Squad Composition

Squad

Squad is a military term. Its civilian equivalent is section.

Squad is sub-division of platoon. Section is sub-division of department.

Squad is unit of action, it can independently perform a tactical maneuver. Likewise a section can independently produce a finished good. 

Squad Size 

Squad should have 8 to 12 men. 

The squad size dont include the officer. The officer cannot be included because a person cannot command himself as that would mean ad infinitum the command tree.  

I will argue about the proposed squad size after discussion about sub-units of squad i.e. its composition.

Sub-Units of Squad

Types of Sub-Units

A sub-unit is either a group or a team.

Group

Its when people performing similar functions are put together. The performance of people in a group can be readily compared with each other because they are all performing basically the same work just done in parallel.

Team   

Its when people performing dissimilar functions are put together. Its done so that their work complement each other's. 

There is no parallel execution of work in a team. Each member put his share at his turn in the one good or service being produced.

Why The Sub-Units Are Of Different Types? (Why They Are Not All Of Same Type)

The problem that is being solved is The Logistics Problem. 

The Logistics Problem

Its the problem of distance. Its the only truely insurmountable problem.

While other problems can be solved by throwing resources on it, for example even the time problem can be solved by execution in parallel, the distance problem cannot be solved, there is no way distances can be reduced. 

The only way to deal with it is to prevent it from occurring at the first place.

Prevention of The Logistics Problem

If certain people are needed to work together to finish a job, then they must be placed together. This is how teams are formed. The members would perform different functions, their duties would be of different nature but when combined if they produce the needed output then they belong together.

Note that the above solve the logistics problem about people. They are placed together (in teams) to solve this. But this is not the only logistics problem that exist. The other is about data.

If people performing similar functions are dispersed in teams, that is they are not put together in a group, then the data about them is dispersed. Their performance cannot be compared with each other.

When To Use Groups And When Teams

Groups Are For Magnitude 

Groups have advantage of easier management as data to compare is readily available. People performing similar functions can work independently of each other. Also, their output is obviously comparable with  each other's.

Its not just that a group is easier to manage than a team. Its also more efficient, orders of magnitude more efficient. There is no dependency between elements of a group, no waiting for others to do their part first. 

Groups however cannot solve unanticipated problems. There is no communication between elements directly. When a group works it performs massively, when its stuck its stuck completely and indefinitely.

Note that indirect communication between elements dont solve unanticipated problems. Ofcourse the groups are controlled from somewhere, there is a central point but that hub is not sufficient for passing unfiltered information thats critical for free thinking and thus finding solutions to problems.

Anticipated problems already have solutions found for them, or atleast how to prevent or avoid them. Its the unanticipated problems - problems nobody has think about - whose solutions have to be found.

Teams Are For Complex Tasks

Teams are great for situations when how much you produce dont matter after you have produced little, as thats how much is needed, but how well you have produced it matter a lot. That is when you need more quality than quantity.

When its ok to spend huge chunks of time just figuring out whats need to be done instead of doing it. When majority of workers can afford to sit idle at any given time. 

The work done by a team is heavily serialized. Its because of interdependencies between outputs of team members. Its these interdependencies that are needed to solve unanticipated problems, in other words to learn. Its also these interdependencies that make the whole thing grossly inefficient.

A team's trump card is innovation. It only works in complex situations. In simple situations groups always out produce teams. This explains why communism was so hard to beat in its early decades. Its nemesis is innovation which took time. Luckily for teams world is a complex environment so huge innovations are possible.

Not just communism but all dictatorships as well fail too in long term, in a matter of half to one century, as long as its competitors are innovating. In 1984 novel like world where nobody is innovating even communism and dictatorships would survive for centuries. 

In middle ages too, where innovations were rare, a king that dont delegate power - a dictator - can continue ruling for long, then his similar sons and so on.

