Cyber Acquisition Professionals Need Expertise (But They Don't Necessarily Need to Be Experts)

Abstract

Cyber acquisition professionals need to develop a wide range of expertise, not strive to become experts at any one discipline. The concept of subject matter experts (SME) that permeates the government information technology (IT) profession today must shift to nurture the concept of encouraging the workforce members to diversify their experience. It is more important than ever to develop diverse expertise through a rapid paradigm shift in thinking. I realize this way of thinking certainly will alienate some IT professionals, many of whom take great pride in their respective specialities. I also realize that they have spent an enormous amount of time in learning their craft. However, it is a paradigm shift that I believe is needed to secure better the cyber systems and capabilities that acquisition professionals field for the Department of Defense (DoD). The reason I say develop expertise versus becoming experts is that the technology we rely on is advancing so quickly that it is nearly impossible to become an expert at any one aspect. Take networking for instance. The cyber systems hardware, protocols and vulnerabilities known today will be obsolete tomorrow. As a result, striving to become an expert in any one IT discipline might render one less effective compared with those who focus on gaining expertise in a wide range of disciplines. This is not to say IT professionals should not seek to develop the traditional skills that have become the foundation of the profession. Learning the knowledge and developing the skills needed to be system administrators, network administrators and field technicians are essential to IT professionals. However, it also is important to expand outside of these areas, to diversify experience in order to keep up with the profession s development as technology advances and cyber systems become more robust and integrated via convergence and interoperability.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA608765

Entities

People

  • Michael Cook

Organizations

  • Defense Acquisition University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Data Acquisition
  • Department Of Defense
  • Education
  • Government Employees
  • Governments
  • Information Assurance
  • Information Operations
  • Information Systems
  • Learning
  • Military Acquisition
  • Personnel Management
  • Professional Development
  • Program Management
  • Project Management
  • Training

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).

Technology Areas

  • Cyber