2016 Assessment of the Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project: Executive Summary

In August 2015, Rene Thomas-Rizzo, director, Human Capital Initiatives, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, asked the RAND Corporation to undertake a study to accomplish the fiscal year FY 2016 assessment of the Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project AcqDemo mandated in the National Defense Authorization Act NDAA of FY 2011. The assessment used multiple data sources - both quantitative and qualitative, both objective- and perception-based - to evaluate AcqDemo using the original 12 criteria enumerated in the NDAA, as well as five new criteria specified by the AcqDemo Program Office. These criteria call for a look at the following AcqDemos key features pertaining to hiring, appointments, and performance appraisal the adequacy of its guidance, protections for diversity, efforts to ensure fairness and transparency, and means used to involve employees in improving AcqDemo AcqDemos impact on career outcomes, such as compensation, promotion, and retention, particularly with respect to similar outcomes for the General Schedule workforce AcqDemos ability to support the acquisition mission. This executive summary presents the key findings of this research. A more detailed account of the research methods and findings can be found in 2016 Assessment of the Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project, by Jennifer Lamping Lewis, Laura Werber, Cameron Wright, Irina Danescu, Jessica Hwang, and Lindsay Daugherty, RR-1783-OSD,2017 available at www.rand.orgtRR1783.