DATA SUPPORTS TRAINING
people—and asked questions similar to the fiscal year 2017 assess- ment on leadership, functional competencies and competencies common among all 14 career fields, he said. Of the 12,000 people surveyed for the fiscal year 2019 assessment, roughly 3,000, or 24.8 percent of them, responded.
Te fiscal year 2019 assessment’s objectives were to identify the strengths and training needs of the AAW, inform and improve human capital planning initiatives to develop the workforce, and gather information for decision-makers and stakeholders in plan- ning for professional development. Te report on the assessment’s results will be shared with supervisors and senior acquisition lead- ers across the community.
Jerry Baird, an analyst with the Acquisition Workforce Propo- nency Branch, explained that before the fiscal year 2019 assessment was launched, the DACM Office conducted focus groups with various stakeholders from the fiscal year 2017 assessment. Te focus groups helped determine the six universal competencies common among the career fields, which are:
• Critical thinking: The ability to analyze situations and make sound decisions that are most effective.
• Writing and communication: The ability to translate concepts into comprehensive guidance that is actionable and easy to understand.
• Decision-making: The ability to make critical and rapid deci- sions and to respond in a methodical and effective way when quick action is required.
• Planning and analysis – integration: The ability to under- stand how product support management activities lead, integrate, impact and trade among other functional activities required for that particular product.
• Risk management: The ability to create and implement risk management plans and apply risk management throughout the total life cycle of a program.
• Acquisition strategy and planning analysis: The ability to collect technical inputs, including cost, schedule and finan- cial information; to identify program problems; and to propose mitigation plans.
“Every competency was rated in two ways: First, how impor- tant did they think it was on a scale of one to five? Second, how proficient did they think the people they supervise, specifically their acquisition workforce members, were in that competency?” Baird said. “So, each competency had two lenses: importance and proficiency.” A gap was deemed to exist “if something was
important, but the proficiency was lower than the importance rating,” Baird said.
QUANTIFIABLE DATA Both competency assessments are aligned with the DACM Office’s Human Capital Strategic Plan and the Army’s People Strategy to improve workforce development and further the Army’s goal of talent management. “While talent management is about the entire human resource life cycle—acquire, develop, employ and retain—we feel this effort can help organizational leaders identify leadership- and acquisition-specific developmen- tal focus areas,” Pitts said.
Te DACM Office hopes to provide supervisors and senior acqui- sition leaders better insight into their organizations with the fiscal year 2019 Supervisor Competency Assessment report. “All we tried to do was arm them with a few leadership and functional competency gaps that are quantified with data,” Pitts said. “Tis allows them to create strategic IDPs [individual development plans], for example, to target their gaps.”
Te assessment also enables the DACM Office, which manages the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Account (formerly the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund), to prioritize the 1,300 submissions received every fiscal year, he said. It provided quantifiable data to validate the deci- sions of senior acquisition leaders across the community and the DACM Office’s priorities, before the Army committed resources to specific submissions.
“If there’s a gap, and it’s important, divisions or commands need to make sure their training opportunities are geared at filling those gaps,” Pitts said.
For more information, go to
https://asc.army.mil/web/hcsp/.
JACQUELINE M. HAMES is an editor with Army AL&T magazine. She holds a B.A. in creative writing from Christopher Newport University. She has more than 12 years of experience writing and editing news and feature articles for publication.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
The 2019 competency assessment that went out to AAW supervisors captured their perspectives on the competencies necessary for optimal leadership and technical understanding of acquisition programs, among other demands of AAW careers. (Graphic courtesy of the DACM Office)
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Army AL&T Magazine
Spring 2020
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