Innovation and Empires

Ottoman empire though not a perfect example as it had some delegation of power down from sultan did lack behind in innovation over the centuries. It started not winning in late 17th century and started losing in 18th century. British empire faced much smaller innovation stalling starting from late 19th century, though enough to cease being an empire shortly after. 

Germans didnt have innovation stalling till nazis came in power. They got a huge surplus left from 1750s onwards though, waiting for exploitation. This explains their huge initial success till americans beat them to it.

Russians were never innovators till end of stalin era, not near anywhere needed to sustain an empire when competing with true innovators such as germans and americans. This explains their loss of alaska to americans (a sale on surface but money thus acquired wouldnt be needed to be acquired from outside resources if russian empire gave value to innovation), and their massive losses to germans in first world war. They would be literally wiped out by nazis in second world war if americans didnt provided access to their innovations through lend-lease. British would face similar trend though they were able to recover a bit (invention of radar, enigma's code breaking etc) as their stalling wasnt old.

When To Use Groups and When Teams (Revisited)

Role of Storage

To find when to use teams and when groups one just have to see whether output of workers of one function can be stored till workers of another function pick it up. Note that even if all work can be done by groups multiple groups have to be involved. This is in nature of all work. A combination have to be made. A process have to be followed. There are steps. Its cannot all be done in one go.

If after one member put its effort there is immediate need of other member(s)' effort then a team is needed. Its when there is no storage.

Examples:

In masonry, a team of two members is needed. One is the loader and the other is the applier. Since once loaded the cement thats loaded in the bowl need to be applied within minutes or it will become useless there can be no storage. The loader and the applier have to work together in small teams. There cannot be a group of masons and a group of labour working independently.

In a leather factory certain functions can be separated from each other. Hides chemically treated can be stored for days before being transferred to the cutting department. Each of these functions can be performed by its own group.

In a bakery the cooking can be separated from salesmanship. Food when cooked need not be immediately sold, it can be stored for hours.

In a medium or heavy machine gun sub-unit, the loader have to be constantly present and attend the machine gun while the firer takes aim and pull the trigger. If the loader stops for a second the whole machine will stop working. 

In a tank, the loader have to work in unison with the firer. The gun cannot have a stock of preloaded shells. Each shell have to be separately loaded. 

Scouts can work independent of shooters. A group of scouts can be sent, each one of which can do his own independent reconnaissance and give his own independent report.  The shooters too even if move and fire together dont need each other to make their firing. Each one of them can take their own aim and do their own firing. Note that not only the group of scouts is separate from group of shooters, that is, they are not put together in a team or in many small teams, even among a group, as its nature of all groups, the members work independently of each other.

Spear bearers in a greek phalanx though march together and pierce together, are in a group. Each one of them is an independent doer. The arrow shooters are a separate group. The whole phalanx is a unit, a squad. Note that a squad not have to be made only of groups, some of its sub-units can be groups, some can be teams, some can be like mini squads themselves that is groups of teams or teams of groups. The basic units to understand are just two: groups, and teams. Rest is just their combinations which granted can be complicated.

Programmers are a separate group than testers, supposing programmers are each working on their own independent project and no tester is permanently assigned to any programmer. The output of programmers can be stored, in form of computer files for days, months before they can be picked up by testers. 

If there is a sub-unit of department that consists of programmers and a tester, working on same project then its a team. Programmers cannot in this case work independently of each other as what changes one programmer make in the project effect work of other programmers, they may have to wait for one to finish working or they may have to reconcile / merge their concurrent changes. Also if no work is yet submitted by any programmer the tester have no work to do and sit idle. A team is great for communication, and that communication is very helpful, even vital, for doing complex tasks, but it comes at cost of efficiency.

Intertwineings

To produce is to make. To make is to combine. 

Various functions may need to be combined to produce output. If not various then atleast two functions need to be combined. Most of the time its two functions that need to be combined with a third and so on that provide support services. 

