2 | January- February 2021 | DEFENSEACQUISITION

EMPOWERING THE ACQUISITION WORKFORCETODAY AND FOR THE FUTURE

A Message From Alan Shaffer, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, and Other DoD Senior Acquisition Leaders

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Above: A Marine on patrol during small unit leadership evaluation training at Robertson Barracks in Darwin, Australia. Marines learn to improve battle skills by operating in leadership positions during the

training. Right: Alan Shaffer.

Department of Defense photos

The following senior acquisition leaders are members of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Leadership Team who have contributed to this initiative and this article:

ALAN SHAFFER, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment; Jeff White, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology; Kevin Fahey, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition; Jay Stefany, Principal Civilian Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition; Darlene Costello, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Dr. Sandra Magnus, Deputy Director for Engineering, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering; Jackie Ferko, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Product Support; James Woolsey, President of DAU; Misty Cedano, Director, Acquisition Workforce and Talent Management, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

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Why change? On Sept. 2, 2020, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord announced the Back-to-Basics initiative—the first major reform of the defense acquisition workforce management framework

since the early 1990s. Since then, our world has changed significantly and the future promises even greater change.

This reform initiative shifts our focus from a talent management system built for another time to a modern platform of continuous learning. It will take us back to the basics with a sharpened focus on the readiness of the workforce.

We will equip the acquisition workforce through 2030, and beyond, by pivoting from a 30-year-old, “one size fits all” certification approach to tailorable, continuous learning, focused on the needs of the component and the workforce. Leadership’s highest priority is to take care of our people, and this change reflects that. We must prepare the workforce to develop, procure, and sustain overmatching operational capabilities in the face of competition between the world’s great powers. Doing so requires equipping the workforce with new skills, agility, and innovation—all at the speed of relevance. We also must adhere to the tenets of affordability. Budget reductions for acquisition workforce training and development also create the imperative for a focus on the lean “basics” that empower workforce success.

Much like the acquisition system itself, our workforce management framework has grown to include excessive requirements and doesn’t provide enough flexibility to respond to the complex, diverse, and dynamically changing demands of today’s world.

The recently implemented Department of Defense (DoD) Adaptive Acquisition Framework increases flexibility, reduces requirements of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and empowers program managers to choose the pathway that meets their program needs. Similarly, the Back-to-Basics initiative is part of our shift to modern talent management, starting with the streamlining of the OSD acquisition certification structure, with reduced OSD and Functional Area required certification training, and creation of a 21st-century job-relevant learning environment. Acquisition leaders and workforce members will have new local flexibility to tailor training and professional development.

Several Factors Drive Our Transformation• Great Powers Competition: The United States won the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989)

and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991), and entered a period of relative peace and reduced military demands until the beginning of the War on Terror (2001). The United States and its Allies had a 25-year period without a near-peer adversary. As highlighted in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States now faces a world of increasing competition between great powers. Moreover, the acquisition cycle time for fielding new operational capabilities in China and Russia may be faster than in the United States. These circumstances require increased performance and speed across our acquisition system.

• The recent “Adaptive Acquisition Workforce” initiative: This is, in large part, a response to the need for agility and speed in what the DoD fields in support of our Warfighters. Providing the workforce with the right tools, authorities, and flexibilities at the speed of relevance is a central tenet and impetus for Back-to-Basics: Empowering the Workforce Today and for the Future.

• Focus on the “Basics” that Empower the Workforce: A central dynamic to almost all business or technical management structures, both public or private, is that, over time, the structure can lose effectiveness in supporting mission success. Even if the current acquisition workforce training and development structure has served us well, a 30-year-old structure requires review, and Secretary Lord has challenged us to do just that. We ask the following questions:

(1) Does our DAWIA implementation of today’s certification and training framework best equip the workforce for acquisition success—and can we do better?

(2) Does the current three-level certification framework, which focuses on early-career development, work—and can we do better?

(3) Does it make sense to have 650 hours of certification training for the contracting workforce? Note that the contracting community took an early lead and plans to reduce certification training to 250 hours. This will permit an increase in job-relevant training and on-the-job experience.

(4) Does it make sense to keep adding, and treating, agreeably key acquisition-related knowledge areas and practices as if they were substantive acquisition career fields—and can we do better?

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Under Back-to-Basics: Empowering the Workforce Today and for the Future, we set up a framework that prioritizes six major acquisition functional areas while providing the workforce new, job-relevant credentials, and point-of-need training. The senior acquisition leader steering group examined the functional areas, and we concluded that six of the 20 functions represented the core career-type functional areas in the development, procurement, and sustainment of operational capability.

The six functional areas are Program Management; Contracting; Life Cycle Logistics; Engineering and Technical Management; Test and Evaluation; and Business–Financial Management/Cost Estimating. The remaining functions, while still important, do not represent core acquisition career-fields, but are most often cross-functional areas of knowledge that will be managed and trained as such. For example, we will continue to offer training in Small Business Management, and will make it available to the entire workforce rather than to a small self-selected group of contracting professionals who most often perform this work. In the improved Back-to-Basics framework, we will create a Small Business credential to structure this training and record its completion.

