New Marching Orders

While management gurus have longed for "government in the sunshine," the administration's new system is more like "government in the spotlight." It certainly fits well with the president's focus on measurement and achieving results. Unfortunately, the scorecard features a blinding sea of red dots. Agencies have their work cut out for them.

The White House isn't alone in demanding improvement. The General Accounting Office listed strategic human capital management on its governmentwide list of high-risk areas in 2001. At stake here is the ability of agencies to carry out their missions, not only today but over the next five to 10 years, as many of their employees, mostly baby boomers, become eligible for retirement. Moreover, agencies need to transform their workforces into customer-oriented, results-focused organizations that can adapt to rapidly changing environments. The path to transformation requires a workforce with numbers, skills and savvy. The leaders of the acquisition community have certainly taken that message to heart. The Procurement Executives Council (made up of agency heads of procurement) and the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics are working to meet these challenges.

The council's governmentwide approach, which is led by David Litman, procurement executive at the Transportation Department, and Frank Anderson, president of the Defense Acquisition University, aims to position acquisition workers as the leaders of the government's business operations. The procurement council says this strategy depends on acquisitions workers' ability to:

• Develop, negotiate and manage business deals.
• Communicate effectively.
• Lead and manage change.
• Solve problems in ambiguous environments.
• Analyze and understand the marketplace.
• Build and manage relationships across functions and organizations.
• Understand and operate in the customer's environment.
• Develop and implement outcome- oriented solutions.
• Make plans a reality.

The Defense Department has long recognized the broad range of its acquisition workforce, which totals about 130,000. Only 20,000 of those employees work in contracting and purchasing. The major occupation is engineering, with more than 35,000 acquisition employees, while 26,000 are in program management and business operations. This reflects Defense's view that professionals need to be trained and skilled at handling all parts of the acquisition life cycle, from defining a goal to ultimately disposing of what's bought.At all agencies, contracting and program staff must work together as acquisition professionals, all working more efficiently to accomplish the same result.

Defense has already taken a huge step toward anticipating future workforce needs. Last year, the Defense Department's Acquisition Initiatives and Acquisition Career Management offices developed a strategic human capital plan. Each branch of the military and the largest Defense agencies participated in the exercise. The goal was challenging-to predict the number of acquisition workers and the skills needed from 2005 through 2008, and then compare that makeup with the business needs in each component's strategic vision. This time-consuming and demanding exercise has produced some real benefits. "The plan offers the leadership a means for carrying its guidance and strategic intent out to the workforce," says James McMichael, director of Defense's Acquisition, Education, Training and Career Development Office. This vision can then be translated into recruiting, training and developing the right staff. McMichael points to the importance of pilot projects such as Defense's effort to give managers more flexibility in linking pay to performance. "These demonstrations provide the tools for front-line managers to align the workforce to meet the leadership's strategic intent," McMichael says.

The government must deal with the coming wave of retirements and the challenge of shaping a nimble, results-oriented acquisition workforce. The Procurement Executives Council and Defense's initiatives are a step in the right direction.