The ability to design, develop, field, and sustain reliable, maintainable, available, supportable, and affordable weapon systems is nothing less than a national strategic imperative. This in turn is possible only if members of the Defense Acquisition Workforce possess the needed knowledge, understanding, expertise, leadership, motivation, values, and wisdom. While many of these traits are innate to individuals, workforce professional development—particularly that which is derived from education training, experience, mentoring, and coaching—is also a key enabler for achieving desired defense acquisition and sustainment outcomes.
This is perhaps best conveyed in a single sentence from Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 5000.66 Defense Acquisition Workforce Education, Training, Experience, and Career Development, which simply states that “it is DoD policy that the Acquisition Workforce [AWF] Program support a professional, agile, and high performing military and civilian AWF that meets uniform eligibility criteria, makes smart business decisions, acts in an ethical manner, and delivers timely and affordable capabilities to the Warfighter.”
The statutory requirements in 10 United States Code Chapter 87: Defense Acquisition Workforce ultimately undergird both policy and professional development requirements at all levels, providing ample rationale as to why this matters and how this can be achieved. The requirements provide that:
- “The Secretary of Defense shall establish policies and procedures for the effective management (including accession, education, training, and career development) of persons serving in acquisition positions in the Department of Defense.” (10 U.S. Code §1701)
- “The Department of Defense (shall) develop and manage a highly skilled professional acquisition workforce” and “The Secretary of Defense shall implement a certification program to provide for a professional certification requirement for all members of the acquisition workforce.” (10 U.S. Code §1701a)
- “The Secretary of Defense shall designate in regulations those positions in the Department of Defense that are acquisition positions for purposes of this chapter.” (10 U.S. Code §1721)
- “The Secretary of Defense, acting through the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, shall ensure that an appropriate career path for civilian and military personnel who wish to pursue careers in acquisition is identified for each acquisition workforce career field in terms of the education, training, experience, and assignments necessary for career progression of civilians and members of the armed forces to the most senior acquisition positions.” (10 U.S. Code §1722)
- “Policies established and guidance issued [by the Secretary of Defense, acting through the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment] … shall ensure…a career path in the acquisition field that attracts the highest quality civilian personnel, from either within or outside the Federal Government.” (10 U.S. Code §1722b)
- “The Secretary of Defense shall establish education, training, and experience requirements for each acquisition position, based on the level of complexity of duties carried out in the position. In establishing such requirements, the Secretary shall ensure the availability and sufficiency of training in all areas of acquisition, including additional training courses with an emphasis on services contracting, market research strategies (including assessments of local contracting capabilities), long-term sustainment strategies, information technology, and rapid acquisition.” (10 U.S. Code §1723)
- “The Secretary of Defense shall establish policies and procedures for the establishment and implementation of the education and training programs.” (10 U.S. Code §1741)
- “For each acquisition workforce career field, the Secretary of Defense shall establish, for the civilian personnel in that career field, defined proficiency standards and technical and nontechnical competencies which shall be used in personnel qualification assessments.” (10 U.S. Code §1765)
The more a functional area’s leadership team adheres to these tenets, the likelier it is to succeed.
Functional Area Governance
Successful Defense Acquisition Workforce functional area governance, however, is a bit more nuanced. It starts with some basic, overarching principles tied to workforce excellence. I contend that these principles include but are certainly not limited to:
- Commitment. Focus laser-like on developing and empowering a workforce capable of responding quickly in the face of rapidly evolving changes to funding, priorities, technologies, processes, policies, and threats.
- Competence. Focus on key technical competencies within each of the acquisition workforce functional areas.
- Teamwork. Recognize the criticality of workforce professional development that is multi-disciplinary, cross-functional, and based on an integrated product team.
- Discernment. Develop the capability to analyze, evaluate, and implement what they learn. Knowledge and understanding are essential but are ultimately insufficient for ensuring successful acquisition outcomes if not coupled with the ability to apply that knowledge and understanding.
- Leadership. Develop and hone leadership skills, by leading change and leading people; developing results-driven, coalitions building business acumen; motivating public service; improving interpersonal skills; clarifying oral and written communication skills; maintaining integrity and honesty; and pursuing continual learning.
- Life-long learning. Focus on professional development, continuous skills refresh, and life-long learning at every level from the individual to the department.
- Embrace “silo-smashing”. Commit to cross-functional engagement and teaming with other functional areas. Support shared activities in areas such as risk management, software life-cycle management, cybersecurity, obsolescence, diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages, configuration management, data management, digital engineering, and supply chain risk management.
