KEEPING PACE WITH CHANGE: Christine Mack, a trainee with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Rock Island District, logs in to her computer as part of her training program. She and other members of the AAW will benefit from DACM Office efforts to provide the workforce with skills to thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape. (Photo by Kelcy Hanson, USACE Rock Island District)
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF
ACQUISITION CAREER MANAGEMENT
RONALD R. RICHARDSON JR.
Ronald R. Richardson Jr., Director, U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center and Director, Acquisition Career Management
The Army Digital Transformation Strategy requires the Army to build a foundation for change. This includes addressing people and culture to increase data literacy and embrace data for decision-making. As our systems have become more data-centric, our need for specialists such as data scientists and engineers has grown. But we also need program managers, contracting officers and testers—really all of the acquisition functional areas—to embrace and master the change and advantage that the digital evolution affords. Experimentation and testing are central to this transformation.
Last year—2023—was the year of digital transformation. And what a year it was. I’d like to share some of our accomplishments:
- In March 2023, my office rolled out a curated learning pathway within Udemy to ensure a baseline level of digital proficiency. Since then, approximately 10,000 Army Acquisition Workforce (AAW) professionals are actively enrolled in courses.
- More than 300 senior Army acquisition leaders attended the Data Driven Leadership Course offered by Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy in fiscal year 2023. The course, which covers topics such as data management, data science, decision making, emerging technology, change management, data privacy and security, is designed to assist our leaders in the development of a robust enterprise data management and data science capability to improve decision-making to better support the mission of the U.S. Army.
- Our partners at Defense Acquisition University (DAU) continue to build out their list of Credentials, many of which focus on digital transformation such as software development, DevSecOps, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
- We partnered with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to launch an Army Digital Engineering Pilot under the DOD Public Private Talent Experience for fiscal year 2024. Companies that have a digital focus were solicited to participate, as were Army civilians who work in the digital engineering field. We were able to match four Army civilians with four companies. These civilians will be placed with the companies over a six-month period to gain exposure to digital engineering within an industry environment, as well as garner best business practices.
But 2023 was just the beginning.
ADVISING THE WORKFORCE: Megan Dake, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Procurement, takes part in a panel discussion on digital engineering during the AUSA 2023 Annual Meeting and Exposition. As an AAFA, she plays an important role in helping the workforce best apply digital transformation principles into their work by providing guidance on continuous learning. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Brandon L. Perry)
FUNCTIONAL AREA SPECIFICS
We can’t and won’t stop at the basics. The foundations we learned in 2023 give us a level of proficiency and a common language with which we can cross-communicate. But as our line of work is complex and each situation we face is nuanced, we must now use that language and baseline understanding to discuss within and among our acquisition functional areas how to apply digital transformation principles into everything we do, from Program Management to Contracting to Test and Evaluation and the other functional areas.
We’re supporting the workforce in this effort by using our stakeholder network, specifically the Army acquisition functional leaders (AAFLs) and Army acquisition functional advisors (AAFAs). AAFLs and AAFAs serve as experts within a designated functional area and advise me and my office in shaping and developing the AAW within that functional area.
Each AAFL provides guidance on continuous learning, whether it’s courses or credentials, specific to their acquisition functional area workforce. Recently, the AAFLs’ incorporated digital transformation training into that guidance.
For example, the Contracting functional area AAFL, Megan Dake, who also serves as deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement, recommends that members of the Contracting workforce focus 20% of the required 80 continuous learning points (CLPs) on data analytics and literacy and agile acquisition, and lists specific Udemy and DAU courses that can be completed toward this goal.
James Cooke, AAFL for the Test and Evaluation functional area, recommends that Test and Evaluation workforce members focus 25% of their required CLPs in emerging technologies like big data and machine learning, as well as such areas as data science and cybersecurity.
I strongly advise every member of our AAW to review your relevant AAFL continuous learning memorandum, available in the DACM Policy Library, especially as we move into this new two-year CLP cycle beginning Oct. 1, 2024. Enter the appropriate functional area in the search bar on the right.
MOREin’24
You’ve heard me and other acquisition leaders talk about upskilling, which is continuous learning to attain more relevant and advanced skills through additional education that expands abilities and minimizes skill gaps.
‘Continuous’ being the key word.
Offerings in 2023 provided that digital transformation baseline; in 2024 we are accelerating the learning pathway with more curated courses that will arm you with essential skills needed to thrive—not just survive—in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape.
In March I announced our MOREin’24 campaign, which adds three new courses to the digital transformation pathway in Udemy. We also launched our first-ever Army-specific Digital Foundations credential for those who complete the original three digital foundation courses within Udemy. The credential comes with 18 CLPs and an official certificate issued by me, the Army Director of Acquisition Career Management.
You can read more about the MOREin’24 campaign in this issue’s article titled “Serving the Digital Entrée,”.
THE KEYS TO ADVANCEMENT: As Army systems become more data-centric, all of the acquisition functional areas will be called on to identify the best ways to benefit from the advantages of digital transformation. (Image by Gerd Altmann, Pixabay)
CONCLUSION
Our extremely talented AAW knows how to get things done and get them done right. It’s my mission to enable each of you in our workforce to persevere and succeed. I will ensure you have access to basic levels of knowledge and critical thinking capabilities to help you be more predictive and ultimately accelerate delivery of capability to the warfighter. I will continue to work with the AAFLs and AAFAs to functionally align our programs so that you are better able to adapt and operate in this emerging environment. We will use any and all tools available to us to deliver timely and relevant information. We will continue to engage directly with you—our workforce—to gauge digital competency growth and identify gaps. It is our workforce that is at ground zero of our Army’s digital transformation efforts. I’m looking forward to continuing this odyssey together.
