Critical Thinking: A Missing Ingredient in DoD's Acquisition (Education) System.

摘要

The organization with the formidable task of training and educating this workforce is the Defense Acquisition University (DAU). Headquartered near Washington, D.C., DAU has 500 instructors in five regional campuses across the country. These instructors train all of DoD's 152,110 program managers (PMs), financial managers, contracting officers, engineers and logisticians. Each year, DAU receives many accolades for the excellent job it does in educating the acquisition workforce. In 2013, KnowledgeAdvisors recognized DAU as the top overall corporate university. Yet it is the graduates of this award-winning university who are responsible for and lead the multitude of failed acquisition programs. Certainly, one cannot hold DAU accountable for failed acquisition programs, but this apparent dichotomy points to an important question: Are the Department's personnel adequately prepared to lead the highly complex programs of today and tomorrow.