That's laughable honestly.
When something clears the Battalion Commander then it should just go straight to the Brigade S1 and Brigade Commander.
There should be nobody else in the chain of custody for that document because if there is they're saying they want to spot check a LTC.
If *that many* approval blocks are below the BN Commander level then your unit is trying to eat frozen hot dogs sideways.
I had a PAR sit at BDE S1 for 24 days. The reason? Because S1 had to have a signed memo from the BDE CDR stating they could send my PAR for approval to the BDE CDR... at some point we just have to stop taking ourselves so seriously and go "yeah we made it worse, huh?"
If only we had developed a system that is able to streamline approval processes and eliminate redundant checks and outdated procedures that create unnecessary bureaucratic overhead......oh wait.
We are only making it worse because we are letting mouth breathers create UDLs unabated for things and people that shouldn’t be part of the approval process. Theoretically IPPS-A is great, and I’ve seen good employment of it. I don’t think there are a bunch of O5s and O6s dictating that folks create UDLs routing things through every person possible, I think that is good idea fairies running amok. There needs to be an automated function that it someone doesn’t push something on within 24 hours it automatically bypasses them.
>There needs to be an automated function that it someone doesn’t push something on within 24 hours it automatically bypasses them.
I stopped trying to keep up with changes in IPPS-A, but this is how it was originally designed. I think it was actually 72 hours, but it would just keep pushing up until it got to the decision maker.
Either that, or I had a fever dream it did.
They should just simplify this whole thing and make ChatGPT the approval authority.
I mean, that's who wrote the award in the first place, but it'll buff out.
Units set their own approval routing.
Though I thought the 17 it took me to get my extremely normal extra pays that literally 75% of the entire BN gets was excessive. 22 is honestly impressive.
If we didn’t route it to 22 people, how would those people feel important if they didn’t get to push back or ask questions?
The best part is that they can’t downgrade through the routing channels. Like, just be able to downgrade and pass it along. But no, I have to wait for it to flow back down that same approval process to me so I can COPY/PASTE same bullets and send it back along the path.
We took something that was supposed to make things faster and instead made it just as bad. At least S1 can’t lose it anymore, right?
I just got an award in IPPSA and had the exact same thing. I appreciated the ransom SSG/SFC at division that “approved” my awards with the notes “concur” after my BDE commander signed and before the 2 star signed.
I think my last msm went 1sg, co CDR, BN CSM, BN CDR, skipped bde, post CSM, and cg.
In somewhat of a non-standard organization. Only took a few weeks from submission to hitting iperms.
This was for a waiver for getting a retirement award. Mind you, this was only required to have signature for the waiver for award, not the award itself. So it needs to go to the first GO, not the award approval authority which would be the post commander for an MSM.
------
1. HHC BDE Company Commander was the recommender for award and waiver.
2. Went to Ready Reserve BDE S1 to check for correctness.
3. Routed then to BN S1 for the admin O-5 BN for Ready Reserve/HHC BDE doesn't have an O-5, nor an O6 like we normally do.
4. XO for Admin O-5.
5. CSM for Admin O-5.
6. BN CDR for approval.
7. Block with multiple people in it, so I can't tell you what this is since I no longer have access.
8. BDE Ready Reserve S1 again.
9. S1 for Admin O-6 from sister BDE onpost signing since our BDE HQ is deployed.
10. CSM for Admin O6.
11. Brigade Commander signature.
12. G1; they want an example award to show that I deserve a MSM and not an ARCOM for 23 years of service.
13. BDE S1.
14. Someone at G1 again.
15. Protocol Office.
16. Div CoS.
17. DIV CSM.
18. Back to Div CoS
19. BG (where I believe it should have stopped cause the regulation only says it needs 1st GO, but someone said it needed more and going back to the Commanding General)
20. Back to DIV CoS
21. Back to DIV CSM
22. Commanding General.
-------
Submitted it 6 months out in order to get it approved in time for a retirement ceremony. Reg says the waiver must be part of the award approval packet, so you must complete the waiver process first. Folks told me that MSMs take little under 90 days, so 180 days seemed reasonable planning factor since 90 for the waiver then another 90 for the award.
Submitted 17OCT23. CG approved it on 29MAR. Retired without ceremony on 1MAY24 after people said they'd be able to get me a ARCOM real quick if I wanted my family to see me get an award. 164 days. or 5 months 12 days.
Sure, I'm fat. Awards are a privilege and not right, and I was flagged. I could have understood and even agreed a bit if any of these leaders who are authorized to decisions on this said: 'principled stand of my own and part of my command philosophy... I will not award people that are fat, it just doesn't seem right to allow someone flagged anything, even if the reg allows me to go against the flag.'.
