The World and Thoughts

I've been doing my reading for my NSDM class, and I've been reading some out of Thomas P. M. Barnett's book, The Pentagon's New Map. It has spurred me to think about the article I want to write for Proceedings on the training revolution. I was thinking about an outline for the article, but haven't really come up with one completely yet. Therefore, I've been thinking about some of the things I wanted to include in the article.

Master Training Specialist, MTS. The training pipeline has GOT to get rid of this. Just because someone is trianed and can present training out of an instructor's guide doesn't mean that the students are truly learning. If you want to train someone how to fix a piece of equipment or how to operate a certain system, they need to be trained by someone who has fixed the equipment, or by someone who knows how to operate the system. You don't train them by using someone who has never even seen the equipment, but knows how to present information from an IG. You can put out certain information, but unless you have someone who knows the system, you are giving the students just that, information, you are not TEACHING them anything.

Sea Warrior, while a good idea, doesn't seem to pass the common sense test. While it could eliminate part of the parochialism and the "good ole boy's" network inherent in getting orders, it also eliminates some of the case-by-case situations that arise that need a human to intermediate and make a decision. It almost relegates getting orders into a crap shoot for the sailor. The Sailor may apply for a job on Sea Warrior, but they don't know if they'll get it or not. Talking to a detailer, a live human being whose whole job is to help out the sailor, eliminates the crap-shoot of looking for orders.

Centers for excellence need to go away. Training Support Centers need to go away. The schoolhouse was destroyed in favor of streamlining processes and eliminating some of the manpower. Unfortunately, it also destroyed the synergy of the schoolhouse. The first line of defense for student problems is the instructors that the students spend their days with. So we eliminate the instructor from the equation and inject a third party, the TSC, to resolve student issues. Now, the personnel who spend most of the time with the students will be completely removed from the loop for helping with student problems. It's sort of like being in a hospital and the nurses who make their rounds bein unable to make any decisions or help patients with any problems. Instead, they'll have to call the Doctor and send the patient to see him before the patient can get any help. Granted, the nurses do call the doctor when the issue is beyond their ability to provide help, but that happens in the student world, too, for example when an instructor would have to send a student to PSD to solve a pay issue. Instead of Centers for excellence, we need to go back to a schoolhouse setting to bring the synergy back into dealing with students. Therefore, I propose that we do away with the whole structure of centers of excellence and training support centers. NPDC needs to change to revitalize the institution of training. It is slowly withering away as we try to find ways to save money, and those methods invariably become computer based training, eliminating instructors and ACTUAL training. The problem with this is that our ships don't get the training. Sailors are expected to complete their training inside the lifelines of the ship, when their time is already monopolized by the myriad other bureaucratic inundations that are piled upon them. So the training either doesn't get done, or it gets done as quick as possible (get it done or you don't go home tonight) with no real retention or learning accomplished. Instead, rote memorization long enough to pass the test and then print your certificate. Is the training done? Yes. Effectively? No.

NPDC needs to become the driving force in training...AND the curriculum holders. No TPP's, no piloting that takes years. Instead, the talk is of contracting curriculum out. That's not a bad idea. But if you're going to contract curriculum development, do you need a several different commands whose jobs are to develop curriculum. Let me expand that, several O-6 commands whose whole job is to oversee curriculum development, development that is done by contractors. Instead, this function should be consolidated into NPDC. Within the FIM in NPDC should be the remnants of the centers--an O-6 directorate with O-5 program managers who oversee curriculum development. Training itself would change, too. There wouldn't be multiple individual schoolhouses that monopolize minimal resources within a small area to provide redundant training. Also, there won't be several O-6 command schoolhouses that, again, monopolize resources. Instead, there would be regional training centers, what I will call Naval Training Centers, NTC's. These NTC's would cover a region, and would have a single O-6 commander. This O-6 commander would oversee all aspects of training within his region, much like a president of a university. This commander would oversee all aspects of training--instruction and student support. This Naval Training Center would liaise not only with NPDC for policy directives and curriculum, each NTC would liaise with other NTCs. These NTC's would be interconnected, NETWORKED together to provide the most effective support to the training institution. Here is a picture of the proposed NTC's:

The problem with this is that it would require the elimination of power for several O-6's. That's a difficult proposition for the Navy--people don't like to give up power. It would also consolidate regional training authority into one central administration. This would save money and manpower (since the navy is short on one and cutting the other to save on thde other). Unfortunately, as with elimination of power, commanders in the Navy are also afraid of consolidation of power. But, it is necessary to revitalize training without stripping any more of it's effectiveness than has already been taken away.

Finally, I see the training organization as needing to become completely joint. Consolidation of administrative functions across all branches of DOD would eliminate even more administrative overhead and would save that much more money, while streamlining the process. By consolidating, it would require new administrative methods that would streamline paperwork and minimize time required to process paperwork. Therefore saved dollars and time.

Anyway, those are just thoughts, more later.