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End of the Federal Career Intern Program


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The following article describes the impending executive order to end the Federal Career Intern Program:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0122502099.html

I'm curious what you think this will mean to programs like Navy's COPPER CAP program, The Treasury Acquisition Institute, and DOI's Governmentwide Acquisition Management Intern Program, and what this will mean to the 1102 workforce in general.

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The following article describes the impending executive order to end the Federal Career Intern Program:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0122502099.html

I'm curious what you think this will mean to programs like Navy's COPPER CAP program, The Treasury Acquisition Institute, and DOI's Governmentwide Acquisition Management Intern Program, and what this will mean to the 1102 workforce in general.

My opinion is that the current program provides 1102s with a DAU education and limited practical experience. These interns are, at the end of their internship, supposed to be competitive to GS-12. HOGWASH!!! I have nothing against those who have taken advantage of the program as it currently stands. It's the program to which I object.

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Guest Vern Edwards
My opinion is that the current program provides 1102s with a DAU education and limited practical experience. These interns are, at the end of their internship, supposed to be competitive to GS-12. HOGWASH!!! I have nothing against those who have taken advantage of the program as it currently stands. It's the program to which I object.

Why hogwash, leo? I know a few interns who are still in their programs who know more than the COs they work for.

Why make gross generalizations? What are your specific objections to such programs?

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I don't know for certain but the three intern programs mentioned (Navy's COPPER CAP program, The Treasury Acquisition Institute, and DOI's Governmentwide Acquisition Management Intern Program) all were around before the Federal Career Intern Program was started in 2000. It looks like the major issue with the Federal Career Intern Program is that it fails to meet requirments for open announcments and fails to consider Veterans preference status. So I assume that intern programs that follow those procedures might be okay.

Regardless the Government does need formal intern programs to both recruit and train new employees. For the most part, I've seen nothing but good employees come out of the intern programs. I don't know much about the Navy (but isn't Copper Cap an AF program and the Navy has a different name?), but Treasury and DOI had a very robust program with lots of rotational assignments and cross training. The graduates are in high demand. From people I know that went through these programs versus others that just started as 1102's without the benefit of the program, the former interns seem to fare better.

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Guest Vern Edwards

I don't think the executive order will have a great effect, but only time will tell.

The problem with all "intern" programs is that they are only as good as the training provided. All rely on two basic forms of training: (1) classroom ("formal") training, which is provided by DAU and through commercial providers and (2) on-the-job training.

Almost all classroom training follows the DAU model and is generally of poor quality, mainly due to faulty curricula, course content, and delivery method, and to the lack of good textbooks.

On-the-job training varies greatly from agency to agency, from contracting office to contracting office, and from one rotational assignment to another. There are no governmentwide standards for it. Moreover, what interns learn on the job depends on what the agency buys and the agency's culture, so experience gained varies widely from one program to another. (Every federal agency is a foreign country to the others.)

For the above reasons, the quality of the training received by persons who complete intern programs, most of which seem to be three years in duration, is difficult to assess in general terms. However, once a person has completed a program and becomes a GS-11 or GS-12, they are eligible to work anywhere within the government, regardless of the training that they received. This is no way to manage workforce development. The executive order won't do anything to change this. I don't think that anything can be done to change it. Each agency must prepare its own workforce and then work very hard to retain it. Those with the least interesting work will have the hardest time keeping the best of the litter.

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Why hogwash, leo? I know a few interns who are still in their programs who know more than the COs they work for.

Why make gross generalizations? What are your specific objections to such programs?

Your latest posting at 12:39 PM adequately explains my objections - DAU instruction and OJT.

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I am in the Career Entry Program at the Dept. of State and can provide some insight to the program. The way I understand it is that each agency tailors their intern program to fit its mission and goals. The program basics, such as timeframe and training, remain the same. Going in, I was under the impression that the program was going to be very defined and rigid with specific routines and rules. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most interns don?t get anywhere near FAC-C Level II certification after their 2 years are up.

