SOE),”

or “Master Scenario Event List (MSEL).” Regardless of the name, the schedule should make

sure that the inspection team’s activities are properly coordinated and deconflicted as required

based on time, resource constraints, and a logical flow of events where applicable. This schedule

essentially tasks inspector to do certain things at specific times and places. Again, this schedule

is analogous to an ATO that tasks units to perform certain missions at specific times and

locations.

At most IG organizations, the development of a new SOE/MSEL is done by starting with

a previous version of a SOE/MSEL. This is a good technique as it allows for reuse of previous

material and shortens the development timeline. However, this technique can have a down side if

there is a lack of attention to detail. When you start with a previous version, you must review it

carefully for old information. If you don’t do a good review, you will have a SOE/MSEL with

old and new information which will cause confusion when you get in to executing the inspection.

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Some common pitfalls to look for are:

• Old locations

• Invalid times

• Major events/activities not deconflicted

• Invalid activities Remember, the SOE/MSEL affects the activities of the entire inspection team as well as the unit

being inspected. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THE SOE/MSEL UNILATERALLY,

ALWAYS COORDINATE CHANGES THROUGH THE SOE/MSEL COORDINATOR!

Tactical

The last level of inspection scheduling involves you as an individual inspector developing

your own personal day-by-day detailed schedule that supports accomplishment of the

SOE/MSEL. You can think of this plan as the flight plan produced by aircrews that has all the

details necessary to make sure they accomplish their ATO tasking. Once you get in to execution,

you should check your daily progress against this schedule at the end of each day. If you are on

or ahead of schedule great; however, if you are behind schedule you must come up with a plan

for how you will recover and inform your functional lead or team chief as appropriate.

Remember German Field Marshal von Moltke’s quote; “No battle plan survives contact

with the enemy.” For reasons beyond your control sometimes, your plan will not survive first

contact with the unit you are inspecting. The key is to have situational awareness on how the

changes impact you, coordinate a revised plan, and execute it to the best of your abilities.