AETC fields new management tool

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RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) --  Air Education and Training Command officials will field new user-friendly software called the Task Management Tool, which is designed to support the task management process for AETC headquarters, Air University, 2nd Air Force, 19th Air Force and wing staff leadership beginning in September.

The TMT program provides increased efficiency by allowing users to easily view and track tasks.

"This tool will significantly improve the way we do business today," said Col. Merrily Madero, the AETC director of staff. "This new capability will simplify the task management and suspense tracking process for 4,000 senior leaders, executive officers and action officers across the command."

TMT provides the ability to streamline the organizational tasking, suspense tracking, and staffing processes, allowing senior leaders, executive officers and action officers to spend more time on the mission and less time managing tasks.

"The program allows prompt, simple task creation, real-time suspense status monitoring, collaboration, standardization and audit trail features, while eliminating business process redundancies and saving costly network storage space," said Lt. Col. James Herrick, the AETC communications directorate chief of operations.

A common problem in AETC is the large size of e-mails to numerous recipients that saturate e-mail servers, slow down service and unnecessarily fill personal and organizational inboxes, said Col. Mona Lisa Tucker, the AETC Communications director. TMT eliminates this problem through the staffing process.

Another program feature is a centralized repository for supporting documents and comments related to a task. All action officers upload documents to a single location associated with a particular task, where data is saved at one team site, allowing for collaboration on documents.

During program implementation, users will receive in-depth training. Additionally, templates and intuitive training modules are available within the program to ensure standardization and ease of use.

The TMT program interfaces with Microsoft Outlook, allowing users some ease adapting to the new application.

In addition to the training, the AETC Computer Systems Squadron is developing an enterprise information services help desk to support TMT fielding, Colonel Herrick said. Users will have a responsive lifeline to get answers to TMT-related questions or issues during fielding and sustainment.

"This is the right step forward for AETC and brings us in line with headquarters Air Force and other major commands," said Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz, the AETC commander.

In 2007, U.S. Air Forces in Europe was the first major command to implement TMT. Internal studies have shown they achieved a 90 percent reduction in data storage and man-hours per week.

Colonel Tucker expects AETC to experience similar results.

"AETC is joining the ranks of other major commands, combatant commands and headquarters Air Force in using TMT to streamline task management," she said.

TMT training continues through the end of August. AETC leaders plan to have TMT fully operational by September.