Analyses of the Department of Defense Acquisition Workforce: Update to Methods and Results through FY 2011

Abstract : The defense acquisition workforce (AW) is charged with providing the Department of Defense (DoD) with the management, technical, and business capabilities needed to oversee defense acquisition programs from start to finish. This workforce comprises military personnel, civilian employees of DoD, and contractors who perform functions related to the acquisition of goods and services for DoD. In 2006, RAND National Defense Research Institute began to collaborate with DoD to develop data-based tools that would support analysis of the organic defense AW, which includes military personnel and DoD civilian employees, but not contractors. RAND published a report in 2008 (Gates et al., 2008) that documented the construction of the data set and the analytical methods used to examine these data. That report provided descriptive analyses of the organic AW based on data through FY 2006. This report updates Gates et al., 2008, by documenting revisions to the study methods, providing descriptive information on the AW through fiscal year (FY) 2011, and providing a user s manual for a projection model that can help managers explore what shape the AW could take in 2021 under different assumptions about the future. The value of the model and resulting projections is not so much in the specific numbers the model provides (including the examples presented in this report) but in the insights that managers can gain by manipulating the model to examine the possible effects of changes to the model parameters. To illustrate this value, we present some practical examples that describe how a manager can use the model to explore alternative assumptions about future workforce turnover or workforce management practices by modifying some of the default gain and loss rates in the model, which are based on the five-year historical averages. The examples illustrate the implications of such changes for the projections.