Examples:

Prime military example is the hammer and nail tactic. While one sub-unit engage and thus distract enemy from distance, another sub-unit quietly go near the enemy to find its weak spot to assault from there resulting in obliteration of enemy. 

Any manufacturing and its QA. Also, programmer and tester; copy writer and proof reader; writer and editor etc.

Sales and marketing.

Accounting and finance.

Copier and binder.

Parts of Squad

    Three groups: Cover, Motion, Services

The two sub-units Cover and Motion intertwine to produce output. The third sub-unit Services is just to provide support services such as transportation, first-aid etc.

The services sub-unit should be discarded altogether in civilian organizations. Its because it should be moved up to the head quarter of the department for proper, more efficient management. In military organizations I argue that its better to have it on squad level for better situational awareness.

Why This Division?

Here is the point: 

Never overload your officers with more than five concerns at a time. This matches with dividing all units into upto 3 sub-units, and dividing the sub-units into only 3 elements (people, engines) at maximum. Your officer thus have to keep only upto 3 elements and 2 other sub-units in mind when managing a sub-unit, making the count never exceed 5.

If you want to have more elements in a sub-unit you have to have a senior member of the sub-unit take the lead in absence of your officer. The officer have to manage the entire squad and though he can at the same time when managing the entire squad also manage a sub-unit he cannot manage 2 of them.

If you have a lead in a sub-unit then you can have upto 5 men under him, thus a sub-unit size can never exceed 6 even after including the lead. The lead is not the officer. He is the senior most member of the sub-unit.

 If your officer has less than five concerns at a time then his services are not utilized efficiently.

For vertical concerns make sure that an officer never have to worry about more than two levels at the same time. 

A squad/section must have two sub-units in action because of intertwingling. One sub-unit in action cannot finish the task, another sub-unit is needed in action. The third sub-unit which is present only for squads i.e. for military, and is always present for squads, is for support.

Support in this article means services (so its not like air support). Support at squad level is transportation and supplying.

Civilians shouldn't have support at section level. All support services should be by department and above headquarters.

Each squad will have its own vehicles, its own drivers. It will also have its own carriers.

Carriers will manually take supplies (food, ammunition etc) to the shooting site and return with used utensils and wounded soldiers.

Transportation to and from combat zone cannot be outsourced. Likewise supplying service cannot be outsourced either. This is why a squad will always have the third sub-unit. Military cannot afford to discard it.

Size of Squad:

As already stated there have to be always three sub-units in a squad, and two sub-units in a section. No other numbers fit in.

The Cover Sub-Unit

It has to be the largest sub-unit of the squad. It has to be largest because its function is to provide cover, therefore it has to intentionally expose itself to distract the enemy. It should have enough manpower to sustain losses which can very well happen because of heavy enemy fire it attracts. It also has to maintain its own shooting because if its not doing that then its not providing cover, the enemy wouldn't keep distracted for long otherwise.  

In civilian sections the cover sub-unit do the simple part of task and leave the challenging, messed up, first-find-solution-for part of task to the motion sub-unit. Almost all of the time the simple part of task  makes up the bulk of the task, and this part is needed to be done quickly to spare resources for the motion sub-unit to do its own processing.  

The above - that the cover sub-unit of a military squad have to give heavy fire (as well as take it), and the cover sub-unit of a civilian section have to do bulk of the task - implies that the cover sub-unit have to be the largest sub-unit in all cases and situations. 

I suggest the size of this sub-unit to be 4 to 6 men. Its lead can thus maintain mental image of 3 to 5 concerns. Any more and it would be hard to manage. Any less and its inefficient, also risky. If your center loose then your sides are almost guaranteed to loose as well as the enemy is no longer distracted and thus will provide full blow to the sides. Remember that in a squad there can be only one side - the motion sub-unit - because to have more sides we have to put in more men in a squad and then it would be impossible for its officer to manage them.

