Eight ways to successfully handle the ORI Published Feb. 8, 2012 By Airman 1st Class Leah Young 62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- The Air Mobility Command Inspector General team is coming to McChord Field in October to conduct an Operational Readiness Inspection. An overall message to keep in mind: the ORI is a positive thing. It's a chance to conduct a detailed scrub of mission capabilities, identify and fix discrepancies, improve morale and teamwork by rallying behind a common objective, and demonstrate each unit's ability to support the warfighter. Here are eight tips on how ensure an outstanding ORI. Display a sense of urgency. No one doubts that when a real contingency occurs, everyone will put forth his or her best effort. Airmen must be able to capture that driven sense of purpose and apply it to the ORI. Maintain realism. Know the exercise contingency and how each scenario fits in. Consider all aspects and implications of the scenario. Make use of intelligence resources. Simulate as little as possible. Coordinate simulations with the Inspector General. When working with the IG as simulated external agency, treat them like the real thing. Communicate. With senior leadership. Within your organization. With the IG. Without effective communication, excelling during the exercise is not possible. A word of caution: Be careful when communicating with the IG. The IG team may be simulating several external agencies, so be specific. Exhibit teamwork. The organizations most successful in the past exercises have all exhibited exceptional teamwork. Involve all necessary functions (legal, comptroller, safety, etc.) as early as possible in the scenario. If you can get the external members of your team to participate, it pays off. Don't assume. As in real life, you will rarely be given all the information you need to accomplish your mission. When you need information, ask for it. When you need an external agency to do something, ask for an IG simulation, or if they are participating, get them involved. There usually isn't time during an inspection to recover from an incorrect assumption. Complete the job. This does not mean that you must complete the scenario taskings. Scenarios are often designed so that completion would take longer than the time available for the inspection. What it does mean is that you must follow through on the actions you have time to complete. Finish the paperwork, get all signatures, cut orders if they are needed. A missing signature could turn an otherwise outstanding effort into a finding. Remain Flexible. Roadblocks have been known to happen in past inspections. Key personnel get "injured" and can't report to duty. Resources become unavailable. Be prepared and have contingency plans in place. Document actions. The IG team conducting an inspection is usually fairly small and cannot directly observe all actions taken by your team. Have your team keep "who, what, when" logs (hand-written is fine) of key communications, meetings and decisions made during the exercise. The IG will use these logs to fill in gaps in their observations. Without them, anything not observed effectively doesn't occur. The final determination of a score is subjective. Acquisition is a dynamic process with many opportunities for innovation, so there is no single "right answer" for a scenario. For this reason, there is no formula equating certain actions to a specific rating. IG team members will weigh the suitability of your planning, the performance of your unit and their past experience when determining a rating. But if you are truly prepared for a contingency situation and you demonstrate the characteristics described above, you will be successful in the ORI. More importantly, you will be ready to accomplish one of your real-world missions.