Does everyone in your organization have a clear picture of who does what, when and why? More importantly is the work your acquisition team does anywhere close to what they should be doing? Are they spending their time equal to their talents and abilities? Building and maintaining a high-performing acquisition workforce must start with understanding the nature, volume and complexity of the work as well as the processes for getting that work done. Clarifying the mission, including identifying component tasks, defining responsibilities, scoping the effort and mapping workflow process provide the necessary context for evaluating how your staff performs, determining workforce needs and projecting what the agency will need in the future. Defining the work establishes the essential predicate for a strategic approach to building, maintaining and managing a high-performing acquisition workforce.

To understand how people fit into the overall acquisition function you need to analyze both the workload and workflow processes in the context of the agency's mission. Workflow and workload analyses offer critical insight to more accurately project workforce requirements that truly align with agency needs. With the tools and guidance to create detailed business process flows, you can then map those work flow processes to appropriate staffing levels, roles and responsibilities. Combine these with detailed analysis of the volume and type of current work transactions, and you can better assess both your current and future staffing requirements.

Strengthening your workforce and increasing organizational capacity involves developing a comprehensive human capital management plan that aligns with the agency mission and the interests of your key stakeholders. You CAN produce a plan that puts that in motion with effective analysis of workload and workflow processes.