CON 110 Mission Support Planning Lesson 1 Part 1

YOUR MISSION SUPPORT STRATEGY

The Organizations Mission Introduction DOD has a mission to protect and defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. As military members or civilian employees, everything we do in performance of our duties ultimately contributes to the accomplishment of that mission. Each subordinate component or office within DOD, as well as each civilian agency, also has a mission. The members of that component work to accomplish those missions. As part of the acquisition workforce, we support other activities in accomplishing their missions. The way that we do that is our mission support strategy. The dictionary defines strategy as an elaborate and systematic plan of action. Several key words are systematic, plan, and action. Therefore, a strategy is organized (systematic). It is intentional and doesnt happen by accident (planned). Also, we must take steps to accomplish our mission (action). Many organizations formalize their strategy in what is called a strategic plan. A strategic plan is a document used by an organization to align its organization and budget structure with organizational priorities, missions, and objectives. In order to support the mission, we must first discover what the mission is. Many organizations proudly post their missions on their web pages. The DAU Mission Statement is: Provide Practitioner Training and Services to Enable the AT&L Community to Make Smart Business Decisions and Deliver Timely and Affordable Capabilities to the Warfighter. The AT&L Community is the Acquisition Technology and Logistics workforce in the Department of Defense. Here are some other examples of mission statements. Check out as many as you wish, then return here. DARPA http://www.darpa.mil/body/mission.html DISA http://www.disa.mil/main/missman.html NAVY COMHELTACWINGLANT http://www.navy.mil/homepages/comheltacwinglant/mission.html ARMY Fort Belvoir http://www.belvoir.army.mil/mission.asp USAF Museum http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/mission.htm Marines MarCorLogCom http://www.matcom.usmc.mil/logcom/mission.asp Department of Homeland Security http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home1.jsp IRS http://sig.nfc.usda.gov/feb/members/dotre-intrevser.htm

What is a Strategy?

What is My Organizations Mission?

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CON 110 Mission Support Planning Lesson 1 Part 1

The Organizations Mission, continued

Exercise What is your organizations mission statement? Take some time now to find out. If you cant find it by looking on the internet, ask your supervisor to help you. Next identify your major customers and find their mission statements. You may want to print them out and keep them in a file so you can refer to them as you work. In any event, you will need to have them to continue with this lesson. STOP now and collect the mission statements. When you have the mission statements for your office as well as your major customers come back and continue the lesson. Was it easy to find the mission statement for your organization? In reading it, does it reflect what you thought your office should be doing? Are there any surprises? In reading your customers mission statement, did you gain any insight on what they are doing? Think about some of the contracts your office awards or administers for your customers. How does this contract advance the customers mission? Would a different type of contract arrangement better meet the customers mission? These are the types of questions you will need to continually ask in order to make sure that acquisition is supporting the mission. If you have a question about whether the proposed contract action is supporting the mission, then ask. Ask the customer. Ask the contracting officer. Ask your supervisor. Hopefully, this exercise has helped you see how overall, acquisition supports the mission. How Do I Fit into this Mission? Now lets drill down a little deeper. Are your efforts supporting the mission? Consider your own job description. Hopefully, the duties therein describe actions that support the acquisition mission and also describe what you are really doing. Regardless of what your current job description says, you can provide better mission support by developing a personal mission support strategy. Several years ago I decided I needed a personal mission statement to focus my life. It is not absolutely necessary, but you may wish to write your own personal mission statement. By putting it down in writing you will articulate your thoughts, making it clear to yourself and others. Whether you are supporting your organizations mission or your own personal mission, you need to ensure that your efforts support the mission. You need a plan. Well call it your mission support strategy.

How does Acquisition Fit into My Organizations Mission?

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CON 110 Mission Support Planning Lesson 1 Part 1

Developing My Strategy
Purpose Your mission support strategy will: Elements of the Strategy Serve as a framework for decisions and actions. Outline the steps to accomplish the mission. Provide a basis for more detailed planning. Explain the plan to others to gain buy-in.

Elements of your plan: Define the mission The mission statement Define the goals How do I contribute to meeting the mission? Describe strategic actions What must be done to accomplish the goals (big picture) Identify means to measure progress 1. As you develop your strategy, you will want to identify the SWOTs. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. These factors affect what can be accomplished in a strategic plan. For example, if your weakness is lack of knowledge in a particular area of contracting, you should address how you will compensate for that in order to meet the strategic goals. An opportunity that addresses that weakness could be a DAU Continuing Learning Module (CLM) in that specific area of knowledge. 2. Strategic planning requires lots of thinking. You are not going to sit down and whip out a mission support plan in 15 minutes. It will take days and maybe weeks. 3. Related to the item above, most strategic plans are dynamic. As the SWOTs change, so does the plan. Strategic plans are not meant to be written and thrown in a drawer. They should be updated when appropriate.

Development Steps

Things to keep in mind:

SWOT Analysis
Strengths Opportunities
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Weaknesses Threats

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CON 110 Mission Support Planning Lesson 1 Part 1

Additional Resources

As you develop your mission support strategy, it may help you to read other strategic plans. You can see the current DAU Strategic Plan here: http://www.dau.mil/pdf/StrategicPlan13sept.pdf To learn more about SWOT analysis, you may click here: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm

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