- Measure and incentivize desired outcomes. Use competition, data-driven metrics, and clearly understood incentives to achieve desired acquisition and product support outcomes. If you subscribe to the old adage “what gets measured gets managed,” incentivize what you measure. The same goes for workforce performance. Clear, compelling technical and professional competencies are an integral part of workforce and organizational success.
- Resource management. Prioritize well. There rarely are ever enough people, money, or time.
- Customer and stakeholder focus. Strive for excellence in both. Communicate, communicate, and most importantly, communicate.
While these overarching principles are essential, they are not sufficient, at least not for achieving the needed acquisition outcomes. Powerful foundational tenets must be leveraged to undergird successful functional area governance.
I have had the opportunity to support a succession of life-cycle logistics functional area leaders and served in various oversight roles in the life-cycle logistics functional community for nearly two decades. This has afforded me a unique perspective and insight into what works and what doesn’t, as well as which processes contribute to and which may impede success.
In the intervening years, I’ve identified, assembled, and gradually refined a list of 10 key, foundational enablers and tenets that I am convinced support successful functional area outcomes. Some of these tenets are strategic in nature; others are more tactical. Some are organizational and structural; others (leadership and style) are more intangible in nature. Regardless, I contend that the more a functional area’s leadership team adheres to these tenets, the likelier it is to succeed. Conversely, the less the team adheres to these tenets, the less likely positive outcomes become. And when those tenets are not adhered to at all, teams often devolve into dysfunction and discord and are very likely not to achieve their professional goals. For clarity, I’ve grouped these 10 tenets into two separate but highly integrated and tightly aligned groups, with five tenets tied to organization and five others tied to leadership.
The ability to design, develop, field, and sustain affordable, reliable, maintainable, available, supportable, and affordable weapon systems is nothing less than a national strategic imperative.
Starting with leadership-related tenets, the five primary executive core qualifications (ECQs) outlined by the Office of Personnel Management all come into play to a large degree. Available
here, they comprise ECQ 1: Leading Change, ECQ 2: Leading People, ECQ 3: Results-Driven, ECQ 4: Business Acumen, and ECQ 5: Building Coalitions. These skills are consistently reflected by successful Defense Acquisition Workforce functional area leaders and executive secretaries, as well as primary Service and agency representatives. This, in turn, contributes to successful functional area governance and workforce members, and, ultimately, successful defense acquisition and sustainment outcomes. The tenets tied to leadership include:
- Strong, committed, knowledgeable, actively engaged leadership and team members—with high, outcome-based expectations.
- Regular, timely communication and outreach in preparation for and in response to key initiatives, including read-aheads, background materials, and an easily accessible web-based information repository.
- Empowered team members representing key stakeholders, all of whom recognize the value of active involvement and the importance of collaborative and active participation.
- Tight alignment between the respective functional area leader, Service and agency representatives, DAU functional area faculty, and other key participants.
- Multi-disciplinary engagement across a range of other acquisition and sustainment functional communities to address key interdisciplinary competencies, training, and related professional development initiatives and issue resolution.
How might this successful functional area leadership manifest itself? Terms like synergy, collaboration, teamwork, communication, and delivering tangible results, products, and outcomes immediately come to mind. Adherence to these tenets also lends itself to potential participants wanting to join the team and actively engage, rather than view meetings as just another activity on an already over-crowded calendar. They often will find themselves gravitating toward enthusiastic leaders who not only lead by example but are themselves active and engaged, articulating a strategic vision while delivering a series of tactical successes. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating” as the old proverb says. Or put another way, “The results begin to speak for themselves!”
The second group of key governance tenets that enable functional area success are tied to organization, or structure: a governance framework built on a foundation of teamwork, trust, communication, and collaboration, along with a regularly scheduled battle rhythm of meetings with clearly defined outcomes, a regularly updated charter, and a clear purpose. Rounding out this list of 10 enablers, these five tenets include:
- Competency-based, Warfighter-grounded, outcome-focused life-cycle management perspective.
- Broadly based human capital strategic planning coupled with aligned, integrated, cross-functional workforce membership focused on professional excellence.
- A well-crafted, well-organized, regularly updated charter that clearly and succinctly articulates both the purpose of the team and the framework by which it operates.
- A sustained “battle rhythm” that includes regularly scheduled meetings (in our case, quarterly), organized around a clear agenda and well-understood expectations.
