Speaking to 27 students at the Defense Acquisition University Program Manager's Course graduation May 2, Brig. Gen. Bob Marion shared his knowledge and experiences as the students get ready for their next assignments.

Marion, program executive officer for aviation, stressed the importance of being passionate about the programs that they manage. "The stakes are too high not to, and that is delivering capabilities to our armed forces," he said. The PMT 401 class was comprised of program managers representing all the branches of the military.

Fighting and winning wars is what the armed forces are all about, Marion said. "You owe it to the people in the formations you're about to go to, to be as passionate, as committed, and as focused as possible. The bottom line is, you would not be here if you're not."

The class had completed 10 weeks of rigorous program management training, underpinned by case study examinations and focused on conditional thinking versus collecting checklists.

Marion summarized the course's objective by sharing with the class Frank Kendall's philosophy -- about doing the right thing, not being prescriptive, and not giving people checklists to manage their programs. Kendall is the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

"Nobody knows the situation within your programs better than you," Marion said. "We have been empowered to make good, sound decisions that reduce risk for that next phase in the acquisition process. In the end, you have to weigh the right amount of information needed in order for you to make good decisions that is right for our Soldiers."

Marion also amplified the need to think critically, to identify points of what is at stake in running programs successfully including the nature of the challenges.

"We always focus on cost, schedule and performance. There are also those things outside of your ability to influence that are going to influence your programs. I call that the reasonable person concept," he said.

Marion explained that sometimes senior leaders have information that they may or may not be able to completely share with acquisition managers. Trusting in our senior leaders to do the right thing is important. "I have to employ that reasonable person concept to accept that if I were in their shoes, I would do exactly the same thing," he said.

"You are at that point in your PM positions where you will be the one to make those difficult decisions based on information you may not be able to share. You have an obligation to be able to explain that decision in a way that makes them believe that if they were in your shoes, they would do the same," Marion said.

Inspiring the workforce to trust and believe in mission is ultimately the key. "It really is about inspiring. You want people to leave every meeting that you lead thinking, 'I want to be in this office.' Because what your workforce does every day is very important.

"We are always so focused on the mechanics of our jobs, it is important not to forget that there is a human dimension to what we do."