Sadly, the HR folks and program coordinators simply do not understand the basic process of acquisition FAC-C certifications. Luckily, we have people in my department who help guide the interns and mentor them. I can?t say it is like that in every agency.

Basically, you go in as a GS-7 and then ?promoted? to a 9 after a year considering that all training requirements are satisfied. You are then bumped up to an 11 after your 2 years in the program, but I am not sure if that happens to those who don?t complete all training requirements. I haven?t witnessed any sort of animosity or jealousy directed towards us interns from other co-workers. However, I have been talked down to by some members of the Foreign Service who apparently think they are exceptional and special.

Mr. Edwards is correct in his assessment of the acquisition training quality and delivery. It really is hit or miss and this can have a negative impact on the development of interns. The online training is bland, boring and ineffective in developing the workforce. The classroom training is a gamble at best since there isn?t one set of training standards, or so it seems. The two main vendors that provide training are ESI and Management Concepts so there sin't much choice really. The best part of in-class training is the discussion (and dialogue) between students. As a matter of fact, I have learned almost as much from my fellow students as I have from the instructors. Sadly, some instructors strictly rely on rote learning and memorization rather than critical thinking and hands-on projects

I was a bit relieved the read the following:

Sec. 8. Prior Executive Orders. (a) Effective March 1, 2011, Executive Order 13162 (Federal Career Intern Program) is superseded and revoked. Any individuals serving in appointments under that order on March 1, 2011, shall be converted to the competitive service, effective on that date, with no loss of pay or benefits.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office...ecent-graduates

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Guest Vern Edwards
The best part of in-class training is the discussion (and dialogue) between students. As a matter of fact, I have learned almost as much from my fellow students as I have from the instructors.

What did you "learn" from students and instructors? The fact is that students are in the worst possible position to determine the validity and truth of what they have been told. (Propositions can be valid, but false.) Since students presumably come into a class more or less ignorant, they have more or less no way to determine if what they have been told is valid and true. They can and should demand proof, but even proof is suspect. This is a problem with all education. If you don't know anything about the American Civil War and the instructor tells you that the Battle of Gettysburg took place in 1864, how do you know that what you have been told is true or false? You have to independently verify, assuming that you know bases for verification. In the case of Gettysburg, verification is relatively easy. But what if the instructor tells you that you cannot conduct discussions in a lowest-price, technically acceptable source selection, which is what the DAU Continuous Learning Module for source selection says (or did say a few months ago)? How do you know if that is true? Is it true because DAU says so? The fact that FAR does not say so is not determinative, since the rules about discussion in source selection are largely a matter of case law, and in any case may be somewhere else, like an agency FAR supplement.

I'm sure that you can learn a lot of experiential stuff from other students, and some practical stuff, such as the titles of some books and articles and some website addresses. But what else?

This is one of the toughest challenges for interns. Bottom line: the best way to learn our business is to read on your own. I'm not saying you cannot learn from classes and from colleagues and mentors, but you have to test everything you are told. You also must test everything you read. I have heard and read a lot of things that turned out to be wrong. I have said and written things that turned out to be wrong.

Professional learning is a lifelong effort. There will never be a time when you have "learned." You will either always be learning or you will be retired or dead. That is our fate. Test everything -- what you are told, what you have read, and what you think you know.

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What did you "learn" from students and instructors? The fact is that students are in the worst possible position to determine the validity and truth of what they have been told. (Propositions can be valid, but false.) Since students presumably come into a class more or less ignorant, they have more or less no way to determine if what they have been told is valid and true. They can and should demand proof, but even proof is suspect. This is a problem with all education. If you don't know anything about the American Civil War and the instructor tells you that the Battle of Gettysburg took place in 1864, how do you know that what you have been told is true or false? You have to independently verify, assuming that you know bases for verification. In the case of Gettysburg, verification is relatively easy. But what if the instructor tells you that you cannot conduct discussions in a lowest-price, technically acceptable source selection, which is what the DAU Continuous Learning Module for source selection says (or did say a few months ago)? How do you know if that is true? Is it true because DAU says so? The fact that FAR does not say so is not determinative, since the rules about discussion in source selection are largely a matter of case law, and in any case may be somewhere else, like an agency FAR supplement.

