DAU to offer new Program Management Office Course : DoD Level III Program Management Certification enters the 21st century - PMOC - Acquisition Education, Training, and Career Development

Program Manager, Jan, 2002 by Ken Bloom, Bill Bahnmaier

Students who attended the Defense Systems Management College to complete the 20-week Program Management Course (PMC) can readily recall both the hard work required of the course and the comradery with their classmates. They fondly remember building the wooden mousetrap vehicle, striving to meet both the technical and performance requirements of the runoff.

When the course was reduced to 14 weeks and renamed the Advanced Program Management Course, or APMC (Figure 1), students moved from building the old mousetrap vehicles to building a prototype of an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) using Lego Mindstorms. [TM] The course required students to design, build, and program the software for the Lego Mindstorms' vehicle so that it could successfully negotiate through a difficult obstacle course.

A New Beginning

Beginning in 2002, students will complete the Program Management Office Course (PMOC) using an advanced version of Lego Mindstorms to design the UGV online, build it, and then test it on a simulated battlefield. The course number is Program Management Training (PMT-352). This is part of DAU President Frank Anderson's Fast-Track Initiatives, specifically, "Revision of PM Training Curriculum," first published in October 2000.

Defense Acquisition University, assisted by Accenture, is working to incorporate computer-aided design technology, simulation-based trade-off software, and risk analysis programs into Lego Mindstorms.

Figure 2 represents the Joint Reconnaissance and Autonomous Targeting System (JRATS), which is a system of systems used throughout the course to emphasize interoperability and information superiority.

JRATS involves UGV alternatives, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) called "Firebird," and a Joint Command and Control System (JCCS).

Hold on to your joystick because the virtual battlefield is only one aspect of this newly structured course DA has taken great care to design PMT-352 (PMOC) with the student in mind (Figure 3).

Hybrid Course Design

PMT-352 (New Level III, Figure 1) is the final required course for over 90 percent of personnel in the Program Management Career Field.

The new course better meets the needs of the student while producing more effective Level III PM career field professionals. Graduates will be able to capably serve as senior Program Management Office (PMO) Integrated Product Team (IPT) leaders and members.

The PMT-352 course design team conducted field-level assessments at locations with high concentrations of Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L) personnel. Data gathered during the field assessments shaped both the mix and duration of Distance Learning (DL) and classroom learning for the course. These assessments reported that field personnel like the freedom of DL, but believe that face-to-face teaming is required for the intricate nature of the course exercises.

The information gathered from the field assessments--along with the course performance outcomes, student responsibilities, and the DoD culture--resulted in the hybrid course design concept, blending the appropriate mix of DL and classroom instruction.

Web-Based Training

If you've ever taken a DL course and found yourself yawning through each page of material, you are in for a pleasant awakening. PMT-352 delivers its online content via exciting interactions and activities to keep you engaged.

PMT-352 begins with 50 hours of Web-based DL that students complete over a 60-day period. The 60-day period allows maximum flexibility for students to complete the material at their own pace, wherever and whenever they wish. Ten modules of work are completed during this 60-day period.

At the beginning of each of the 10 modules, your online supervisor assigns specific activities and tasks to complete. To add reality to the assignment, as you complete your work your online supervisor offers advice and feedback--whether you want it or not--much like your real-life supervisor.

The DL portion of the course is designed using Goal-Based learning theory This is not read-and-remember type training. Rather, it is hands-on, scenario-driven learning that uses real-world situations. Each module drops the student into a specific acquisition program with unique factors and presents activities that simulate program acquisition challenges. In completing an activity, students perform tasks as they would in their actual work environment.

Each module is stand-alone, requiring students to critically think and assess the details of each scenario for the appropriate answers. An additional benefit of stand-alone module design is that students can complete the modules in any order.

Estimated completion times are provided for each module so that students who have a two-hour window on a given day can select a module that fits into their schedule.

DAU also benefits from stand-alone modular design because the material may be easily moved to other courses or to DAU's online Continuous Learning Center (http://clc.dau.mil).

Online Resources

To help students complete modules, the DL contains a resource layer (labeled "Resources") comprised of Web links, online handbooks, links to prior courses, and other supporting information (Figure 4).