Note that depending on the weapons in use, the cover sub-unit can first be divided into engines then into people. That is, each engine would be a small team of people that operate for example a machine gun or a mortar launcher. Note that these weapons take multiple people to operate.

unit -> cover sub-unit -> engine

An engine is just a small team consisting of two or three men.

So, our cover sub-unit which itself is a group, can actually be a group of small teams instead of being a group of men directly. 

Having already said that a commander can manage upto 5 concerns at a time it don't mean we can have upto 15 men in the cover sub-unit. Note that I already fixed in my proposal the size of cover sub-unit to be between 4 and 6 men, men not engines. Its because even when divided into small teams each person in a sub-unit have to be directly managed by its commander. There can no more level of command below sub-units' leads because that would dilute meaning of commandship to near nothing, and because then the officer of the squad have to maintain more than three levels at a time.

Final point to mention about cover sub-unit is that engines are unique to it. Other sub-units would be divided into men directly always.

The Motion Sub-Unit

It would be the second-largest sub-unit. I propose its size to be between 2 and 4 men. Its lead thus have to maintain only 1 to 3 concerns in mind.

We wouldn't want to increase men in motion sub-unit from that because in a squad its task is to sneak near the enemy, quietly, without giving fire, and in civilian sections the puzzle part of task is never high enough to ask for more manpower.

If we give more men to the motion sub-unit of a squad then its job of sneaking quietly near the enemy to find its weak spots to attack from would become harder.

If we give more men to the motion sub-unit of a section then it increases inefficiency without justification as complex parts never make bulks of tasks. Its the mundane that makes the bulk of civilian tasks.

The Support Sub-Unit

I propose size of 2 to 3 men. 

I propose this size because the first man will be the driver when transporting troops, and the second and third men will be on guard duty in the vehicle. If driver is shot then one of the guardsmen take the driver's seat and we still have one guardman left for guarding.

When fighting would be happening I propose that none of these three men take part in fighting, except as reserve and thats to be used either in worse situations where the center is falling back or when though a breakthrough is made additional manpower is needed to exploit it. 

When fighting would be happening 1 of the support men would be doing carrying. It means he will be taking supplies (food, ammunition, gear etc) to front and bringing back the wounded. One of the other two who stay behind would providing medical support to the wounded, and the other would stand on guard. If situation is better than that, that is, if vehicle is not threatened then two of the support men can be carriers.

Best Scheme

I would say that best scheme is to have five men in the center (the cover sub-unit) plus the officer himself. However, the officer can choose to go with the side team leaving other 6 men here.

Four men go forward at side (the motion sub-unit) to flank the enemy. If the officer himself is leading them then he take 3 men with him. Otherwise the officer let 4 other men to do the flanking.

The base camp (the support sub-unit) has 3 men.

Always 6 men in the center at start (i.e. before casualties), 4 men at the flank, 3 men in the base. 13 men in all. This includes the officer. 

Roles of The Three Sub-Units

Examples:

In an office job a peon has to be present. That peon is more efficiently supplied from the head quarter of the department. So no third sub-unit here. 

In masonry, both the loaders and the appliers are in the largest sub-unit. Each pair of them make an engine and there would be 3 such engines normally. The other sub-unit would be doing something else such as breaking old walls, bringing stuff from market, refining sand etc. There would be no third sub-unit because peons are neither needed by nor provided to labour. The labour can go eat in hotel in lunch break.

In a bakery, the largest sub-unit is of salesmen. The second-largest is of cooks. You need atleast a cook and a helper so its a full sub-unit thats needed. Cooking is more complicated than just selling already prepared food so its job of a team. Utensils should be washed as soon as the cook is done with them, storage is not appropriate here, so its a team thats needed. Salesmen can work independently of each other, so they together make a group. Note that bulk output of salesmen is not applicable here because its dependent upon customers which are outside the system.

