Three Initiatives to Help Improve the Acquisition Workforce

As a new year begins, agencies are also making their resolutions.  High on their list are ways to keep employees engaged, energized, and focused on meeting mission goals.  These are the top three initiatives we’ve seen when helping our clients identify ways to improve the acquisition workforce.

1. The importance of having a clear career progression for the acquisition workforce.  Below is a graphic (adapted from VA’s model) that shows that potential advancement includes not only completing the certification requirements, but also mastering professional competencies.  Agencies who recognize this can better guide their workforce to reaching their professional goals.

2. The need to establish a formal COR program. CORs are integral members of the Acquisition Team.  Since COR is a “duties as assigned” role, some of the challenges that agencies face includes:

• Managing and tracking certification
• Aligning best qualified/best fit CORs with contracting needs
• Tracking CORs’ progress

To help agencies form their own program, we offer COR Roadmaps for Level I and II.  The recommended courses for the program include those in acquisitions as well as professional skills.  This further reinforces the career progression model.

3. Improving the Quality of Requirements Documents.  Members of the Integrated Product Team (IPT) contribute to creating documents that make up the Requisition Package.  To succeed, acquisition teams need an organized and structured approach to define needs, develop requirements, and write the requirements documents. When these documents do not clearly and concisely communicate the requirement, the government agency will receive faulty cost estimates, reduced competition, protests, contract changes, increased costs, disputes and claims, and ultimately not what was truly needed.  Helping IPT members develop skills such as writing effective statements of work is crucial.

Learn more about how Management Concepts can help you improve your acquisition workforce at www.ManagementConcepts.com/Acquisition.