Highlights from the ASMC PDI 2021
Written by: Tom Devine
Management Concepts was proud to support the American Society of Military Comptrollers (ASMC) 2021 Professional Development Institute (PDI) as a Diamond Sponsor and Corporate Gold Member. Despite the physical distance between over 5,400 attendees, their camaraderie of spirit and unity of purpose was evident throughout this very first virtual PDI.
Adapt, Evolve & Transform Success Stories
The PDI 2021 theme, “adapt, evolve, & transform. at all times ready,” is a fitting summary of the challenges we faced over the last year and the success stories that have come out of those challenges. From the plenary sessions to the concurrent sessions, tackling these major shifts in the federal space was tackled head-on. The Honorable David Norquist, Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense, was the conference’s first keynote speaker. He took the opportunity to share how well the financial management (FM) community has adapted to the challenges of the recent pandemic, highlighting the Department of Defense (DoD)’s role within Operation Warp Speed and partnerships with other federal agencies. This was a great kick-off to motivate the FM community on how its recent success is now helping DoD evolve into future value drivers with so many of the innovations occurring with the FM community.
People Making a Difference at DoD
The 2021 virtual PDI clearly took a wealth of time and effort to produce and showed how the precious resource of personnel within the DoD community has adapted to the pandemic, evolved with telework, utilized bots to gather data and enhance understanding and application of analytics and transform to meet future challenges such as cyber hacking and clean audits.
USCG and DHS Keynote Speakers
On the second day of the conference, keynote speakers Rear Admiral Mark Fedor, Assistant Commandant for Resources and CFO for US Coast Guard (USCG), and Ms. Stacy Marcott, Acting CFO for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), detailed the evolution of USCG’s financial management transformation not only for the Coast Guard but also in creating shared services for other DHS agencies. Implementing their new FM system has been key to the success of the DHS achieving a clean audit.
The Power of Collaboration is Proven at DFAS and Beyond
Day 3 began with an excellent presentation from Ms. Audrey Davis, Director of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), with passionate and insightful remarks on how DFAS is a true collaborator with its DoD partners and others. She highlighted such innumerable examples of partnered efforts that it was hard to keep track of them all! The session chat contained many kudos and compliments, especially considering that much of the audience was formerly unaware of the scope of these efforts. It is clear that DFAS has done and will continue to do great things for its partners. Other conference presenters highlighted the just released President’s Budget along with the latest GAO 2020 ADA Compilation Report, how to assess budgets through better analytics, and ensuring that financial managers are conscientious stewards of federal resources.
Management Concepts Presents Mini-Courses and Talks about Virtual Transition
Management Concepts also presented two sessions for CPE credit- an Internal Control mini-course and Antideficiency Act (ADA): Practical Applications, based on two popular courses in our Financial Management domain. These virtual presentations were each attended by over 300 participants.
At a special session at our virtual booth, experts from the Management Concepts learning development and learning technologies teams addressed our own unique experience in adapting and evolving in the training industry. In this session, Tom Ladenberg, Executive Director of Learning Technologies, and Dr. Hannah Toney, Director of Learning Development, discussed the shift in training delivery methods from primarily classroom courses with some virtual offerings to solely virtual course delivery almost overnight, and the insights and ah-ha moments gained from that experience. Watch Insights from Experts: Virtual Learning and Lessons Learned During the Pandemic.
Adaptation and Transformation Continues in the DoD FM Community
The conference ended with Lieutenant General John Jansen, Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources, US Marine Corps instilling confidence in the audience as a former F/A-18 pilot who had come into the resource career field late in his career. Jansen shared his personal and professional perspective on why he can see from the efforts within the Marine Corps and other DoD financial managers that transformation and adapting will continue even when a clean audit is achieved.
Attendees couldn’t help leaving this PDI with a positive feeling about what has been done to excel in this new normal and highlighting where this transformation path is taking the FM community. We look forward to seeing the FM community achieve its goals and share successes face-to-face at PDI 2022.
Stay up to date on all ASMC-Management Concepts partnership activities at ManagementConcepts.com/ASMC