Budget Realities: During Defense Wide Review 1.0 and 2.0, led by then Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the DoD reduced funding for the DAU and the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Account by $215 million. This represents roughly a 50 percent cut in the pre-Defense Wide Review levels. Secretary Esper examined many areas within the DoD, and, through hard decisions, identified resources to shift for delivering near-term operational capability essential to National Defense Strategy priorities.

Continuous Learning: There is an ongoing revolution in how the world accesses knowledge and training. As described in The Economist special report “Lifelong Education—Learning and Earning” (Jan. 14, 2017), the education model that most of our current workforce grew up with—block learning, with long courses leading to a degree—is being supplanted by a model of continuous learning. Educational models are changing, and we need to adapt and provide the acquisition workforce with rapidly delivered, flexible training. This means that we must reform our training to provide more frequent continuous-learning opportunities, often delivered virtually. Most professionals—including doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, and others—now have a mandate for some continuous learning, frequent and required training updates, and refresher courses . As we improve acquisition workforce training and development, we also are adapting and providing more point-of-need, job-relevant training and credentials as part of a continuous learning culture. This approach will lead to a better trained, more agile acquisition workforce and will enable the workforce to deliver operational capability to our Warfighters more rapidly.

The Changes and Their Workforce ImpactIt is important to note that aligning the workforce to six functional areas does not diminish the importance of the work performed by any employee. On the contrary, the work performed, and the people who perform it, remain critical to achieving the DoD mission. Streamlined certification requirements will include lean acquisition core training required of everyone in the workforce—such as the former DAU ACQ 101, now streamlined as the new ACQ 1010 course—and lean functional-area-required training.

Our current three-level certification requires significant time in training, most of it early in careers, to achieve certification. Lean certification requirements mean reduced training hours and more time for on-the-job training, work experience, and earning job-relevant credentials. For example, in Contracting, DoD’s senior leaders plan to reduce the current, three levels of certification to one, and reduce certification-training hours from 650 to 250 hours. The six functional areas will be supplemented by credentials in the Back-to-Basics framework, allowing for training in important areas across functions—Small Business, for example—when doing so helps meet an employee’s job or career needs.

By design, the streamlined certification demands increase the ability to shape teams and tailor individual development to what is needed. The new construct increases flexibility for component acquisition leaders, program managers, supervisors, and the workforce members to tailor training and development requirements with specialty training and credentials that “make sense.”

DAU already has fielded eight new credentials—with more than 7,000 students currently enrolled—and is developing 38 additional credentials. The initial credentials reflect skills in Program Protection (Cybersecurity); Services Acquisition (two for this); Agile; Digital Engineering; Risk, Issue, and Opportunity Management; Intellectual Property; and Data Analytics.

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Some credentials will apply primarily to one functional area, designed for career development inside that area. Others will cut across multiple areas and will often reflect emerging technologies and priorities. The key is greater flexibility to allow for tailoring to need. DAU also is leveraging the private sector, for example, by increasing access to private-sector training such as that provided by COURSERA—with access funded by DAU for the workforce.

What’s Next?Following Secretary Lord’s Sept. 2, 2020, memo, teams have been developing plans for implementation and deployment of the new framework by Oct. 1, 2021. The Lord memo established the streamlined functional areas, designated new functional area leaders, and established a new senior leader team—the Defense Acquisition Workforce Leadership Team (WLT)—chaired by me as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and including other Service and functional area senior leaders. The team, supported by the President of DAU and the Executive Director of Human Capital Initiatives, provides hands-on planning guidance to a supporting team of subject-matter experts. The functional area leaders are supported by a joint, functional task force, and are planning implementation details for their respective functional communities.

During Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, functional leaders will operate very transparently, and the Services and Agencies will in turn strive to keep leadership and the workforce informed. Acquisition professionals already certified to their position requirements should stay focused on relevant professional currency. This is a different approach for everyone, taking into account job needs, individual experience, education, and current and future work within the relevant acquisition framework. For acquisition professionals working toward their current certification requirements during FY 2021, the current grace period extension established by Secretary Lord on April 1, 2020—from 24 months to 36 months—provides more flexibility. Workforce members should discuss their professional development planning with their supervisors.

The Office of Human Capital Initiatives, on behalf of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Leadership Team, will issue monthly updates on implementation, which will include Frequently Asked Questions and other online resources, at https://www.hci.mil.

Back-to-Basics: Empowering the Workforce Today and for the Future is about you—the defense acquisition professional. You have proven over and again that acquisition professionals are critical to building the lethality and readiness called for in the National Defense Strategy. Your senior leaders care about you and your success.

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Marine Corps recruits practice maneuvers during basic training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina.

Department of Defense photo