Air Force details force development
by Tech Sgt. David A. Jablonski
Air Force Print News
10/31/2003 - WASHINGTON -- A newly formed council will oversee the Air Force’s initiative to develop people with the enduring skills and occupational competencies necessary to meet future air and space mission challenges.
Force-development council officials will provide Air Force-level guidance for regulatory policies, program guidelines and Air Force-wide implementation, said Brig. Gen. Richard S. Hassan, the Air Force’s senior leadership management office director.
“The foundational doctrine for force development is based on what we need our people to know, when we want them to know it, and what they must be able to do with that information,” Hassan said.
The council will serve as a corporate body to provide an institutional perspective on issues and make recommendations to the Air Force secretary and chief of staff, the general said. Senior military and civilian functional authorities, major command vice commanders, the chiefs of the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard, and the chief master sergeant of the Air Force will comprise the council and provide a review of total-force management. The Air Force vice chief of staff will chair the council.
Under the council, Air Force officials also created the force-development office, a force-development support office and development teams to “operationalize” force development within the Air Force. These entities will implement the force-development doctrine, officials said.
The force-development office will be responsible for establishing regulatory policies and program guidelines, coordinate activities, and monitor and ensure adherence to force-development policy, as established by the council.
The support office will provide day-to-day analytical support to the force-development structure and development teams. The teams will be comprised of career field leaders, Air Force Personnel Center assignment team representatives and major command stakeholders who will be responsible for overseeing personnel development for the council and functional authorities.
Each of the entities will come together to marry mission requirements with Air Force people, Hassan said. It simply makes good sense that the Air Force optimizes development of their skills, knowledge and experience to meet the challenges of air and space operations.
“People are what make our Air Force the greatest air and space force, and we need to invest in them wisely,” the general said. “Training and education are the centerpiece investments we make in them, and our people’s excellence in all they do is the Air Force’s return on that investment.”
The current system itself must change to cultivate airmen, he said.
“It is important to recognize that nothing is broken; there is no single, great problem that must be solved,” Hassan said. “We develop great airmen now; however, because we have such a smaller force today, which is experiencing a very high operational tempo while absorbing a high technological-growth rate, we must better utilize the time and effort of our people.”
The overall goal of force development is to successfully accomplish the full spectrum of changing Air Force missions by developing officers with the required skills, knowledge and experience to lead and execute current and future mission capabilities, the general said. Attaining this goal requires the Air Force to achieve the following key objectives:
-- Deliberately connect all training and educational opportunities to assignment experiences to best build competencies that meet Air Force needs in and across career fields.
-- Purposefully connect individuals’ goals to Air Force needs to best achieve both.
-- Ensure Air Force personnel-directed decision processes invest the right education, training and experience in the right officers at the right time while meeting Air Force requirements.
-- Better use all the strengths of officer, enlisted, civilian, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard people.
-- Enhance the understanding of all airmen and their roles in development, using their inputs in the assignment process and providing feedback to inform and shape expectations.
Officers will get a clearer picture of force development when teams led by general officers visit bases to conduct spread-the-word briefings. These visits began on Oct. 27 and extend through December. |
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