Enclosure 

NASA Advisory Council Recommendation

Establish a Program Management Training Bootcamp for 

Early Career Initiative (ECI) Awardees 

2023-01-01 

Name of Committee: Technology, Innovation, 

and Engineering Committee

Chair of Committee: Mr. Michael Johns 

Date of Council Public Deliberation: January 18, 2023 

Short Title of Recommendation: Program Management Training 

Bootcamp for ECI Awardees

Recommendation:

The Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and the Agency should establish 

comprehensive training in project management, accounting, and financial reporting, 

purchasing, contracts, and other critical skills that will be necessary to run a successful Early 

Career Initiative (ECI) program. This could take the form of an ECI bootcamp that could be 

implemented after project selection but before award, or shortly after the award of project 

funds. 

Major Reasons for the Recommendation:

The ECI program provides NASA early career civil servants with an opportunity to 

competitively propose two-year technology development projects that engage with 

industry, academia, and other government agency partners with the opportunity to gain 

valuable management skills while leading a multidisciplinary project team. Feedback from 

ECI awardees is consistent that the program provides valuable development opportunities, 

but they find themselves unprepared for the challenges of running a large multidisciplinary 

program. ECI participants would benefit from early training in program management 

fundamentals such as project management basics, accounting and finance, contracts, 

procurement processes, and others. Early training in these areas allows for more focused 

research efforts and more efficient program execution.

Consequences of No Action on the Recommendation:

ECI awardees will not be as prepared as they could be and will spend valuable time 

and resources learning program management skills on their own that could otherwise 

be spent achieving their project goals. 
2

NASA Response:

NASA concurs with the recommendation to establish a comprehensive training program 

within the ECI to provide NASA early career civil servants selected for an ECI award with 

the skills needed to successfully perform these multiyear technology development projects. 

In FY 2022, in response to lessons learned and ECI awardee feedback, NASA STMD 

developed a pilot training initiative for ECI through the NASA Academy of 

Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL). The pilot included a set of four 

instructor-led online courses on management, leadership, budget formulation, and strategy. 

At the start of FY 2023, APPEL offered these courses to ECI Principal Investigators (PIs) 

and project team members. While a significant first step to addressing the need for ECI 

training, the pilot admittedly had limited impact, given that management plans and 

partnership agreements were already in place for these projects. Additionally, we noted 

that the APPEL course suite would benefit from tailoring to better address specific ECI 

needs. Moving forward, we plan to focus and integrate training earlier in the ECI process 

so that ECI awardees may more fully realize the benefits.

Currently, NASA solicits for ECI in March, selects proposals in late August, and starts the 

projects on October 1 each year. We will retain this schedule for FY 2024, while a new 

ECI-specific APPEL curriculum is developed and ECI program budgets are restructured. 

For FY 2025, we plan to adjust the ECI schedule to accommodate selections in April 2024, 

several months before the October 1, 2024, project start date. This additional time between 

selection and project start will allow ECI awardees to participate in tailored project 

management training and to initiate (often lengthy) procurement processes with partners, 

prior to initiating the project.

Funded by ECI, a new comprehensive set of APPEL-developed training courses will be 

provided to the newly selected FY 2025 PIs and teams following project selection. 

FY 2024 will serve as a transition year. Specifically, FY 2024 PIs and project teams will 

be provided an initial set of APPEL courses at project start in October 2023, with the 

opportunity to participate in the more comprehensive training offered the following spring. 

The FY 2025 ECI budget has been restructured to support these early training activities, 

and the NASA Centers have been informed of the impending changes.

We thank the NAC for their interest in the ECI and their continued support in developing 

our NASA early career workforce and future Agency leaders.