I just finished up two weeks of Air Force duty to take our Cyber 300 Continuing Education course. The course was a great update for me about the latest changes across the Air Force cyber community. While there though, I noticed a handful of non-cyber discussions that seem to highlight major differences between the Air Force and industry. I wanted to highlight a few of those here.

• Task and Project Management

• Time Management

• Personnel Management

The weaknesses in these areas I think great stem from the Air Force's lack of understanding of current trends. There are often existing solutions for AF problems. But we tend to expect an intrepid Airman to go above and beyond for a solution when a COTS solution exists. Air Force leaders need to stay abreast of current industry trends. Programs like Education With Industry (EWI) help, but are very rare and the learnings from these programs rarely trickle down outside the participants' direct sphere of influence.

Task and Project Management

In almost any corporate environment, you will find some sort of task tracking software in use. Jira, Asana, Monday, MS Project, Trello just to name a few. In most organizations, they even go a step further with some sort of Agile or other project management process on top of this supporting software.

Photo by Rodeo Project Management Software / Unsplash

The Air Force is still mostly devoid of any sort of common task tracking mechanism (don't talk to me about TMT for unit level task tracking) and even more at a deficit when it comes to project management expertise (PME barely even mentioned efficient project management). Many units still manage tasks via email, paper notebooks, or in some intrepid units, SharePoint. The Air Force is in sore need of both project management expertise and software.

The end result of this shortfall is that most units are unable to fully understand and communicate their priorities, capacity, and future resource requirements. It is also extremely difficult in the Air Force to adequately articulate what tasks need to be backlogged to complete higher priority or urgent tasks (looking at you 4PM Friday tasker). With the significant mix of administrative (reports, awards, decs, etc.) and operational tasks (the mission), units need a way to balance their resources appropriately. Have you ever seen a unit adjust mission task prioritization during a SCOD window? Or like most units, do we just absorb the additional workload at the expense of our Airmen (or ourselves)? Long nights and weekends should not be the norm for Air Force leaders and I think this is a symptom of poor project management.

At a minimum, Air Force units need to standardize on a platform for task management. MS Project is readily available and a likely shoe-in for short term implementation (though I doubt most would call it best of breed in any sense). I would prefer something more modern (Asana, Trello, Jira) but we have to take what we can get. Simply providing the tool is not sufficient though. Tactical project management is a hallmark of our middle ranks (junior NCOs and senior CGOs). The Air Force has focused so much on "leadership" that we have completely missed the mark on equipping our leaders for their management mandate. NCOA and SOS for officers would be the perfect places to teach strong project management skills.

I would recommend fully certifying officers in PMP, Agile, or another project management framework but this might be a stretch. In most cases though, I would probably rather have this than the mandate for CISSP across the board. In industry, project manager is a specific role that is hired into, the Air Force could benefit greatly from this.

With the rampant overwork, overstress, do less with more, and multi-capable Airmen mantras floating around the Air Force, the only way to wrangle our task saturation is to better manage the tasks and give our leaders the necessary tools to do so.

In summary:

Add project management curriculum to commissioning sources, SOS, NCOA, and maybe even career field training
Invest in project management software as a force multiplier for project management
Establish a dedicated project management career field

Time Management

Ask anyone in the Air Force and you will find a major issue with overwork, either by choice, by order, or because people just think they "need" to. Time management is a problem.

One thing that I rarely hear discussed in the Air Force is the concept of time blocking. The Air Force tends to be so ingrained with open door policies that no one ever feels quite right scheduling dedicated time for task completion. The result is that you end up with people being very distracted when someone pops into their office for a "quick" conversation instead of being able to supply their full and undivided attention.

Photo by Marissa Grootes / Unsplash

What I recommend is that people in the Air Force default their calendar to public, block time for tasks like report and decoration writing, and then have an "open calendar" policy (emergencies excepted). Make it the standard that open spots on your calendar are truly open and blocks are blocked. Let people put meeting on their calendar as necessary. Even better if you can get people to include at least some context in their calendar invites. If you find you have difficult maintaining open slots, then schedule office hours – this becomes your "open door" time. If you want to take it a step further, if you have blocks for task completion, you could indicate in the block if that time is hard blocked or can be scheduled with advanced notice. For example, a hard deadline for a decoration, the calendar item is Decoration Writing (Do Not Disturb). If instead you have to drop the kids off in the morning but are flexible or can take a call remotely, maybe the calendar item is School Dropoff – Open with prior coord.

Another tools is to ensure that you have your work hours appropriately set in whatever calendar application you use and have it configured to decline (or manually decline) any meetings outside your work hours. This obviously requires coordination with your boss but as a leader you can set this expectation up front for those you lead. Your mobile notifications should closely match these hours as well.

Let's be honest, sometimes late (or early) work is just required, but perhaps you do not want this to become the norm for those you lead. In those cases, scheduled messages (email and Teams) can be a great way to let you get your work done while scheduling messages for the recipients' work hours so that no one feels obligated to respond or do additional work outside the duty day. Even better if your messages indicate the urgency of the request.

With time blocking and scheduled messages, you can be more confident you have time to complete your required tasks without interruption, you can maintain time in your schedule for organic discussions (open slots or office hours), and you can maintain duty day expectations by scheduling any late or early messages to arrive during the duty day.

In summary:

Implement time blocking
Use "Office Hours" to reduce interruptions
Set your Work Hours in your scheduling app (and mobile notifications)
Use scheduled messages to keep work in work hours when you "have" to work late/early

Personnel Management

Two things here: 1-on-1s and documenting them.

1-on1s (or 1:1s) are the standard in industry; or at least in places that are good to work at. Weekly or bi-weekly seem to be the norm but you can figure out an at least monthly schedule that works for you. The Air Force's required annual feedback and EPB/OPB are too formal, rigid, and infrequent to offer any meaningful impact. How many leaders do you know who don't even really know what their people are doing when report time comes around?

Leaders should be holding at least 30 minute 1-on-1s at least once a month with every person they directly supervise. These discussions are owned by the supervisee and they should set the agenda or at the very least, be the ones who get to start the meeting. If the time isn't filled, no big deal, but keeping this time on the calendar gives subordinates the opportunity to give and receive feedback. True, meaningful, feedback. The kind that can drive change, growth, and empowerment. Not the mandatory stuff you have to document.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com / Unsplash

Just be sure that this time is borderline sacred. It does not get moved or scheduled over except in the most extreme of situations. Nothing will make a supervisee feel unimportant than continually rescheduling your time with them.

Then DOCUMENT the meetings. I highly recommend that outside of formal documentation (EPB/OPBs), all leaders keep a file of their 1-on-1 discussions to reference later. The documentation does not have to be a verbatim transcript of the discussion but could easily be broken down into something like:

Successes/Accomplishments
Help Required
Recommendations
Feedback/Counseling

These can be extremely useful at report writing time, when opportunities arise that may align with a subordinates desires, or, if necessary, for disciplinary reasons.

Additionally, quarterly skip level 1-on-1s can be a great way for leaders to keep a pulse on the organization. I would not recommend skipping more than one level for these. Also, ensure these are well known to all leaders so that they are not a surprise for anyone.

What can help in implementing these practices is to ensure that managers manage and technicians do operational work. Trying to split between the two consistently is a recipe for both failing.

In summary:

Schedule recurring 1-on-1s with your people
Keep them sacred and document them
Implement skip-level 1-on-1s

Summary