Maxwell legal services wins government-wide award Published April 6, 2009 By Carl Bergquist Air University Public Affairs MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- The director of the Air Force Legal Operations Agency's Directorate of Legal Information Services, or AFLOA/JAS here at Maxwell, said he was notified March 27 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School that his organization had won the government-wide 2009 W. Edwards Deming Award. Col. Peter Marksteiner said Brig. Gen. Richard Harding, AFLOA commander, submitted AFLOA/JAS for the award for a training program they developed to increase personnel understanding and efficient use of information technology. He said the program could have positive implications for the entire Air Force by becoming a template for future training programs. The award is presented annually to a federal government organization, or a civilian or uniformed branch of the military, in recognition of an impressive workforce development and training initiative that has measurably improved the organization's performance. "Reviewers praised the Directorate of Legal Information Services' submission for carefully linking the training initiative to solid outcomes that improved the performance of the organization," Dr. Jerry Ice, CEO and president of the Graduate School, said in a congratulatory letter to Colonel Marksteiner. "The reviewers also complimented the directorate for providing the training during specific time slots, and for compressing the course content into short modules focused on practical tips and tools that would quickly benefit the user." Colonel Marksteiner said he and his staff are "thrilled" by the award, which is a first for the JAG Corps and the result of a "total team effort" on the part of JAS. He said the IT training modules were built using "cheap, off-the-shelf" software and gave the Judge Advocate General's Corps important skills to do their jobs more efficiently. "I like to say we are teaching people how to better use scraps of time," he said. "If you could give back just 10 minutes in everyone's day, a 220-day-work-year would give each person back more than 2,000 minutes, or about 36 hours they could apply toward their jobs, or trips to the gym, or coaching little league." Tim Skinner, AFLOA/JAS deputy director, said an exhaustive study showed the 4,600-plus members of the Judge Advocate General Corps weren't using IT tools smartly or efficiently. "Our goal was to put together some simple modules to train our personnel on how to be more efficient with IT tools," he said. "We broke the training into short modules that covered Excel, Outlook, Word and a number of JAG Corps-specific applications, and showed people how to use these tools for better performance on the job." Colonel Marksteiner said for at least the last decade, knowledge-centric organizations the world over, like the JAG Corps, have recurrently asked, "How can we best leverage evolving information technologies to execute our legal missions?" "[AFLOA/JAS] concluded the answers to that question falls into two general categories," he said. "The first having to do with what could be referred to as 'technical solutions,' or the hardware and software pieces of the machine, and the second having to do with behaviors and personal practices, or how knowledgeable workers use the technology that's available." The colonel said the technical solutions piece continues to be a fast moving and constantly changing target. The best approach an organization can take is to convince people to remain flexible and to embrace change. He said the IT behaviors and practices piece presents one very enduring principle that is absolutely critical, and that is to ensure people have a solid baseline skill level in how to use the IT tools available to them. Colonel Marksteiner said total training time for the course was four hours, and there were 34 modules available, of which 10 had to be done by everyone. JAG Corps personnel could then select elective modules to fulfill the remainder of the four-hour requirement. Active-duty members had five days in early October 2007 to complete the training, while Air Reserve Component members, due to their duty schedules, had until the end of the calendar year. "The overwhelming majority of available JAG Corps personnel met the goal and completed the course," he said. "We did the active-duty training during an 'information technology stand-down' so that everyone was encouraged to complete the training in a dedicated block of time." Mr. Skinner said one of the advantages of the program was that it helped older members learn the newer software. He said that even many of his computer programmers remarked that they learned new things about IT tools from the modules. "We spend a lot of resources on IT tools but not a lot on teaching people how to use them," Colonel Marksteiner said. In his letter of congratulation, Dr. Ice said he felt the efforts of AFLOA/JAS demonstrated the principles of Dr. Deming's "result-oriented" vision. "I look forward to presenting the Air Force Directorate of Legal Information Services with the W. Edwards Deming Award on April 20, 2009, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.," he said. "The presentation will be in conjunction with the Excellence in Government one-day conference. Again, congratulations for your outstanding accomplishment and for your continued commitment to educational excellence in the public sector."