The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for providing federal benefits to more than 23.4 million veterans and their families. The VA Acquisition Academy (VAAA) was established in fall 2008 to develop the VA’s acquisition workforce. The VA Acquisition Academy PM Fellows Program is a selective professional development initiative that leverages a learner-driven model on a blended platform to create holistic learning for aspiring mission-critical project managers (PMs). The program is designed to accelerate the development of general business, leadership, and technical PM skills within a specific career field (IT, construction, and health care) to enable participants to make an immediate impact within their organization. The major focus of the PM Fellows Program is not just on learning theory, but on applying the PM skills learned in a safe-to-fail environment via skill-building workshops and remote connectivity learning activities.
Program Details
The program incorporates the principles of adult learning theory by combining formal, modulated classroom training with personalized workshops, on-the-job training, and remote/mobile self-paced learning. A primary challenge facing the Fellows program was the strict guidelines limiting travel. To mitigate this challenge and effectively reinforce training transfer back to the workplace, PM Fellows spend time on the job applying skills learned with support from mentors, coaches, their fellow cohort members, and PM subject matter experts. The Knowledge Collaboration Site (KCS), virtual home of the PM Fellows Program, provides access to these resources regardless of where the Fellows may be. The KCS accommodates two-way (peer-to-peer) communication in order to foster a community of practice within the cohort and is available long after the program’s conclusion. Fellows develop and execute individualized learning paths for developing PM skills related to their specific career track such as IT, construction, health care, and logistics, as well as for their own personal and leadership development needs.
Results
The program targets future project managers and allows supervisors to identify and source upcoming project needs. To date, 21 percent of Fellows received promotions in the first year of participation in the program. Supervisors responding to questionnaires soliciting feedback on the Fellows’ performance on the job gave a 91.4 percent satisfaction rating to the program. Interviews with supervisors relate that a majority of report seeing improvement not only in job duties specifically related to the topic areas, but in job performance overall. The program receives an overall approval rating of 98.4 percent, and the average course rating for the 872.5 student contact hours for the whole of the 18-month program is 4.64 out of 5. Three and six months post training, supervisors and Fellows report increased application and success of the practices taught in the program with direct impact to the organization.
