Determining where an acquisition organization needs to go necessarily must begin with a clear understanding of where it is today. Managing acquisition from an enterprise perspective requires visibility into agency spending - who buys what from whom for how much. Collecting and validating spend data in federal agencies calls for rigor and persistence to extract and reconcile many systems, documents, interviews and other sources. Analyzing agency spending can present a considerable challenge, but offers invaluable insights into patterns and trends in requirements, resource allocation and relationships with suppliers.

A thorough analysis of the acquisition workload and workforce along with a comprehensive assessment of internal agency processes, policies and the market environment complement the spend analysis to round out the current status of the acquisition operation. The Government Accountability Office has published the Framework for Assessing the Acquisition Function at Federal Agencies, which provides a comprehensive methodology for completing these assessments. These assessments provide the essential factual predicate for making sound acquisition decisions at an enterprise level.

A fact-based view of your situation enables you to compare your agency to high-performing acquisition operations in other public and private sector organizations. Studying these benchmarks highlights factors and practices that distinguish high performers in acquisition operations of similar nature, complexity and scope. Comparing your baseline against these leading practices will point up skills gaps in the acquisition workforce, key organizational strengths and weaknesses, critical process areas needing improvement, and barriers to overcome in order to ensure organizational success.

The baseline assessment, leading practices evaluation and gap analyses form a foundation for collaborating with key stakeholders to define the objectives and future state of acquisition within the agency. The results of these analyses will promote a common understanding for developing actionable recommendations to maximize efficiency and effective, enhance productivity, increase customer satisfaction, and build the capacity to use acquisition directly accomplish the agency's mission.

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