Training the Wise Buyer

This article, which appeared in the GAO Journal, No. 7, Fall 1989, discusses how the Department of Defense (DOD) can improve its acquisition management work force. DOD must confront such major obstacles to long-term, effective acquisition system reform as: (1) a lack of acquisition managers with the necessary understanding, skills, and experience in industrial management and cost control; (2) significant numbers of acquisition managers who leave DOD before fully developing their careers because of the lack of career-enhancing assignments and promotions; (3) contractor incentives which tend to reinforce inefficient operations by penalizing those that reduce costs and rewarding those that increase costs; and (4) the lack of acquisition manager role models, who have been singled out, rewarded, promoted, and retained in the acquisition field.