Determining the Appropriate Size of the Contracting Workforce: Yes We Can!

Abstract

The increasing pace of change in the federal acquisition environment, an emphasis on increasing contract management accessions, and intense pressure to cut operating budgets has increased the interest in the models available for use by the DoD to (1) measure contracting organization workload and (2) assign adequate resources to effectively manage the workload with an acceptable level of risk. An essential requirement for organizational success is to ensure that the correct number of resources, with the correct competencies, is available at the point of need at the correct time to accomplish the mission. In order to correctly train and assign resources, one must first understand the nature and amount of work to be accomplished. This paper finds that contracting workload assessment is not conducted in a consistent manner within DoD nor among the various individual Service components. In fact, in many organizations, it is not conducted at all. Seven steps that contracting organizations can take to identify contracting workload and manage it accordingly are presented.