1. Purpose: To provide information on Army-developed Project Athena assessments available via the Army Enterprise Assessment System.
2. Overview. Project Athena equips Army leaders with assessment feedback to enhance career-long self-awareness and readiness. Project Athena is a CSA initiative supporting the Army People Strategy and the associated Military Implementation Plan. Project Athena contributes to task 2.2.a, enhance leader effectiveness through assessments, and task 3.1.b, create a culture of assessments throughout Soldiers’ careers. Milestones for both tasks, in support of TRADOC, are on schedule to implement Project Athena and reinforce a culture of assessments and development across the entire force by FY24. Project Athena’s preparation of leaders also supports ATMTF initiatives, like the Command Assessment Programs. Self-development insights and actions taken upon results from Project Athena ensure Army leaders are equipped to handle future challenges.

3. Facts:

   1. Project Athena assessments consist of a progressive series of assessments administered during resident Professional Military Education (PME). Each assessment battery is designed to motivate Soldiers to better understand themselves in basic communication, leadership, and critical thinking skills while improving the Army’s understanding of cohort-specific strengths and developmental needs. Assessments are administered by each school through the web-based Army Enterprise Assessment System, which hosts the assessments, archives aggregated data, and provides a career long repository for individual feedback reports. Commercially procured assessments are also used in Project Athena to supplement Army instruments.
   2. Army Critical Thinking Test (ACTT). This web-based instructional tool measures a student’s critical thinking skills and how they guide their thinking (metacognitive attributes), two factors that interact to influence actions. Feedback is designed to help participants refine how they think and handle complex information, and how to do so with greater speed or efficiency. This 60 minute, timed assessment with right/wrong answers is conducted with students in BOLC, WOBC, WOAC, WOILE, SLC, and CES-Basic.
   3. Individual Adaptability Measure (I-ADAPT). This web-based instrument assesses how adaptable a person is at work. It covers eight dimensions (learning, creative problem solving, handling work stress, uncertain situations, handling emergencies, interpersonal adaptability, cultural adaptability, and physically oriented adaptability) identified from Army situations, critical tasks, and typical leader roles that people use to adapt to situations. Increasing adaptability allows individuals to success across a variety of situations. This untimed assessment takes no more than 20 minutes and is conducted with students in CCC, CGSOC, WOAC, WOILE, WOSSE, ALC, SMC, CES-Basic, and CES-Intermediate courses.
   4. Self-Awareness Individual Differences Inventory (SAID-I). This web-based instrument measures 12 personal factors related to how leaders interact with others, approach work, seek success, and handle challenges. The factors were selected based on their relevance to professional duties and military service: extraversion, agreeableness, teamwork, detail orientation, dependability, intellectual curiosity, achievement orientation, self-control, perseverance, emotional stability, optimism, and mental toughness. Feedback helps participants understand themselves better and provides a common language to discuss differences with others. This untimed assessment takes no more than 20 minutes and is conducted with students in BOLC, CCC, CGSOC, WOBC, WOILE, BLC, SMC and CES Basic, Intermediate and Advanced courses.
   5. Sensemaking. The Sensemaking Assessment is a measure of how individuals process information for situational awareness. Sensemaking is a deliberate, iterative effort to create understanding in complex situations. It is the starting point to figuring out what to do and what to decide. The Sensemaking assessment provides an indication of how leaders create understanding in uncertain, novel, and ambiguous situations. This brief advanced assessment takes no longer than 10 minutes and is conducted with students in CGSOC, WOILE, SLC, and SMC.
   6. Social Awareness and Influence Assessment (SAIA). This assessment provides students an opportunity to assess their self-awareness and ability to influence others. Social awareness is the process leaders follow to perceive, analyze, and evaluate social interactions. Self-awareness entails monitoring yourself, others, and situations. Influence is how leaders shape what others think and do. Leaders use influence to energize others and get things done through others. Social and self-awareness and influence are essential skills for leaders to achieve results. Completed in no more than 20 minutes, this assessment is conducted with students in BOLC-B, BLC, and CES Basic.
   7. Systems Thinking Assessment. This assessment provides an opportunity for leaders to reflect on their ability to recognize, understand, and synthesize the interactions and interdependencies among a set of components in a system. Feedback provides an indication of the participant’s use of patterns in temporal, spatial, social, technical, and cultural dimensions. This advanced assessment takes no longer than 10 minutes and is conducted with students in CGSOC, WOSSE, MLC, SMC, CES-Basic, CES-Intermediate, and Continuing Education for Senior Leaders.
   8. Leader180. The Leader180 provides students who have not yet been in leader positions the opportunity to both give and receive peer feedback on observable leadership behaviors related to the Army Leadership Requirements Model (ALRM, ADP 6-22). Students complete a self- assessment and also select about 8 peers from their classmates to provide feedback. Results can help identify gaps in leader self-awareness to guide self-development. This assessment takes about an hour to complete and is conducted in BOLC, WOBC, BLC, ALC, and CES-Basic.
   9. Leader360. The Leader360 is an assessment of a leader's effectiveness on observable behaviors related to the Army Leadership Requirements Model (ALRM, ADP 6-22). It also assesses the frequency with which the leader engages in counterproductive work behaviors. Students complete a self-assessment and select assessors from three perspective groups (superiors, peers, subordinates) to provide feedback. This assessment is conducted with students in CCC, SGSOC, WOAC, WOILE, WOSSE, SLC, MLC, SMC, CES-Intermediate, CES-Advanced, and Continuing Education for Senior Leaders.
   10. Project Athena assessments are designed to help Soldiers and Leaders to better understand their individual strengths and developmental needs and motivate them to self-improve.

Dr. Marilyn Willis-Grider/ATZL-MCV/ DSN 585-3591 APPROVED BY: COL Samuel Saine