Featured Article: Taking Care of Business: The VA Commits to Training

By Richard Garrison

In Taking Care of Business: The VA Commits to Training, Richard Garrison discusses the VA’s need for a new strategic plan for training. The VA’s plan, developed by Secretary of the VA’s Eric K. Shinseki, has been dubbed “Transformation 21” is said to be people-centric, results-driven, and forward-looking. Garrison evaluates “Transformation 21” and also goes in depth on its strategic vision and impact.

Excerpt Taken Directly From Taking Care of Business: The VA Commits to Training by Richard Garrison

The VAAA designed what it considers to be the ideal program to train project and program managers. It believes that if an employee is managing a program and does not have the proper skill sets, there is little chance of meeting the business objectives within budget or on time. In many cases, the business objective is never fulfilled.

So, developers ensured that FAC-P/PM not only complied with the Office of Federal Procurement Policys (OFPP) memorandum establishing the certification requirement, but also that it remained focused on creating a cohesive and integrated training program that could deliver business outcomes to reduce costs and increase effectiveness.

To start, VAAA program managers reviewed commercially available programs, as well as those that already existed within the federal government that addressed both individual and team competencies, applied learning by use of simulations, and put training to work on the job and aligned with work priorities. Specifically, VAAA program developers

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