I'm sure that you can learn a lot of experiential stuff from other students, and some practical stuff, such as the titles of some books and articles and some website addresses. But what else?

This is one of the toughest challenges for interns. Bottom line: the best way to learn our business is to read on your own. I'm not saying you cannot learn from classes and from colleagues and mentors, but you have to test everything you are told. You also must test everything you read. I have heard and read a lot of things that turned out to be wrong. I have said and written things that turned out to be wrong.

Professional learning is a lifelong effort. There will never be a time when you have "learned." You will either always be learning or you will be retired or dead. That is our fate. Test everything -- what you are told, what you have read, and what you think you know.

With all due respect Mr. Edwards, if that is the case, why hasn't there been more of an effort to revamp the acquisition training format? It seems to me that some people have a lack of faith in the training set-up and delivery. If this is true, why hasn?t there been a louder outcry from acquisition professionals in the field?

I am aware of the two bills introduced my Senator McCaskill that may or may not help reform the acquisition environment. I am not sure how far these efforts would go towards reforming teaching and instruction methods.

Mr. Edwards, how would you reform the training methods currently being used for acquisition interns?

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Guest Vern Edwards

Motorcity:

Are you kidding? Do you read acquisition publications? See:

Edwards and Nash, "Training the Acquisition WorkforceL Is It Effective,"
The Nash & Cibinic Report
25 (January 2011): ? 5.

Edwards, "Contracting for Services: Challenges for the Next Generation,"
The Nash & Cibinic Report
24 (December 2010): ? 59

Edwards, "Foundational Training for New Government Contracting Officials: An Outline and Suggested Reading," T
he Nash & Cibinic Report
24 (October 2010): ? 48

Edwards, "Structuring the Workforce: Recongizing the Difference Between Contracting and Purchasing,
The Nash & Cibinic Report
22 (July 2008): ? 43

Edwards, "Improving Training for the Contracting Workforce,"
The Nash & Cibinic Report
22 (January 2008): ? 6

Edwards, "Improving the Workforce: Can It Be Done?,"
The Nash & Cibinic Report
19 (September 2005): ? 44

Edwards, Service Contracting in the Year 2000 and Beyond, T
he Nash & Cibinic Report
13 (September 1999): ? 49

Note that those articles go back more than 10 years. The Nash & Cibinic Report is a prestigious monthly publication founded by Profs. John Cibinic and Ralph Nash of The George Washington University Law School. It has been in existence since 1984. Have you heard of it? Do you read it? The above articles, which collectively amount to about 20,000 words, contain very specific criticisms of current training and recommendations for different and better training. The above list does not include my writings here, including analysis articles and my blog. Let's see--I've also written articles for other publications and a couple of books.

In "Throwing People at the Problem: Massive Hiring Will Not Revitalize the Acquisition Workforce," The Government Contractor 51 (August 12, 2009): ? 278, I wrote:

The Training Problem--The hiring surge is injecting many people into a system that is not ready to receive them or to develop and retain first-rate professionals. Most contract specialists receive on-the-job training, provided by the very people responsible for the system's inefficiencies, for bending and breaking the rules, and for foolish business practices. For the most part, trainees will learn on the job what the current workforce teaches them.

Trainees are often sent to understaffed and inefficient offices that see them mainly as workload reinforcements instead of long-term investments to be developed and nurtured. The experienced personnel who are supposed to train them are often either too harried or too annoyed to spend quality time with them. Those who are willing to spend time with them often cannot answer their questions about rules and procedures, or answer them incompletely or incorrectly.

