Information EDOs?

[arvizo]

Just saw the latest IP Community Brief and there's a slide with IDC initiatives. This bullet caught my attention:
"Cyber Engineers, Warrant Officers, Information Engineering Duty Officer"

What is this Information EDO and does anyone have more info?

[Arkad]

Educated speculation, but I believe they are merely speaking of Acquisition Professionals expertise. Rather than build IDC Officers into Acquisition Professionals, why not leverage those who make acquisition a profession (EDOs are almost all working toward AP accreditation and tremendously technical) and allow them a track that makes some of them a pat of the team? Makes good sense on the surface to, especially with all of the warrior speak. The IDC can't do everything from within, so we need not try.

[Wolfpack]

I agree that we do not need to go create a new community within the IDC such as an IEDO, but there is no reason that we cannot use the expertise within the IDC to develop our own programs. The problem w/ ?outsourcing? acquisitions is that the IDC does not have direct impact on how IDC programs are designed, developed or delivered. I believe that with the numbers of officers that have the appropriate DIWA certification and experience, we can develop a small cadre of officers that can direct IDC program development. Maybe this is one of the times the IDC needs to look at how acquisitions is done across the four communities, and take a holistic approach to manning (maybe Intel gets out of the acquisition game and moves billets and training to the IP or IW community - just an example). Before we contract out the capability, we should at least look at it, compare the IDC investment and see if we cannot obtain greater return with some reorganization.

[arvizo]

There's already an Acquisition Corps, so how would this be different if it's not a new community?

[Arkad]

The number of IDC Officers that are part of the Acquisition Corps (AC) is rather small and people seem to do it on their own initiative (I think tht is to your point). How do IDC Officers balance pursuit of such a thing with operational milestones, CO/XO, advanced education, and joint? If I remember correctly, the IW Community had to make sure one person screened for O6 Command who was part of the AC for the NCWDG CO job. So now it is not necessarily "best and brightest", but "best and brightest of those with the right AQD"? I didn't mean to imply that anyone was defaulting to "outsourcing" without doing any deep analysis. As many know, I am a big fan of specialization, but I wouldn't know where to begin to create an AC specialization track within the IDC.

[Wolfpack]

The number of IDC Officers that are part of the Acquisition Corps (AC) is rather small and people seem to do it on their own initiative (I think tht is to your point). How do IDC Officers balance pursuit of such a thing with operational milestones, CO/XO, advanced education, and joint? If I remember correctly, the IW Community had to make sure one person screened for O6 Command who was part of the AC for the NCWDG CO job. So now it is not necessarily "best and brightest", but "best and brightest of those with the right AQD"? I didn't mean to imply that anyone was defaulting to "outsourcing" without doing any deep analysis. As many know, I am a big fan of specialization, but I wouldn't know where to begin to create an AC specialization track within the IDC.

The sub force has an interesting way of developing its acquisition pros - they allow folks to have acquisition tours as part of their development, but makes them still hit all the milestones to O5 command. After that, they select some to compete for acquisition assignments that support the Sub force. That includes selection for flag every few years (I believe the commander of SPAWAR (and IDC command) is a submarine officer.
And I said outsource because the IDC is resourcing most of the billets, just not filling them.

[IWO]

PEO C4I is a submariner as well

[1610MATROS]

RADM Burroughs is an ECHO 82003 OCS Shipmate of mine. He was brilliant in 1982 at OCS. He remains so today.

[Nelson42]

The IDC has opportunities for obtaining acquisition experience. SPAWAR, the PEOs, PWM 120 all have billets that the IDC should fill. With one tour in an acquisition billet, and a technical masters, you would meet the 48 month requirement for admittance to the acquisition corps.

SPAWAR is creating and/or maintaining the systems that we use, we as a community should have more input into their fielding. Who better than someone with operational experience to inform (or preferably make) the tradespace (cost, schedule, performance) decisions?

[Sum1]

I was under the impression this is what NCWDG was doing for our community. If this isn't the case, then maybe that's a good place to start.