As the “Year of the NCO” was coming to an end, CSM David Bruner, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Senior NCO, and John Sparks, retired TRADOC CSM, introduced the Institute for NCO Professional Development (INCOPD) during a panel discussion at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Exposition and Meeting, Oct. 6, 2009.

During the panel discussion, Bruner noted that over the past 3 years much analysis has been done to figure out the way ahead for NCO education. The INCOPD’s goal is to streamline the NCO educational and training processes and house all applicable information in one single system. “If you think about it, for those of you who have been in the business for a long time, you know that NCO professional development was fragmented in many different domains,” Bruner said. “The INCOPD is going to integrate all of the activities associated with NCO development.”

NCOs Taking Control
One initiative of the INCOPD is to allow NCOs the opportunity to take control of their training and have more input regarding what type of training is effective. “NCOs are taking charge of their own training and their own destiny. That’s a huge step forward,” Bruner said. To find out firsthand what areas of training were lacking, TRADOC reached out to NCOs in the field for their feedback. By taking recommendations and listening to Soldier experiences from the field, TRADOC leadership can ensure that our NCOs are receiving the best training possible.

Responding to New Rotational Requirements
Currently, the Army is transitioning to a unit rotational cycle of 15 months deployed followed by 12 months at home. Taking these changes and longer deployments into consideration, TRADOC looked at reducing course lengths, maximizing the use of all available technology, and employing a different approach to distance learning when designing the INCOPD. The goal is to provide Soldiers the opportunity to spend more time with their families during their downtime.

Army Career Tracker (ACT)
A key component of the INCOPD is the ACT, a leadership development tool that will restructure training and education achievements and goals into an interactive online system. Right now, Soldiers’ training, education, and career strategy information is stored in multiple locations, including the Acquisition Career Record Brief, the Senior Rater Potential Evaluation, and Army Knowledge Online. To make it easier for Soldiers to track all career- and training-related information, the ACT will streamline these systems and provide a single point of access.

The hope is that the ACT will present Soldiers with a big-picture view of their careers, allowing them to strategize and plan for the future. “The ACT will not only tell you what you should be doing now, but also what you should be doing next,” said Sparks. Supervisors will also have access to the ACT so that they can oversee their Soldiers’ career and training requirements and goals. ACT is still in the midst of development and will deploy sometime in FY10, with full capability by FY16.