How Well Are PMs Doing? Industry View of Defense Program Manager Counterparts

Abstract

Large, complex defense acquisition programs have been plagued by cost overruns, delayed schedules, and subpar performance. Much of the responsibility has been attributed to weaknesses in the competencies of government program managers (PMs). This study provides a new perspective on government PM competencies by surveying defense industry managers who work with government PMs. Data gathered from a survey of 146 industry managers rated the importance of common PM competencies and assessed how well, from their perspective, their government counterparts met those competencies. The competencies included 20 technical/business, or "hard skills," and 15 leadership/management, or "soft skills." Specifically, survey participants were asked to address two questions. First, which government project management competencies among the 35 given are most important for program success? Second, how well do their government PM counterparts perform against each competency? Results showed that the most valued hard skills were the ability to determine program goals and deliverables and develop a program budget. The most highly rated soft skills were trustworthiness, project leadership, and decision making. Means ranking of the government PM performance data showed that the performance scores for all competencies generally rated only near average. To judge the relative size of the performance gap in PMs' meeting important competencies, the results of the two rankings -- importance and performance -- were compared and more closely analyzed. Of the top 10 competency gaps, a surprising number of technical skills topped the list, including develop a budget, implement change control, document program constraints, and determine program deliverables. Of the top 10 items, only two identified shortfalls were soft skills -- negotiation and team building. The results of this study will be useful in assessing training and development strategies for government PMs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA518857

Entities

People

  • Roy L. Wood

Organizations

  • Defense Acquisition University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Aerospace Industry
  • Business Administration
  • Defense Industry
  • Department Of Defense
  • Gap Analysis
  • Governments
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Acquisition
  • Organizational Structure
  • Program Management
  • Project Management
  • Psychology
  • Public Administration
  • Resource Management
  • Systems Management
  • Training

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).