AN ANALYSIS OF AIR FORCE CONTRACT MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL COMPETENCY AND INTERNAL PROCESSES USING THE NATIONAL CONTRACT MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION'S THIRD-PARTY ACCREDITED COMPETENCY STANDARD

For the last two decades, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has listed the Department of Defense’s (DoD) contract management practices as a high-risk area. Additionally, in 2019, contract management oversight appeared as one of the DoD Inspector General’s (IG) top management challenges. DoD continues to review processes, training, and organizational assessments for effectiveness. However, the contracting workforce needs competency in both the buyer and seller roles from the contract management life cycle to be truly effective. The National Contract Management Association (NCMA) Contract Management Body of Knowledge (CMBOK) Contract Management Standard (CMS) was chosen as the competency framework for our research, as it fulfills this need. The purpose of this research is to conduct an analysis of DoD IG–reported contract management deficiencies from DoD IG inspections for the Air Force and align these deficiencies with the third-party accredited NCMA CMS competency framework. Additionally, since the Air Force contracting organizations use self-inspections as part of internal controls to prepare for DoD IG inspections, this research provides a comparative analysis between the CMS and the Air Force Contracting Self-Inspection Checklist. Finally, the research provides recommendations for training opportunities and improving the checklist, which clearly align with two of the three parts of auditability theory.Civilian, Department of the Air ForceCivilian, Department of the Air ForceCivilian, Department of the Air ForceApproved for public release. distribution is unlimite