MANAGE THE LOAD
Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND). Tis WLW was presented at the ASA(ALT) Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Program Executive Office (PEO) Summit on November 13, 2024. Te WLW is a baselining tool for all PEOs and project managers that empowers development of an agile workforce if used in a similar way across PEOs.
Our baselining approach also generates key performance indi- cators (KPIs) and objectives and key results (OKRs) at echelon. After identifying relevant stakeholders, the baseline helps conduct supply, demand and gap analyses that enable actionable plans for delivering the workforce for “transforming in contact, solv- ing problems and seizing opportunities today”—as promoted by Rainey.
Our method provides an achievable vision and actionable process for realizing a sustainable and agile workforce that is more respon- sive to security needs while employing lessons from the digital industry and economy. By focusing on quality at the speed of relevance, it empowers goal setting at all organizational levels, instead of using a coercive, top-down approach that hinders meaningful transformation.
A BUILDING BLOCK FOR PLANNING Our WLW-baselined manpower requirements for completing program activities and operations follow applicable laws, policies and regulations (with a focus on deliverable outputs). ASA(ALT) and the U.S. Army Manpower Analysis Agency provided guid- ance and a simplified spreadsheet to capture manpower, but we quickly realized the need to re-build the worksheet to cover all aspects of acquisition operations, including exploiting the Adap- tive Acquisition Framework.
Te WLW needed to support strategic to tactical workforce plan- ning and enable thorough workforce supply, demand and gap analyses. JPEO-CBRND employed a workforce stand-down led by the authors and key personnel from PEO staff to develop the tool that we propose is useful for the entire Army Acquisition Workforce. It is a building block that starts from the functional product office level and, through aggregation, goes through PEOs and ASA(ALT) for planning at echelon.
Creating the WLW was not without its difficulties. Te first problem encountered was developing the WLW to serve as a tool for establishing a baseline across ASA(ALT). Te challenge was how to create a defendable foundation to measure work- load, phases of operations, tasks and outputs, as well as one that works for all programs regardless of mission and structure. Te
22 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2025
JPEO, uniquely situated for this task, took the approach of iden- tifying what constraining and limiting factors affect all PEOs and acquisition programs. Te JPEO-CBRND team initially used laws, policies, regulations, mandated program activities, deliverables and processes for programs specified in Adaptive Acquisition Framework Pathways to bound available work activi- ties. Our WLW graphic highlights some of the key aspects of the WLW and shows the dropdown menus that facilitate its success- ful completion by work centers.
After identifying unifying work outputs and activities across the Army, we used laws, policies and regulations to define associ- ated activity criteria as written guidance for why these activities occurred and the authorities provided to execute success (see “Mandate/Mission Directive” column in Figure 1, Page 24). Tese became the WLW’s “North Star” in developing an output- oriented framework: Te foundation was now defendable because all activities and subtasks supporting mandates or mission direc- tives were aligned to a higher guidance, regulation, policy and law. Tis ended up being notable, even for those who faced diminished planning, programming and budgeting requirements despite having clear outputs.
Te next challenge was quantifying echelons of support by creating products that reference support at appropriate levels (e.g., O-5/GS-14, O-6/GS-15 and JPEO). Tis ensured that the required support was available to a workforce that operated at all echelons; however, by recognizing all contributions, it also prevented a one-size-fits-all approach to product development and empowered operational levels to quantify manpower require- ments to complete the previous year’s work (being directed to examine the previous year’s activities).
Our approach, when employed at echelon, helps the Army acquisition enterprise realize the agile workforce needed to reach its strategic goals.
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