Taking Acquisition Training to the Next Level: The Space Acquisition Community Tackles the Guardian Challenge

摘要

The Space and Missile Center (SMC) showed its acquisition mettle in late April of this year during an intensive two-and-a-half day event called the Guardian Challenge. Two years ago, Air Force Space Command (AFSC) expanded its Guardian Challenge program (largely an operational-centric scenario-based exercise designed to test personnel's inherent leadership and functional expertise) to the acquisition community. AFSC's Headquarters felt all command- wide personnel should have an opportunity to demonstrate their talents -- not only the operators but also the acquirers who deliver the crucial operational systems. Surprisingly, the space acquisition community previously lacked a competition exercise that tested them in the field. SMC, joining in the Guardian Challenge again, selected six four-person teams to compete for the coveted distinction of first place in the challenge. Each of the six teams -- composed of captains/majors and equivalent-ranking civilian government personnel -- had members experienced in various levels of Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certifications. Program management, systems engineering, budgeting, cost estimating, and contracting were well represented. Planning for the event actually started a couple of months earlier, when two key partners, the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and SMC, teamed up to produce a real-world challenge facing the space community today: how to best satisfy a shortage in satellite communications bandwidth. There were three viable satellite materiel options: Option 1: Hosted payload on a commercial satellite (e.g., sharing space with other planned payloads); Option 2: Dedicated pay-for-service commercial satellite; and Option 3: Leased pay-for- service commercial satellite with an option to buy.