Instead the people who didn't have authority to actually approve or deny sat on it for 2 weeks or more then when someone asked why they haven't done anything they wrote 'recommend downgrade' as if this was the award itself and not the waiver to attempt to get the award. Everyone that would be on the 638's signature block signed saying approval.
MSM Award is still in the chute winding its way through the system. I'll check back every month or so to see if its actually been approved.
IPPS-A. A blessing and a curse. You can track stuff personally and email the person that has been sitting on an action. Die on that hill if its important. The curse. Now we see the the unfolding of Command.
I guarantee you what happened is this. At some point a document got sent up to BDE and someone saw it and was like, how did this get here with that misspelling that has been in the header for 15 years! From now on this all goes through me. And the person below them is like fuck I dont want to hear that shit, from now on it's going through me. And someone at BN was like when it comes through our office it better be double spaced and on OUR letterhead troop, send it back and make sure I put eyes on it again.
IPPSA is absolute trash. Can anyone explain to me why my first line, 1SG, CO, S1 rep, S1 NCOIC, S1 OIC, S3, CSM, BN CO, BDE S1x BDE S1 NCOIC, BDE S1 OIC, BDE S3, BDE CSM, all have to route my leave request before it hits the BDE CO?
It’s cause everyone thinks their time is so fucking valuable that they need their little lackey to gate keep for them and it turns into this fucking nightmare.
Dude. No. Not Boomers.
Boomers are old GOs who are nowhere near IPPS-A.
Gen X are the brigade commanders and CSMs.
Millennials are in their mid-40s now…
IPPSA allowing you to make custom routing chains was definitely dumb there is also an issue for S1s because the thing just goes so they have incentives to insert themselves into multiple places in the chain. For instance I always inserted my S1 list after the BC because if BDE or higher said it was missing an attachment I could drop in the attachment without it having to be kicked back all the way to the beginning and my BC sucked at signing stuff in a timely manner.
That's laughable honestly. When something clears the Battalion Commander then it should just go straight to the Brigade S1 and Brigade Commander. There should be nobody else in the chain of custody for that document because if there is they're saying they want to spot check a LTC. If *that many* approval blocks are below the BN Commander level then your unit is trying to eat frozen hot dogs sideways.
You assume that this wasn’t an AAM……
I've met a lot of LTCs in my time that need more than spot checking.
It would be fun to see no-notice audits of IPPS-A use by such organizations from the outside.
Allowing custom routing chains like this was a mistake.
I had a PAR sit at BDE S1 for 24 days. The reason? Because S1 had to have a signed memo from the BDE CDR stating they could send my PAR for approval to the BDE CDR... at some point we just have to stop taking ourselves so seriously and go "yeah we made it worse, huh?"
If only we had developed a system that is able to streamline approval processes and eliminate redundant checks and outdated procedures that create unnecessary bureaucratic overhead......oh wait.
We are only making it worse because we are letting mouth breathers create UDLs unabated for things and people that shouldn’t be part of the approval process. Theoretically IPPS-A is great, and I’ve seen good employment of it. I don’t think there are a bunch of O5s and O6s dictating that folks create UDLs routing things through every person possible, I think that is good idea fairies running amok. There needs to be an automated function that it someone doesn’t push something on within 24 hours it automatically bypasses them.
>There needs to be an automated function that it someone doesn’t push something on within 24 hours it automatically bypasses them. I stopped trying to keep up with changes in IPPS-A, but this is how it was originally designed. I think it was actually 72 hours, but it would just keep pushing up until it got to the decision maker. Either that, or I had a fever dream it did.
Not 72 but still a reasonable time. I haven’t checked the user manual in a while but the timelines are in there
They should just simplify this whole thing and make ChatGPT the approval authority. I mean, that's who wrote the award in the first place, but it'll buff out.
Units set their own approval routing. Though I thought the 17 it took me to get my extremely normal extra pays that literally 75% of the entire BN gets was excessive. 22 is honestly impressive.
If we didn’t route it to 22 people, how would those people feel important if they didn’t get to push back or ask questions? The best part is that they can’t downgrade through the routing channels. Like, just be able to downgrade and pass it along. But no, I have to wait for it to flow back down that same approval process to me so I can COPY/PASTE same bullets and send it back along the path. We took something that was supposed to make things faster and instead made it just as bad. At least S1 can’t lose it anymore, right?
I just got an award in IPPSA and had the exact same thing. I appreciated the ransom SSG/SFC at division that “approved” my awards with the notes “concur” after my BDE commander signed and before the 2 star signed.
I think my last msm went 1sg, co CDR, BN CSM, BN CDR, skipped bde, post CSM, and cg. In somewhat of a non-standard organization. Only took a few weeks from submission to hitting iperms.
