Mission Essential Competencies: Competence - Operational Requirements

The present report provides a high-level description of a method for identifying gaps between education and training of a certain function or role and the operational requirements for task or mission completion together with actions that could bridge identified gaps. Hence, the method Mission Essential Competencies (MEC) not only provides a way of identifying gaps between current competence level and operational requirements but also ways of increasing mission readiness through modified education and training. MEC has been developed and applied by the US Air Force Recearch Laboratory (AFRL) Warfighter Readiness Research Division over the past ten years. Under an international project agreement between FOI and AFRL, FOI has been given the opportunity of applying the method in Sweden. The report describes the driving force behind the method, its purpose and its structure on an overarching level. The first Swedish MEC-process for JAS39 Gripen is also briefly presented. The method is considered to be well defined according to its purpose, and it holds a high potential for the Swedish Armed Forces as well as other sectors such as fire fighters, police, health care, and nuclear power plants. Other than identifying and addressing training gaps, a MEC-process can also have additional effects, for example in evaluation and certification, performance measurement and monitoring of performance progress, and design of scenarios and exercises.