HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Focus Week is still scheduled to take place April 20 to 24, but due to concerns regarding COVID-19, all sessions will be via distance learning.
According to organizers, the week is set aside quarterly to accomplish mandatory and discretionary leadership and acquisition training.
“As we have more personnel teleworking, being able to continue to provide these courses is more important now than ever,” said Jason Sibrel, AFLCMC Focus Week program manager. “These courses can help AFLCMC personnel keep their skills up-to-date and, in many cases, let them earn needed continuous learning points.”
Registration is still via the AcqNow site at https://acqnow.atrrs.army.mil, but organizers ask people to take a close look at course requirements. As some of the courses have never been offered virtually before, they may not only require dial-in, but some require Defense Collaboration Services, or DCS, access and/or chat, and others have presentation materials that will be provided ahead of time.
There is training geared toward specific career fields, such as engineering or logistics, and other more general training.
Targeting program managers, engineers and other program personnel, a course on “Introduction to Open Architectures,” will provide information about the concepts, terms and a brief overview of several open architecture efforts. Another introductory course is “Survey of Airborne Communications.” Designed for PMs, logistics managers, finance, contracting and other program personnel, the course will provide an overview of airborne communications, including terms, technologies, spectrum, interoperability and more. “Procurement Fraud Awareness” will offer new government employee program personnel an overview of the management of procurement fraud issues from start to finish. This course will place special focus on reporting requirements, procurement fraud indicators, procurement fraud remedies and case examples to include counterfeit parts, false claims and other significant procurement fraud.
A “Security Classification Guide (SCG) Development Course” offers the opportunity to learn from AFLCMC Information Protection specialists. They will provide guidance and answer questions on how to properly write or revise a security classification guide for Air Force programs to ensure protection of information. “Digital Campaign/Engineering Training” will cover the basics of the Air Force Materiel Command Digital Campaign in implementing digital engineering for programs covering the what, why, who, when and how, along with some program examples.
During the week, personnel can also attend soft-skill courses such as “Cognitive Biases” and “Thinking Fast and Slow.” The latter will discuss the two ways of thinking: automatic and deliberate. It is a WebEx seminar to explore how the brain works and how to understand that to better our lives professionally and personally. As everyone has biases based on experiences, education and other factors, “Cognitive Biases” is a WebEx seminar to explore some of these biases and their potential impact on your thinking. Organizers says that understanding cognitive biases allows personnel to challenge them in order to think critically more effectively.
A full listing of courses is available on the AcqNow site, or those with Air Force network access can view a complete schedule here. However, to complete registration attendees must use the AcqNow site. Upon signing in, the site user should go to the “My Career” section, look for “Training Events” and “Search for CL Events.” Once there, he or she should scroll down until “AFLCMC Focus Week Event Catalog” appears and then view the catalog.
“At this time, we want everyone to be able to stay safe while being able to fully participate in AFLCMC Focus Week so we’re glad we’re able to move forward with it in a virtual manner,” said Sibrel.
For additional information of if you have questions, contact Sibrel at jason.sibrel@us.af.mil.