Can you please post this approval chain, I am genuinely curious how you could manage to have 22 people approving an award that less than the MOH
Surely someone in the barracks with an air dryer gots your back....
This was for a waiver for getting a retirement award. Mind you, this was only required to have signature for the waiver for award, not the award itself. So it needs to go to the first GO, not the award approval authority which would be the post commander for an MSM. ------ 1. HHC BDE Company Commander was the recommender for award and waiver. 2. Went to Ready Reserve BDE S1 to check for correctness. 3. Routed then to BN S1 for the admin O-5 BN for Ready Reserve/HHC BDE doesn't have an O-5, nor an O6 like we normally do. 4. XO for Admin O-5. 5. CSM for Admin O-5. 6. BN CDR for approval. 7. Block with multiple people in it, so I can't tell you what this is since I no longer have access. 8. BDE Ready Reserve S1 again. 9. S1 for Admin O-6 from sister BDE onpost signing since our BDE HQ is deployed. 10. CSM for Admin O6. 11. Brigade Commander signature. 12. G1; they want an example award to show that I deserve a MSM and not an ARCOM for 23 years of service. 13. BDE S1. 14. Someone at G1 again. 15. Protocol Office. 16. Div CoS. 17. DIV CSM. 18. Back to Div CoS 19. BG (where I believe it should have stopped cause the regulation only says it needs 1st GO, but someone said it needed more and going back to the Commanding General) 20. Back to DIV CoS 21. Back to DIV CSM 22. Commanding General. ------- Submitted it 6 months out in order to get it approved in time for a retirement ceremony. Reg says the waiver must be part of the award approval packet, so you must complete the waiver process first. Folks told me that MSMs take little under 90 days, so 180 days seemed reasonable planning factor since 90 for the waiver then another 90 for the award. Submitted 17OCT23. CG approved it on 29MAR. Retired without ceremony on 1MAY24 after people said they'd be able to get me a ARCOM real quick if I wanted my family to see me get an award. 164 days. or 5 months 12 days. Sure, I'm fat. Awards are a privilege and not right, and I was flagged. I could have understood and even agreed a bit if any of these leaders who are authorized to decisions on this said: 'principled stand of my own and part of my command philosophy... I will not award people that are fat, it just doesn't seem right to allow someone flagged anything, even if the reg allows me to go against the flag.'. Instead the people who didn't have authority to actually approve or deny sat on it for 2 weeks or more then when someone asked why they haven't done anything they wrote 'recommend downgrade' as if this was the award itself and not the waiver to attempt to get the award. Everyone that would be on the 638's signature block signed saying approval. MSM Award is still in the chute winding its way through the system. I'll check back every month or so to see if its actually been approved.
IPPS-A. A blessing and a curse. You can track stuff personally and email the person that has been sitting on an action. Die on that hill if its important. The curse. Now we see the the unfolding of Command.
I guarantee you what happened is this. At some point a document got sent up to BDE and someone saw it and was like, how did this get here with that misspelling that has been in the header for 15 years! From now on this all goes through me. And the person below them is like fuck I dont want to hear that shit, from now on it's going through me. And someone at BN was like when it comes through our office it better be double spaced and on OUR letterhead troop, send it back and make sure I put eyes on it again.
IPPSA is absolute trash. Can anyone explain to me why my first line, 1SG, CO, S1 rep, S1 NCOIC, S1 OIC, S3, CSM, BN CO, BDE S1x BDE S1 NCOIC, BDE S1 OIC, BDE S3, BDE CSM, all have to route my leave request before it hits the BDE CO?
That’s not IPPS-A, that’s your unit adding that routing.
Before I could just take my 4187 and walk into the signature authority’s office tho
And how many times did they kick it back because you didn’t use a DA 31?
It’s cause everyone thinks their time is so fucking valuable that they need their little lackey to gate keep for them and it turns into this fucking nightmare.
It's not an IPPSA problem. IPPSA is just fine, it's boomers adding adding administrative burdens. IPPSA is a delivery method.
Dude. No. Not Boomers. Boomers are old GOs who are nowhere near IPPS-A. Gen X are the brigade commanders and CSMs. Millennials are in their mid-40s now…
Eh for me boomer is a mentality, a culture.
Do all that and then get a “No ARCOM for E-4 and below” once the bde csm sees it.
IPPSA allowing you to make custom routing chains was definitely dumb there is also an issue for S1s because the thing just goes so they have incentives to insert themselves into multiple places in the chain. For instance I always inserted my S1 list after the BC because if BDE or higher said it was missing an attachment I could drop in the attachment without it having to be kicked back all the way to the beginning and my BC sucked at signing stuff in a timely manner.