DRAFT Attachment A Curriculum Set Descriptions.pdf

Acquisition Training SOW DRAFT Attachment A

DRAFT Attachment A: Description of Curriculum Areas

A. Contracting, Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), Financial Management and Cost Estimating: Contracting includes all processes and procedures involved in establishing and tracking contractual relationships. This includes assessing requirements and designing the acquisition strategy; developing an acquisition plan; assisting in the development of statements of work, overall contract terms and conditions, and the generation of cost estimates; making contractor responsibility determinations and determining contractor compliance; negotiating cost or price terms and conditions and requirements; monitoring contractor performance and assessing and making payments.

The contracting community includes employees that have primary responsibility for managing contracts from a strictly procurement perspective as well as an overall acquisition or technical perspective. The services of the contract community are performed under the guidelines of FAA Acquisition Management System (AMS).

Financial Management includes Federal appropriations law training, Federal government purchase card training and cost estimating training. Employees in financial management use their knowledge of financial systems and business processes to: develop, coordinate and integrate performance-based budgets; write informative justifications for budget requests;

develop metrics; plan, manage, track, reconcile and report financial transactions; develop cost projections; develop recommendations to mitigate financial risks; and provide financial and investment analysis.

Purchase cardholders and approving officials in the Federal government make and approve simple and routine procurement transactions within prescribed regulations and purchase limits.

Cardholders and approving officials must be familiar with the appropriation Federal regulations and agency policies and procedures.

Cost estimating and analysis is the determination of quantity and the forecasting, within a defined scope, the costs required to provide a service, construct and equip a facility, or procure or manufacture goods. Included in these costs are assessments and an evaluation of risks and uncertainties. Cost estimating is comprised of all related models, techniques, tools, and databases required to predict accurately the cost of an appropriately described item, product, program or a combination of each.

Cost estimates provide input to original baselines and changes to baselines, against which cost comparisons are made throughout the lifecycle of a project. They provide a basis for feasibility studies, business planning, budget preparation, and cost and schedule control. In FAA, cost estimates are a key component of several critical processes in making capital investments.

B. Project/Program Management and Integrated Logistics Support: Project/Program Management is a critical discipline that involves establishing, tracking, managing, and reporting all facets of projects and programs including budget, technical requirements, personnel and customer needs. It involves the following phases: initiating, planning, controlling and monitoring, executing, and closing. Effective program/project management is at the core of FAA’s ability to deliver products and services on time and within budget. These products and services – such as automation systems to support air traffic control and management, communication, navigation, and surveillance systems, and critical aviation research – advance the safety, security, and efficiency of the NAS. The technical competencies are important and the leadership competencies become even more critical as the Project/Program Managers advance into managing more complex acquisition programs requiring advanced and immersive leadership training and development interventions. The FAA Project/Program Management curriculum meets and exceeds all FAC-PM requirements. FAA-specific requirements for the P/PM population are constantly evolving and contractors must be nimble in their efforts to meet these requirements in creative and innovative ways.

Integrated Logistics Support is a discipline that plans, establishes, and maintains an integrated product support package for the lifecycle of all FAA products and services. It provides required levels of service to the end used at optimal lifecycle cost to FAA.

C. Real Estate Contracting: Real estate contracting covers the real estate acquisition lifecycle and processes, legal and constitutional authorities, purchase and lease of real property, acquisition of land (both on/off airport property), space acquisition, management and disposal, out leases, reimbursable agreements, housing, automation tools (FAST/AMS), documentation requirements and management.

D. FAA Acquisition Management System (AMS): The Acquisition Management System (AMS) establishes policy and guidance for all aspects of lifecycle acquisition management for FAA. It defines how FAA manages its resources - money / people / assets - to fulfill its mission.

The objectives of the policy are to increase the quality, reduce the time, manage the risk and minimize the cost of delivering safe and secure services to the aviation community and flying public. Acquisition management policy promotes these objectives through partnership among service providers and customers to ensure FAA plans, programs, and budgets address priority aviation needs.

E. Engineering (Systems Engineering; Software Engineering; Enterprise Architecture;

Test and Evaluation (T&E): Systems Engineering is an engineering discipline whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process ensuring that customer and stakeholder needs are satisfied in a high quality, cost efficient and schedule compliant fashion throughout a system’s entire life cycle. There are two roles that systems engineers play in FAA acquisition. The first is to ensure that acquisitions are conducted from initial requirements to deployment and lifecycle support in a consistent, repeatable, well-formed manner. That is, the best engineering business practices are used in acquiring FAA systems – the systems engineering process. The second role for systems engineering is to ensure that these acquisitions form an integrated whole.

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the design, development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches;

that is, the application of engineering to software. Software engineers perform functions in one of two areas – components, and systems. Understanding systems is a very different skill set from understanding components because you need to think about relationships. Components within the system have relationships with other components within that same system (and potentially with other systems). Dealing with systems is frequently called software architecture, and the practitioners are called architects.

The overall goal of Test & Evaluation is to reduce risk by providing crucial information to decision makers. Information is critical to managing an acquisition program. This includes information on the capabilities, and limitations of the system and risks affecting system cost, development schedule, and performance. T&E Engineers typically provide information regarding risk and risk mitigation, provide empirical data to validate models and simulations and permit an assessment of the attainment of technical performance specifications and system maturity. They work with programs and procedures to obtain, verify, or provide data for determining the degree to which a system (or subsystem) meets, exceeds, or fails to meet its stated requirements. These requirements can be stated in terms of thresholds and objectives.

Enterprise Architecture is an overarching term that covers the work that is done in an organization to align IT with business goals and needs. Enterprise architects work with stakeholders, both leadership and subject matter experts, to build a holistic view of the organization's strategy, processes, information, and information technology assets. The role of the enterprise architect is to take this knowledge and ensure that business and IT are in alignment. The enterprise architect links the business mission, strategy, and processes of an organization to its IT strategy, and documents this using multiple architectural models or views that show how the current and future needs of an organization will be met in an efficient, sustainable, agile, and adaptable manner.

DRAFT Attachment A: Description of Curriculum Areas