Conclusions:

• Squad/Section is the minimum collection of people thats needed to do a job. When its military call it squad, when its civilian call it section.
  

• Squads should have three sub-units, sections should have two sub-units.

• Squad should have 8 to 12 men. Section should have 6 to 10 men. Officer is counted in neither.

• Size of the largest sub-unit, in both squad and section, should be 4 to 6 men.

• Size of the second largest sub-unit,  should be 2 to 4 men, both in a squad and in a section.

• Size of the third largest sub-unit (present only in military squads), should be 2 or 3 men.

• There is no fourth sub-unit.

• The three sub-units of a squad are: cover, motion, support; arranged from the largest to the smallest.

• Doing anything requires a process that is there are steps. The steps would be performed separately by the first two sub-units of the squad/section. 
  

• The third sub-unit would provide services. It will not do the main task.

• The largest sub-unit is unique in the sense that it may be made of small teams, called engines. Each of the engines would consist of 2 or 3 people. 

• If the largest sub-unit is made up of engines, not directly people, then it would have 2 or 3 engines.

• A group is a collection of men doing same function repeated in parallel, their output is comparable with each other. 

• A team is a collection of men doing different functions that are needed to be done in parallel to do the job. The functions complement each other. The work done by members of a team are not comparable with each other.

• A group's output is orders of magnitude more than a team's output. Its because there is no dependency between members of a team. In a team in contrast work done by members can only be added in series, because of dependencies.

• The largest sub-unit is either a group of people or a group of teams. 

• The second largest sub-unit would always be a team of people.

• The third largest sub-unit would also be a team of people but its members can switch jobs at a moment's notice i.e. they have to be multi-skilled. A carrier can become a driver, a driver can become a guard, vice versa and vice versa.

• Squad will have one officer and three lieutenants. The lieutenants are also called leads. They train to be officers. They may be asked to manage their sub-units when the officer is not present near.
  

Extras:

Financial Accounting Is Grouping Of Data

Come to think of it, prevention of logistics problem about data is whats behind financial accounting. Things are arranged in groups so that you never forget a payment (just look in its account to see whether any payment is made this month, as compared to looking at all of the hundreds or thousands of entries of this month all of them irrelevant except may be one) while at the same time not make any payment twice (same goes for receivals too ofcourse).

Grouping To Find Hidden Patterns And Thus More Solutions Or Improvements Of Anticipated Problems

When data is all already at one place its hard to miss patterns. Moreover, any solution thus found is easily available to all. This is in contrast of having pockets of similar functions performed dispersed in the system. Not only then it would be much harder and therefore much less probable to see patterns and thus find solutions but also any solution found would be limited to its pocket. Wheel will get invented again and again.

This is great for anticipated problems. They are the problems that already exist and are already known. Some general direction is already decided about their solution. Its not great for new problems and for unknown problems. For them teams work great because of independent thinking. Without teams world would be stuck with only one design of wheels and never make space crafts.

While a genius can invent wheel or make the first aircraft he cannot make the whole machinery. He also, alone, cannot make better wheels or jet planes. Knowledge about a variety of disciplines needed to be brought in to make something useful. Thats where teams shine.

Evaluation of Team Members

While in a group all members do basically the same work and thus their performances can be readily compared with each other, in a team members do different types of work, their performances thus cannot be compared with each other.

What can be compared is performance of whole team with another team doing similar task. This is hard to find though. Teams rarely do comparable work. 

Even when they do comparable work, because of necessary sharing of rewards and punishments among members the evaluation is not very effective.

Refusing Democracy

Why Masses Shouldn't Choose Their Leader

Why Is A Leader Needed At First Place

Before we delve in details of democracy and compare it with other forms of government its important to understand why a group needs an individual as a leader? Why cannot each person be his own guide? This understanding makes the foundation for this entire discussion.

A leader is needed because masses lack knowledge, expertise to know what to do. They need a path, a course of action. Leader tells them what to do.

