Defense Acquisition University: a large-scale mission-critical operation
Defense Acquisition University (DAU) was established to provide practitioner training, career management, and other services to help Department of Defense (DoD) Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L) personnel make smart business decisions. The university coordinates education and training programs to meet the career-long training requirements of nearly 135,000 DoD AT&L employees.
"Develop a motivated and agile workforce"
DAU fosters professional development through performance support, rapid deployment training on emerging initiatives, online knowledge sharing tools and continuous learning modules. To expand its existing course offerings, DAU selected Harvard Business Publishing to complement DAU's existing management and leadership development programs.
To drive performance aligned with the organization's strategic objectives, each of the approximately 500 DAU faculty and staff members has an individual development plan that identifies skill areas in need of improvement. Harvard Business Publishing was well aligned with the identified performance gaps.
Rolling out Harvard ManageMentor®
DAU rolled out Harvard ManageMentor to provide information, tools and resources on dozens of management topics that appeared in the development plans. Because Harvard ManageMentor can be easily tailored for its audience, DAU was able to incorporate university logos and unique images from the DoD into the program.
Ongoing solutions, minimal resources
In an environment that mandates high performance, Harvard ManageMentor proved a perfect fit for continually developing a motivated and agile workforce. The program provides ample resources for satisfying the continuing education requirements of DAU staff and AT&L personnel — resources that do not require additional time or expense to maintain.
Extending the success
With its success proven among the 500 faculty and staff, the DAU rolled out Harvard ManageMentor as a performance support tool to the entire AT&L workforce. The program has had an immediate impact in terms of cost-effectiveness and efficiency for meeting DAU's workforce alignment goals.
"The solution has been highly cost effective and efficient for the Defense Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics workforce," says Frank Anderson, president of Defense Acquisition University.
Elements of Defense Acquisition University's Leadership Development Program:
- Individual development plans
- Self-directed online learning modules
- Core management concepts
- Content customized with logo and organization's images
- Downloadable tools, checklists, worksheets and interactive guides
- Practice scenarios
- Case studies, articles, assessments and videos to illustrate best practices
- Pre- and post-learning surveys to measure impact