An Assessment of Gaps in Business Acumen and Knowledge of Industry Within the Defense Acquisition Workforce

📖 The Scoop

The U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) acquisition workforce (AWF) includes more than 169,000 personnel who are responsible for identifying, developing, buying, and managing goods and services to support the military. In 2018, Congress directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to conduct an assessment of gaps in business acumen, knowledge of industry operations, and knowledge of industry motivation present within the AWF and to determine the effectiveness of training and development (T&D) resources offered by providers outside DoD that were available to AWF personnel. RAND was chosen to perform the assessment, and researchers used a mixed-methods approach to do so, including interviews with DoD and industry professionals and reviews of AWF competency models, Defense Acquisition University course offerings, DoD policy, and academic and business literature. The authors found that the lack of standardized definitions obscures the need for knowledge related to business acumen, industry operations, and industry motivation, and while knowledge gaps appear to exist in these areas, the lack of requirements and desired proficiencies further hinders an estimation of the gaps' extent. DoD uses a wide array of internal and external T&D assets to develop the AWF, but training gaps related to these types of knowledge were difficult to determine in part because evidence about the effectiveness of different types of T&D is limited. The authors provide recommendations to DoD to improve how these types of knowledge are assessed and conferred as well as recommendations to Congress for incentivizing DoD's use of external T&D providers.

Genre: Business & Economics / Training (fancy, right?)