Life is a journey in time, into future, in uncharted territory. Events dont repeat, they may rhyme, they may not. 

The future is not known. Therefore, as it is, it cannot be prepared for. We need a sketch, a prediction to have a frame to prepare for. We need preparation, without it we most likely fail.

We need a person with vision, who can foresee, predict, correctly, so we can prepare. Without prediction there is no rational choosing of a path. How can one know which path is better if there is no "seeing in future"?

Ofcourse people would say that this, foreseeing, is not all that a leader do. That a leader also have to keep the group together, by providing justice. That without a leader there is no group.

Yes, its true that without a leader there is no group and every individual is on his own. There are so many choices for each action to take in life that after a while there is no reason for group to be together if there is no unity in action. Paths will diverge pretty soon. Each person would be alone in his journey.

I would argue that that, keeping group together by being both just and a swift executor of justice, depends on foreseeing, on correctly predicting in advance what path to take, by knowing relative weightage of consequences of possible courses of action. Its not that members of a broken justice system dont want to optimize, its that they dont know how to optimize. Putting personal benefits over group benefits is because of lack of vision, of wisdom, of not knowing strongly enough that what they are kicking would come bite them back, that they are destroying their ownselves first and most.

Why Masses Shouldn't Choose Their Leader

How can you tell that a doctor is doing his work correctly if you are not a doctor yourself? 

You can hire another doctor to oversee the doctor but then how would you manage this one?

You can ask the patients about the performance but what do they know? They also lack the expertise. They can only tell that they feel better or not but thats not objective. Certain treatments can make people feel very good while their health is deteriorating. Even objective analysis, of blood tests etc wouldn't guide you enough because if you are not a doctor you cannot match that with treatment given by doctor to tell how good the doctor is.

All that you can do is compare your doctor with other doctors who are facing similar patients having similar disease, look at what treatments they are giving and what are the results. Once you do this study and able to see patterns and draw conclusions, you can also predict results. At this point you are yourself an expert, and not just of diseases and their respective treatments but also of doctors; you can make predictions about doctors too in addition of treatments for diseases. 

Popularity and Rightness - Of Collective Decisions

The heading have only one term: Collective Decisions. I will clear up its meaning below. Its important to have a clear meaning of terms before getting in any discussion, to avoid me talking about one thing and you thinking about another (different) thing.

What Is A Collective Decision?

A collective decision is a decision that is made about a group of people and is made by the leader of the group.

There are 3 elements in it:

• Its a decision. Thats obvious and thus need no emphasis here. Having this out of the way following are parts that needs emphasis. 

• Its about a group of people; its not about a person; its not about a sub-group.

• Its made by the leader of the group; its not a group decision because its not made by other members of the group. The non-leader members, any or some or all, may be consulted for advice(s) but the decision is of the leader.
  

Collective Decisions That Are Right Cannot Also Be Popular, In General

 The Claim:

The claim is not just that they are non-popular. The claim is that they cannot be popular. This is ofcourse speaking in general. 

A Proof:

Truth can be proven a thousand ways. Following is just one of the proofs. 

This proof is proof by contradiction.

Suppose that, generally speaking, right decisions are popular. That means that most people in the group would have reached that decision themselves. 

If a decision is popular then it by definition means that most people like it (thats what popular means). If most people like it then most people could have reached it on their own because thats the only way they would have like it. If whats your inside wants matches with whats available outside then and then only you like whats available outside. Thats the definition of liking.

Having said all above, here is the main point of this article, if people could have reach the right decision on their own then they wouldn't need a leader. The very existence of need of a leader is showing that majority of people are blind and thus cannot see the path, that they need to be guided. Ofcourse they wouldn't like what the leader choose for them. Its because its not their decision, it cannot be their decision. It, by necessity, has to be imposed on them. 

A leader is like a sour pill. He is not liked but he cannot be avoided.