Managing the contracting process- Is the contracting office doing its job?

The dilemma for nearly all managers of contracting offices is how to manage the process of creating contracts. A typical way to do that is to first, look at the contracting process in place right now. Then comes the work of "managing:

• Determine if it is working (and that depends on your definition, perhaps)
• If it is "working," how well is it working- and how do you know
• If not, figure out what needs fixing, then fix it
• Measure how things are going
• Go back to the first step

To know if the contracting process is "working" at any particular office, it is important to look at your office's raison d'être- purpose for being- and the expectations of its "customers."

For instance, if your office is supporting an activity in a remote location and they are satisfied with the support they are receiving, perhaps there are no overall problems (we aren't going to address personnel issues, personality conflicts, or any of thousands of internal issues that can erupt in an organization).

What if your contracting office supports multiple missions with multiple customers. That complicates things, doesn’t it?

Regardless, of the number of customers or missions, if the customers cannot fulfill their missions because of the work of your contracting office, the process is not working. That means that if the mission is not being met by your team, for instance that activity at a remote location still needs support from "the home office" for even simple contracting actions, the process there is not working.

Similarly, if, from a technical standpoint, the activity's mission is sort-of supported by your office but the customer is not satisfied- for whatever reason- there is a question as to whether things are actually working there at this time.

For those that say, “But we’re getting the mission accomplished…” you might be correct. However, there is something missing- in the customer’s eyes- in accomplishing that mission. For instance:

• Perhaps the customer is not pleased with the length of time the entire process takes.
• Being left out of the process is also a problem for many customers.
• Being required to participate too much in the process may be an issue as well
• Not being consulted/informed at each stage of the process concerns many customers

If you do not include your customer in the process, given a choice that customer may find a more “customer friendly” contracting shop to deal with. It happens all the time using General Services Administration (GSA) schedules, doesn’t it?

To sum up, to know if the process is working, it is important to know what your customers’ missions are and if those customers feel they are successful because of what your office does.

What do you think? How do you measure this?