The tools we use, including information systems, shape our decision-making. (Consider the law of the instrument: "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.") But every tool has limitations.

The NATO command in Afghanistan last week fired a staff officer for publicly criticizing the military's use of Microsoft's presentation software PowerPoint.

Lawrence Sellin, an Army Reserve colonel and commentator for United Press International, was fired from his position at the International Security Assistance Force just days after UPI published his rebuke of the military's information practices:

For headquarters staff, war consists largely of the endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information. ...

Each day is guided by the "battle rhythm" which is a series of PowerPoint briefings and meetings with PowerPoint presentations. It doesn't matter how inane or useless the briefing or meeting might be.

The military's PowerPoint use has been criticized before. Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis put it bluntly: "PowerPoint makes us stupid."

PowerPoint abuse is a common experience in a number of contexts. But in the military, the stakes are much higher than mere annoyance.

Overreliance on any tool, without being cognizant of its limits, can introduce flaws into the final analysis. For instance, a 2009 study concluded that overreliance on and misuse of spreadsheets played a role in the financial crisis,

centred around the fact that they were one of the principal technologies used in the Credit Derivatives marketplace. This market grew very quickly due to the ease with which it was possible to design and promulgate opaque financial instruments based on large spreadsheets with critical flaws in their key assumptions. Their secondary rôle is centred around their ubiquitous use ...

Neglecting the limitations of any information system can lead to flawed decision-making. Monocultures are especially dangerous, because they inbreed the system's weaknesses.

A hallmark of transparency is that people have a right to know how the government made a decision. When even military leaders are concerned that their procedures may be inadequate, the public has reason to worry. If the military is planning the war via PowerPoint, we ought to know about it.

Image by Angelica Golindano for the U.S. Army. In the public domain.