What is PME?

In 2016, the Chief of Army commissioned the Ryan Review into Army education, training and doctrine. Subsequently, Chief of Army Directive 22-17 Implementation of Army’s PME Strategy was introduced along with the paper – Evolving an Intellectual Edge: Professional Military Education for the Australian Army.

The Directive defined PME as ‘intellectual, moral and social instruction in the profession of arms’, and Professional Development (PD) as ‘the pursuit of professional mastery through the guided conduct of education, training and experience’.

The PME strategy spoke of the need to balance investment in training, professional education and experience. It defined the distinct separation between training – which provides a suite of individual and collective military skills; and education – which provides the intellectual, conceptual and ethical foundations to practically apply these skills and to successfully adapt them to a given theatre in a given character of war.

It concluded that PME would become a critical capability for the pursuit of professional mastery by developing holistic fighting power, not just a single component. It also noted that there should always be a ‘careful balance between the warrior and the scholar’ and that education must be articulated as a means to a warfighting end, not an end itself.

What you should focus on

A good place to start when creating unit PME is with the seven pillars of the profession of arms outlined in the ‘Evolving and Intellectual Edge’ paper. They are:

• Technical and tactical mastery
• Physical mastery
• Psychological and cognitive mastery
• Mastery of military history and organisational theory
• Mastery of leadership and ethics
• Mastery of operational art
• Mastery of strategic thinking

Army’s PME strategy states that PME should aim to contribute to the development of mastery of these pillars. Therefore, before you commence planning PME, you should identify if the activity will contribute to one or more of these pillars. While it should be noted that military history plays an acutely important role in the conduct of PME, it isn’t the only type of PME that can be conducted.

Further, PME works best when its relevance is directly connected to the audience’s specific role or function. When the audience can directly relate to the content and understand its applicability to their role, their attention span will increase. Very few of us are able to learn effectively without having an imperative to do so. This also relates back to the ‘careful balance between the warrior and the scholar’. Without a warfighting end, PME serves no purpose other than to make military historians out of each of us.

Ways to conduct PME

PME can be conducted in a broad variety of ways so don’t limit yourself to the standard discussion on military history or book review. Diversity in your PME program allows you to cater for all types of learners, keep your audience interested, and generate creativity. It also allows you to educate yourself and your staff on a broad range of subjects, all of which should contribute to professional mastery. Some examples of ways to conduct PME include:

• Military tours of historic battlefields (physical or virtual)
• Reading and discussion
• Delivery of presentations
• Question and answer sessions of SMEs (leadership, history, education, resilience)
• Essays
• Debates
• Verbal Briefs
• Written Reports

How to create and conduct PME

When you create PME it’s important that you conduct any necessary research prior to the session and plan how you will deliver and lead any discussion or debate. A basic PME Session Plan on a Page is attached to this article as a starting point, as well as an example plan. In addition, here are some basic steps for planning and conducting PME:

• Decide on your method of conducting PME
• Research and prepare
• Provide pre-reading or pre-content to engage people’s thinking and provide them with a foundation understanding of the content
• Lead the delivery of PME content or review submissions
• Guide the audience and control the pace of the PME, or provide feedback on submissions
• Finalise and reflect on what has been learnt and what the audience will take forward.

Importance of quick and efficient PME

Short, sharp and to the point PME maintains interest and ensures key objectives are met in the shortest possible time. With limited time in each of our schedules it is important that we are creating efficient PME sessions without over-simplifying the subject being covered. The best way to ensure this happens is to prepare yourself well so you can effectively lead the session, prepare the audience well so they come to the session with a good foundation level of knowledge, and encourage divergent thought from different points of view regardless of the delivery method. It’s also important to guide and control the pace of the session to ensure it stays on track to meet the objective. Be efficient but don’t limit yourself to a specific time limit. PME can continue on after you leave the Mess and any debate that is generated in a PME session should continue to generate discussion throughout the remainder of the week.

Want something ready-made?

Try our existing PME sessions ready to be pulled 'off the shelf' and used in units:

• Quick Military Education series – For JNCOs and soldiers
• Junior Officer PME series – For junior officers

Or create your own

Here is a pdf version of a basic PME Session Plan on a Page to act as a starting point.

Example PME Plan: