Continuous Process Improvement: 302nd AW senior leaders gather for semi-annual planning

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Tiffany Lundberg
  • 302nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. –   Commanders and senior enlisted Reserve Citizen Airmen, 302nd Airlift Wing, gathered to discuss their continuous process improvement plans during their semi-annual strategic alignment event, Jan. 13, 2020, at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

This was the wing’s seventh strategic alignment event since its beginnings in Dec. 2016. It brought together squadron, group and the wing commanders, along with the senior enlisted Airmen, to discuss their successes and challenges from the past year and how they will overcome readiness challenges for 2020.

Additionally, the event allows commanders to see what each group is doing throughout the year and to combine readiness efforts or plan for new events to keep their Airmen up-to-date on their readiness requirements.

“We spent the majority of the day figuring out our strategic calendar to ensure that all the units have visibility on everything that is going on in the wing and how we can maximize readiness and training,” said Col. James DeVere, 302 AW commander. “The final portion of the day was how to build an effective readiness exercise and evaluate how well we are doing with our readiness.”

Another advantage of getting everyone together was getting different ideas for common challenges in the workplace. Continuous process improvement is a requirement and was a common theme throughout the units on how to improve key processes and make them more efficient.

Overall, getting the Reserve Citizen Airmen across the wing ready for real-world missions was a main focus of the event through key procedures. The commanders discussed how to combine efforts for medical requirements and exercise ideas to hone in their skills. Each career field and unit has different requirements in order to exercise their skills effectively and efficiently. Commanders were able to discuss these requirements in order to drive how the wing will prepare and conduct their future wing-wide exercise.

To end the day, DeVere checked in with the group and squadron commanders on how their Airmen are doing with resiliency.

“We need to make sure our Airmen are connected and they understand the importance and value that they have to our wing,” said DeVere. “That’s why I want to talk more about resiliency to ensure that when we train our Airmen, we are keeping our Airmen. Also, how we can help them get through challenges to continue to serve and also be able to take care of their families, civilian career or school.”