DECEMBER 2020 ARMY DACM HOT TOPICS

Hot Topics

 

 

DACM OFFICE UPDATE

 

2020 OFFICE OF THE UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT (USD(A&S)) DEFENSE ACQUISITION AWARDS

Congratulations to the Army winners of the 2020 Defense Acquisition Workforce Awards:

  • James Sarruda, Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO) Armaments and Ammunition.
  • George Sfakianoudis, JPEO for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense.
  • Thaddeus L. Martin, Army Materiel Command.
  • The combined team of U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Ground Vehicle Systems Center, PEO Combat Support and Combat Service Support (CS&CSS), and PEO Ground Combat Systems (GCS).

Selection as a winner in this field of competitive nominations across the defense acquisition workforce is a significant accomplishment. We proudly celebrate these Army acquisition professionals!

To learn more about their awards and see the full list of DOD winners go to: https://asc.army.mil/web/news-army-achieves-four-dod-awards/. 

 

 

ACQUISITION SUPERVISOR’S CORNER WEBPAGE 

The Army DACM Office is pleased to announce the Supervisor’s Corner webpage. A direct action from the Army Acquisition Workforce (AAW) Human Capital Strategic Plan (HCSP), this site supports supervisor readiness as it compiles information, guides and other resources into a one-stop shop for supervisors of AAW professionals. The intent of this site is to provide supervisors with critical information to support, and better communicate with, their employees. These resources are also intended to strengthen the relationship between supervisors and their AAW professionals for better career development as a supervisor.

As the Defense Acquisition Back-to-Basics framework is implemented, the content in this portal will be updated to ensure supervisors have the latest information on how to best support their employees. Explore Supervisor’s Corner here: https://asc.army.mil/web/career-development/supervisors-corner/.

 

 

DEFENSE ACQUISITION WORKFORCE “BACK TO BASICS” INITIATIVE

A Nov. 15 article co-authored by Hon. Alan Shaffer, deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, and James Woolsey, Defense Acquisition University (DAU) president, highlights how the defense acquisition system must adjust to face the challenge of the return to great power competition with near-peer adversaries. The article lays out how the Back to Basics (BtB) initiative to develop, acquire and sustain operational capability for the force is being supported by DAU’s efforts to transform into a modern platform of training and on-the-job resources to provide the support and skills the acquisition workforce needs to succeed….specifically by focusing on three key areas:

  • Streamlining acquisition policy to empower workforce decision making.
  • Reimaging how we train and develop our workforce.
  • Transforming DAU into a modern learning platform.

Read the full article titled “DAU Reform – The Intersection with BtB,” posted on the Back to Basics web page here: https://asc.army.mil/web/dacm-office/back-to-basics/. 

 

MANDATORY ANNUAL ETHICS TRAINING REMINDER

As members of the AAW, the standards of expertise, experience and ethics are high. Mandatory ethics training instills the importance of conducting ourselves in an ethical manner. This training for the AAW is due by Dec. 31.

The list of accepted ethics training modalities that meet the annual requirement has been expanded to include:

All ethics training options for the AAW can be found on the Mandatory Annual Ethics Training memo: https://asc.army.mil/web/dacm-ethics-rqmnt-memo/.

More information on these requirements can be found in the FY21 AAW Standards memo at https://asc.army.mil/web/fy21-army-acquisition-workforce-standards/. 

 

SENIOR RATER POTENTIAL EVALUATION

The Senior Rater Potential Evaluation (SRPE) cycle is now upon us. Since 2015, the SRPE has been required annually for GS-12 through GS-15 and pay band equivalent AAW professionals. Evaluations for this fiscal year cover Oct. 1, 2019, through Sept. 1, 2020, and senior raters must complete the SRPE by Dec. 31. The Army DACM Office released all annual SRPEs on Oct. 1. Employees, raters and senior raters can find policies and guidance, videos, instructional briefings and a user manual on the website at: https://asc.army.mil/web/senior-rater-potential-evaluation/. If you’re brand new to the process, check out the live training tutorial within the SRPE module at: https://apps.asc.army.mil/camp/.

