An Innovative Approach to Assessing DoD Contracting Workforce Competency

Abstract

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020 directed the secretary of defense to implement a professional certification program for all members of the acquisition workforce that is based on standards developed by a third-party accredited program based on nationally or internationally recognized standards. In response to this NDAA (2019) requirement, the Department of Defense (DoD) senior procurement executives agreed to the establishment of a new contracting competency model and a single level of certification program based on the National Contract Management Association’s (NCMA) Contract Management Body of Knowledge (CMBOK; NCMA, 2019a) and American National Standards Institute–accredited Contract Management Standard (CMS; NCMA, 2019b). The purpose of this research is to develop a new competency assessment instrument based on the NCMA CMBOK and CMS to be used in assessing the DoD’s contracting workforce competency. This research will answer the following question: How can the CMBOK/CMS competency structure be used as the basis for developing a survey-based instrument for assessing the competencies of the DoD contracting workforce? An additional research question is: Based on the competency assessment results, in which contract management competencies is the workforce less proficient and less knowledgeable? We conduct this research by developing a survey-based assessment instrument for assessing the competencies of the DoD contracting workforce. We then deploy the assessment instrument to DoD contracting organizations and analyze the assessment results to identify contract management competencies that need additional training emphasis.