- A broad mix of key functional areas and Directors of Acquisition Career Management, stakeholders representing the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Service and agency headquarters, Service secretariats, major commands, Joint Staff, other functional communities, and federal agencies with similar workforce considerations such as the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Veterans Affairs, or NASA.
For the life-cycle logistics community, this often means 40 or more attendees. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and arguably so are perceived value, tangible outcomes, and important deliverables that result. In such an environment, administrative products such as workforce competencies, functional area governance documents, and professional development requirements ultimately serve as a roadmap for workforce success rather than just another bureaucratic requirement or an additional check-in-the-block demand on the already scarce time in our overcrowded calendars. The bottom line in my mind is that successful adherence to these tenets leads to successful weapon system product support results.
How Might This Work?
Regarding the life-cycle logistics functional area and the integrated product support element-based competencies identified by DoD in 2019, how can we leverage the products derived from these proven practices? What skills, expertise, abilities, experience, and knowledge might workforce members embrace as they advance in their careers? Start with key requirements outlined in 10 U.S. Code 2337 to “a) maximize competition and make the best possible use of available Department of Defense and industry resources at the system, subsystem, and component levels; and b) maximize value to the Department of Defense by providing the best possible product support outcomes at the lowest operations and support cost.” Building on this solid foundation of proven practices, successful life-cycle logisticians and product support managers continue to grow professionally as they advance in their careers.
- They understand and are able to positively affect product support outcomes across a system life cycle, from requirements to system retirement and disposal.
- They understand and can operate successfully within each of the six Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF) pathways.
- They are cognizant of and understand the interrelationship between the 12 Integrated Product Support Elements, and implications of how decisions made for one element impact each of the others.
- They can develop and execute product support business case analyses-based product support strategies.
- They are valued, sought-after core members of a program office team or directly support it.
- They provide high-impact strategic/senior leadership, including success as a product support manager, assistant program manager for logistics, or senior life-cycle logistician in a program or staff.
- They recognize that successful product support and sustainment outcomes don’t just happen; they involve getting the requirements right, selecting the appropriate adaptive acquisition pathway(s), and making design for supportability an integral part of acquisition and sustainment strategies.
- They understand and are able to apply key interdisciplinary technical skills in areas such as software/information technology support, sustainment and life cycle management, reliability, availability, maintainability and supportability analysis, maintenance planning and management and public-private partnering, condition-based maintenance plus, reliability centered maintenance, supply chain management, and provisioning.
- They are able to resource and fund product support strategies across the 12 Integrated Product Support elements, accompanied by a broad understanding of product support affordability analysis, Operations and Support cost management and should-cost initiatives.
- They craft and execute outcome-based/performance-based life-cycle product support strategies, product support arrangements, as well as product support metrics and incentives.
- They understand, apply, and influence key interdisciplinary processes, including configuration management, data management, digital engineering, supply chain risk management, cybersecurity, data analytics, intellectual property, as well as obsolescence, diminishing manufacturing sources, and material shortages and parts management.
- They understand intuitively and commit to life-cycle management principles. Successful acquisition strategies do not end with deployment of the system. Long-term sustainment is not solely the purview of program or product support managers but is truly a multi-disciplinary, cross-functional endeavor.
Often the desired outcomes discussed in this article are realized and applied through experience or the “school of hard knocks.” Some are gained on-the-job from supervisors, colleagues, coaches, and mentors. Some come from education and training. Some are captured and ensconced in statute, policy, and organizational guidance. Some are conveyed from program, command, Service, agency, or DoD leadership. In any event, competency-based Defense Acquisition Workforce proficiency, enhanced professional development, and improved acquisition outcomes are ultimately rooted in a powerful strategic vision enabled by the fundamental tenets of strong leadership and accelerated by leveraging proven processes of successful functional area governance.
Kobren, the Director of the Logistics and Sustainment Center at DAU, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, has been a certified Department of Defense (DoD) Life Cycle Logistician since 1993. He currently serves as a member of the DoD Life Cycle Logistics Transformation Team and is the newly appointed Executive Secretary of the Life Cycle Logistics Functional Integration Team, a position he also held in 2007-2012. He has supported myriad DoD human capital initiatives including two DoD Logistics Human Capital Strategy development projects, the 2009 DoD Weapon System Acquisition Reform: Product Support Assessment Implementation Team, two Service-level workforce reconstitution teams, and three life-cycle logistics functional area competency reviews since 2008.
The author can be contacted at
Bill.Kobren@dau.edu.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