In many cases, on-the-job training amounts to little better than giving trainees some requisitions and some ?sample? purchase and contract documents from which to cut and paste, and telling them to come back if they have any questions. With little foundation for understanding what is going on, ?training? thus becomes a matter of showing up for work every day and doing the best that one can to survive and learn in a chaotic, confusing environment. Thus, it is likely that a new generation of contract specialists will be infected with today's incompetencies.

Training also is provided online and in classrooms (often referred to as ?formal? training). But it is widely believed that the programs of the leading Government contract educational institutions, the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and FAI, are second-rate, at best. And although their programs are augmented by approved commercial training, neither institution is equipped or funded to handle the expected massive influx of contracting trainees, so on-the-job training will be the main source of learning and development. When trainees with advanced degrees first encounter official classroom education, they are stunned by the long classroom days and the succession of ?speakers? with PowerPoint presentations. Worst of all is the shallowness of the learning experience, which makes no serious intellectual demands on the students.

DAU and FAI should be wellsprings of creative thinking. The classroom education they provide should infuse their students with conceptual foundations and knowledge from which they can develop deep insights and on which they can build new ideas for process innovation and improvements, but that education fails them utterly. For example, students learn that in planning a source selection they must choose evaluation factors for award and evaluate proposals accordingly, but they do not learn what an evaluation factor is or how to develop one, and they do not learn how to conduct an evaluation if the factors reflect multiple, conflicting objectives. They learn about the various kinds of rating or scoring systems in use (numerical, adjectival, color rating), but not the function and proper application of such systems and the different kinds of scales--nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio--on which they may be based. The result of this kind of shallow training is not innovation and improvement, but continuation and reinforcement of the cut-and-paste culture that prevails in contracting offices throughout the Government because that is the way that it has always been done. The kindest thing that can be said about DAU's online distance-learning courses is that they are entirely unsatisfactory.

In summary, the Government's primary approach to workforce revitalization, which is to overwhelm the workload problem with numbers, will result in needlessly higher labor and training costs, suboptimal worker performance and suboptimal retention rates among the best new hires.

What Is to Be Done?--Now that the hiring surge is underway, no one will stop it or even slow it down. Contracting office managers, who are not known for being visionaries and taking the long-term view, are not going to restructure their workforces or redesign jobs on their own initiative. So what can be done?

Perhaps the single most important thing that can be done, and done in a relatively short time, would be to develop a common process and standard for on-the-job training and then follow up to see that it is properly implemented. The process specification should describe what is to be taught, in what order and by what methods. Office managers and first-line supervisors should be taught how to manage and provide on-the-job training, and then be held accountable for their performance. (This will give acquisition managers some hands-on experience with performance-based contracting.)

Somewhat longer term, FAI and DAU must be revitalized. They need new management and more money. The time has come to hire college presidents who can overhaul the curriculum, see to the development of suitable textbooks and case studies, improve classroom teaching methods and start anew to fix the distance-learning program. The quality of the educational institutions should reflect the quality of the new hires, who have more formal education than the current generation. The new educational programs must be intellectually sophisticated and professionally rigorous, and should place real demands on students. (Students who fail in the classroom should be flunked.)

The faculty should be subject matter experts. They should focus on teaching concepts and general skills such as process design, instead of teaching specific procedures, which are best left to a well-designed and well-managed on-the-job training program. Although DOD has acknowledged the need to improve training, it has not acknowledged the extent to which DAU must be reformed as a prerequisite to real educational improvement.

In addition, I founded the most innovative and demanding government contract training program currently available, The FAR Bootcamp, which has been so well attended over the past four years that the only advertising we do is the ads you see on Wifcon. We no longer advertise because we cannot meet the demand. I'm am currently working on another article about training for service contracting, to be published in March. Plenty of people have complained about the current training regime, and the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act contains a requirement to review the DAU curriculum.

People will think I paid you to write your last post. In any case, you should get out more if you're not familiar with my writings about acquisition training.

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