key to maintaining the readiness of the Army and DOD,” Stein said.
INDIVIDUAL ATTENTION While the technology DCATS fields is the same at every installation worldwide, each theater is unique—be it in facilities, geography or command policy—which translates to distinct challenges for each.
“To confront these, we engage in person with each stakeholder through techni- cal interchange meetings and sustain that engagement through regular com- munication,” Stein said. Tis degree of engagement requires extensive, often repetitive, travel, but it pays significant dividends in the mutual understanding and cooperation that
those meetings
foster, he added. “We also maintain labs at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Mary- land, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and forward-assigned personnel at five sites spread across two continents to keep our experts tied at the hip to the end users,” he said. “Trough these efforts, we get to better know our stakeholders’ priorities, risks and concerns, and they are able to better appreciate ours.”
DOD SATCOM collectively—the Defense Information Systems Agency, Army, Navy, everyone—has a severe
configuration management problem at
the DOD SATCOM Gateway sites,
Stein said. “Gateways” are ground sta- tions where the satellite terminals and dishes that provide communications capabilities to the services are located.
“Between all the agencies, a proverbial forest of SATCOM technology sits at these sites—but our lack of awareness means we don’t know what kind of ‘trees’ are there. DCATS took the initiative to scale up the internal DCATS configura- tion management systems and is making significant strides toward providing that service for the Army as a whole.”
While there is no official requirement for it to do so, Stein continued, “PM DCATS is taking the initiative to fill this critical gap in part because it could be consid- ered a subtask to everything else DCATS does.” Tat thinking illuminates Stein’s forward-looking approach to managing a project and customer service.
“As we go from day to day, we strive to ensure that Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines stationed around the world can take for granted their assured communi- cations for the fights of today, tomorrow and the distant future,” he said shortly before relinquishing the PM DCATS charter.
CONCLUSION Te Army relies on SATCOM every day.
“And when we’ve done our job well at DCATS, you don’t give a second thought to how your IP-enabled phone connects or your internet and email traffic passes over fiber optics,” Stein said. “From the end user’s perspective, their computer plugs into a wire and a server rack some- where in a closet and then to the internet.”
But without the dedicated, daily efforts of the DCATS team, those connections would be incomplete. “You hear it all the time—because it’s true—that people are our greatest asset. For a PM, if the people on your team are not happy, they won’t be focused on the mission, and that mis- sion will suffer as a result. Gen. Colin Powell [USA (Ret.)] said that ‘Leadership is all about people. It is not about orga- nizations. It is not about plans. It is not about strategies. It is all about people— motivating people to get the job done. You have to be people-centered.’ ”
For more information on leadership, Stein recommends Powell’s books, specifically, “It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership,” and “Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times” by Donald T. Phillips.
Development never truly stops within any portfolio—a departure from the traditional acquisition-milestone mindset that views a program as strictly linear. This is particularly true in SATCOM, where the Army is constantly chasing to keep up with commercial technology.
MR. JAMES CHRISTOPHERSEN is a public affairs professional with Bowhead Total Enterprise Solutions LLC providing contract support to PM DCATS. He has supported various offices of the Army acquisition enterprise since 2014, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. He graduated with a B.S. in psychology from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas, and earned his Project Management Professional 2015.
certification in
ASC.ARMY.MIL
123
COMMENTARY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156
