The world-class acquisition workforce evolves to meet the changing demands of the agency's mission as well as the workplace. The role of the acquisition professional has shifted from a process-oriented compliance role to that of a strategic business advisor who uses business acumen, strategic thinking and market knowledge in addition to understanding of mandates and processes to help program offices and other stakeholders leverage acquisition to get mission critical results. Read our Advisory on Strategic Business Advisor »

With a clear understanding of the acquisition workload and workflows, the challenge shifts to determining staffing levels and identifying the range of competencies - leadership, management and technical competencies - and skill sets needed to deliver superior acquisition outcomes. Meeting that challenge includes developing competency models for positions within the organization and estimating the numbers of people in various positions needed to handle the workload within the agency operating environment. Completing these analyses provides a comprehensive view of your current human capital assets AND the gaps that enables calculation of the staffing requirements to deliver effective and efficient acquisition support. Applying labor supply and demand analyses to those staffing requirements facilitates more accurate projection of the kind of human capital investment that the agency will need to meet the agency's needs.

Staffing projections and competency models lay the groundwork for determining the optimal organizational structure and developing targeted plans to recruit, develop and retain a high-performing acquisition workforce willing and able to achieve mission results.