Non technical competencies
Started by formerfed · Sep 3, 2023 · 2 replies
- fOriginal post
formerfed
Sep 3, 2023 · 2y ago
I was involved last week in an interesting discussion. One of the recommendations of the 809 Panel involved workforce training and non technical skills. It included the typical people or “soft” skills. The discussion asked if any actions were taken to implement that. Outside of the military and spots within DoD as well as a few civilian agencies, the conclusion was “not much.”
NIH is one of the few with a program Competencies.
One thing obvious in my career plus personal knowledge and observations of others is non technical skills are important not only for development but making the contracting process effective. Most mid to large scale acquisitions require much more than just knowing contracting regulations. The most effective 1102s bring much, much more to the process. I know many of the successful people acquired these skills either through watching others, reading, taking courses on their own, or from things like management training.
As we quickly move forward in the technology age where individual employee work expectations and requirements are changing, shouldn’t be more emphasis be placed on the “soft” skills?
- C
C Culham
Sep 3, 2023 · 2y ago
formerfed said:
As we quickly move forward in the technology age where individual employee work expectations and requirements are changing, shouldn’t be more emphasis be placed on the “soft” skills?
Thoughts
To some degree are the soft skills addressed in training made available to all employees?
I have always felt that emphasis and due credit was not give appropriate emphasis and credit in implementing the FAC-CO effort. By example see Number 11 of the "Model" on this web page. A .pdf document.
- f
formerfed
Sep 4, 2023 · 2y ago
C Culham said:
Thoughts
To some degree are the soft skills addressed in training made available to all employees?
I have always felt that emphasis and due credit was not give appropriate emphasis and credit in implementing the FAC-CO effort.
You are right on with those thoughts in my opinion. I’m not sure what the latest FAI model looks like or been updated after the new standards.
I wonder if greater emphasis be placed on these competencies? Acquisition team based approaches started growing in use. Then Covid and remote work with use of video conferencing and collaborative tools like SharePoint brought more people into the process. All this created a growing shift into needed “soft skill.” For example a DoD 1102 said he needs to bi-weekly brief his management and acquisition team via PowerPoint presentations and learned “how to say in 20 words what used to take 200 words.” Other 1102s said they are much more involved in team activities and everyone expects much greater participation from the CS/CO starting with acquisition planning.