TALENT MANAGEMENT IN LEAN TIMES
Any PEO could use an acquisition- academy type of program to help ensure an adequately staffed, high-quality, educated and motivated workforce.
the compilation of 20 acquisition documents to support the upcoming milestone B decision. Most of the PMO staff were supporting all three of these actions in parallel.
Once hiring could take place, the PMO hired several research and development personnel contracted earlier using federal funds, and transitioned systems engineering and technical assistance contractors to government civilian employees. Hir- ing practices, such as veterans’ preference, caused delays as the PMO had to go through the difficult process of denying veter- ans who applied for the jobs but were not necessarily qualified.
Te PMO also had trouble getting appropriately experienced personnel from the functional proponent. Te PMO needed technical subject matter experts from the legacy systems who understood how to generate, manage and store the data. How- ever, the functional proponent provided end users who could interface with the source systems and had an operational per- spective on their use but did not understand the underlying structure and processes. As a result, the program needed the reachback capabilities of legacy contractors, who usually have no incentive to support the new program. Fortunately, some legacy system personnel relocated to the PMO and were able to reach back to the legacy contractor to acquire required information.
Te program also faced cultural challenges with senior leader- ship in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and various Army components. When the program was initiated, an OSD office not only had control of the program’s requirements, but also oversaw its acquisition, serving as both the milestone deci- sion authority and the overarching integrated product team lead. Because of that office’s previous involvement in the legacy pro- gram as well as its knowledge of business systems, elements of the office were inclined to scrutinize areas of the Army program and micromanage some of the PMO staff. Additionally, there were disagreements among the Army components on how to
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merge the three cultures and their different business practices. Despite their differences, the program ultimately brought the three components to agreement, standardizing their business practices and integrating the various data and processes into a single personnel and pay system.
Recommendation Acquisition programs need to have the right people in the right places, including leaders with the appropriate personality traits and management skills
(collaborative, communicative, will-
ing to delegate authority). Programs need a plan for acquiring qualified personnel with the appropriate expertise. Since it can be challenging to induce qualified personnel to relocate to join new programs, it may be necessary to allow personnel to work remotely. In addition, the PMO needs to tackle cultural issues among program personnel at the beginning of the program’s life cycle.
After more than three years as a regular feature in Army AL&T magazine, this “Ground Truth” column of Army acquisition lessons learned concludes the series. “Ground Truth” first appeared in April – June 2014 to offer our readers lessons learned that the Army had collected via its ALLP. Since then, it has proved a popular feature. Based on readers’ nominations, “Ground Truth” was the runner-up for the magazine’s 2015 ALTies Award for best article. (See “Ground Truth: Harnessing lessons learned through Better Buying Power initiatives,” April – June 2015.)
The Center for Army Acquisition Lessons Learned in the Acquisi- tion Support Branch of the U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, which launched the ALLP in October 2012, is relinquish- ing the mission of analyzing acquisition lesson submissions as the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology re-evaluates its processes for gathering and applying lessons learned. Possible capabilities to replace the ALLP are under discussion.
MR. KEVIN GUITE is a lead operations research analyst with the U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. He holds an M.S. in computer science from the University of Maryland Graduate School and a B.S. in computer science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is Level I certified in program management and Level III certified in engineering. He has been a member of the Army Acquisition Corps since 2008.
Army AL&T Magazine
July-September 2017
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