 

ACQUISITION EDUCATION, TRAINING AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

 

THE 2020-2021 DAU-SSCF COHORT PARTICIPATES IN ITS ANNUAL SENIOR LEADER FORUM

On October 8-9, a cohort of up-and-coming Army acquisition leaders from Aberdeen, Maryland; Huntsville, Alabama; Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey; and Detroit Arsenal, Michigan, participated in a virtual Senior Leader Forum. The cohort consists of 26 students in the Army Director, Acquisition Career Management (DACM) Office-sponsored Defense Acquisition University Senior Service College Fellowship (DAU-SSCF). This unique engagement provided the fellows an opportunity to engage with senior leaders across the Army acquisition community. Leaders gave an overview of their office’s responsibilities, how the office fits within the National Defense Strategy, and the DOD/Army acquisition process and construct. Fellows enjoyed a chance to learn and share leadership lessons, and to interact with, and ask questions of, a senior leader “in person.” Normally held at the Pentagon, this year the event was held online via MS Teams. Read all about it at https://asc.army.mil/web/news-the-2020-2021-dau-sscf-cohort-participates-in-its-annual-senior-leader-forum/.

The DAU-SSCF program is a 10-month educational and leadership development opportunity sponsored by the DACM Office and conducted under the auspices of DAU at Huntsville, Alabama; Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; Warren, Michigan; and Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey. DAU-SSCF provides leadership and acquisition training to prepare senior level civilians for leadership roles such as Product and Project Director/Manager, Deputy Program Executive Officer and other key acquisition leadership positions. To find out more about the DAU-SSCF, go to https://asc.army.mil/web/career-development/programs/defense-acquisition-university-senior-service-college/.

 

 FY20 EMERGING ENTERPRISE LEADER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM GRADUATES!

Congratulations to the 13 Cohort 2 graduates of the FY20 Emerging Enterprise Leaders (EEL) program. The EEL program is an effort to expand the Army’s enterprise leadership development efforts to emerging leaders at the GS-11/12 levels.

 

The EEL Cohort 2 Graduates are as follows:

Moriah Bartlett – U.S. Army Medical Research Command
Mark Block – Program Executive Office (PEO) for Enterprise Information Systems
Matthew Eady – PEO Missiles and Space (M&S)
Marta (Iris) Garner – U.S. Army Sustainment Command (ASC)
Charley Gulac – U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center (USAASC)
Shontel Hamilton – U.S. Army Tank-automotive & Armaments Command
Shelly Hart – PEO Aviation
Tiffany Jones – PEO for Ground Combat Systems (GCS)
Michael Nguyen –  Army Futures Command
Krystal Robinson – ASC
Michelle Roden – PEO M&S
Sara Stein – PEO GCS
Rachel Tomlinson – PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors

As part of the final leader development capstone activity, participants were asked to use all of the skills, training and experience they acquired during EEL and apply critical thinking, decision-making and briefing and presentation skills to achieve the best possible outcome of their assigned missions. Course exercises used real-world scenarios to engage the students. Each student group received a topic and reported out to leadership their findings on topics such as how DOD can successfully execute its goals of improving racial diversity and inclusion, protests, the pandemic and their impact on Army professional leader development. Other areas of discussion covered increasing participation rates of the Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey (FEV) 2019.

Each group conducted research, prepared briefings to senior level leadership and provided recommended courses of action. EEL provides a chance to learn leader competencies such as interpersonal skills, oral and written communication, creativity and innovation, strategic thinking, critical thinking, conflict management, leveraging diversity, team building, decisiveness, problem solving, partnering, influencing and negotiating. Visit the Army’s Strength in Diversity page on https://www.armydiversity.army.mil/index.html.

To find out more on EEL, visit https://asc.army.mil/web/career-development/programs/emerging-enterprise-leader-eel-program/. Please note, because of COVID-19 impacts, the FY21 cycle of EEL has been canceled.

 

DAU NEWS

 

ARE YOU IN THE ZONE? ONLINE DAU STUDENTS CAN NOW SELECT THEIR TIME ZONE 

Army students taking Defense Acquisition University (DAU) online classes can now apply for virtual training within a preferred time zone. At the time of application, DAU students can make a training selection based on their specific global time zone. Students are expected to be on time, present and actively participating in the course during these hours of instruction. Available DAU course time zones are as follows: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Central Europe and Japan Standard. Students are responsible for ensuring their correct time zone is selected. Late cancellations and no-shows because of incorrect time zone selection will not be excused.

Please note that all DAU classroom training scheduled through the end of March 2021 is being converted to Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT). 

 

DACM POLICY

 

PROGRAM MANAGEMENT POSITION NOMENCLATURE

An updated memo, titled Army Acquisition Workforce Standard Program Management Position Nomenclature Policy, went into effect on Oct. 29. Superseding the memo signed on Sept. 23, 2020, this memo is a position classification update for the occupational series Program Management Series, 0340; providing the series definition and titling instructions for two-grade interval positions at the grade GS-13 and above. For more details, visit https://asc.army.mil/web/position-nomenclature-policy/.