To gain a better understanding of your career interests, needs, and goals we have created this short questionnaire. As a next step, senior procurement and learning experts will review and provide you with a suggested development plan. This can take up to 2-weeks. We will then schedule a time to review this with you and make any changes.

Link to your NIGP Aspire Transcript

Please give us as much detail as possible regarding your career goals. Craft your Goals using the Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound structure, if possible.

Thank you for completing! Let us know if you have any questions.

To identify your strengths and improvement areas in the 33 public procurement competencies, please complete this self-assessment. It is important that you rate your level of competency or ability to perform the competency honestly. Don't dwell on a question, go with your initial observation. These results will be discussed with you and are only a single data point.

If a competency is not required in your role, select N/A. All questions do require a response.

The survey consists of rating your abilities across 33 competencies. These competencies were identified as the foundational knowledge, skills, and abilities of a well performing procurement professional. If a competency is not required in your role, select Not Applicable. All questions do require a response.

Focus Area 1: Strategy

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For public procurement to function as a valuable, contributing asset to the entity, it must think, plan, and act strategically, aligning entity mission and public benefit alongside social responsibility. The public procurement professional must actively contribute their expertise to benefit the public through helping create the entity’s strategic vison.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Strategy Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Mission and Public Benefit: Support uninterrupted public sector operations for citizens by procuring required goods and services in a way that serves the long-term interests of the public by:

• Describing the roles, organizational placement, values, and functions of the procurement office as they relate to public entities as a whole.
• Demonstrating how public procurement adds strategic value to the delivery of public services.
• Identifying why a public procurement professional’s performance expectation relates to the overall organizational strategic plan.
• Using problem solving, critical thinking, and learning skills in an individual and procurement team context.

2. Transformation & Vision Creation: Develop the strategic vision, make strategic decisions based on theory and public management practices required to impact logistics and supply chain activities, by:

• Assessing opportunities to improve performance of the entity’s procurement function.
• Creating policies designed to ensure strategic alignment of procurement procedures throughout a public entity.
• Creating structure to capture operational and financial improvements within the entity as the result of procurement strategy.

3. Social Responsibility Alignment: Identify government laws and policies concerning relationships domestically and abroad. For example, adhering to a minority-owned, woman-owned, or emerging small business (MWESB) preference procedures, policies or laws and/or international sanctions, etc., by:

• Building, growing and optimizing Disadvantaged Business Enterprises programs using different methods.
• Incorporating environmental sustainability efforts in their everyday procurements.
• Supporting the local economy through the inclusion of work with local businesses.
• Mitigating challenges, which may occur through service contracts because of labor issues.

Focus Area 2: Policy, Legislation, & Program Oversight

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As stewards of the public trust, procurement professionals are held to a higher standard of ethics than are most public employees, acting with confidence to wisely expend the taxpayer dollars. It is vital they not only understand and follow applicable laws, but also that they act in accordance with the intent of laws created to guard against favoritism, unfairness, and unnecessary spending, meeting the needs of their entity without bowing to either internal or external political pressures. Knowledge of the political environment and entity management are necessary tools in order to do so.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Policy, Legislation, & Program Oversight Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Enabling Regulations & Compliance: Apply legal limits to authority and the practice of public procurement from legislative, administrative, and common law, by:

• Identifying and define public procurement legal terms, concepts, and principles.
• Describing how the three categories of law—the common law, legislative/statutory law, and administrative law—apply to public procurement.
• Applying basic legal concepts and principles to practical public procurement situations.

2. Ethics, Integrity, & Transparency: Understand the relationship between ethics and the law, the relationship between ethics and professional duties, and the importance of ethics in public procurement, by:

• Comparing and contrasting examples of statutory, administrative law, common law, and policy that define illegal and unethical behavior.
• Assessing ethical responses to specific procurement situations.
• Explaining the importance of ethics and professionalism in public procurement.
• Identifying components of a policy and procedure that openly and fairly disclose a procurement process as regulated by various levels/branches of government.
• Identifying issues which inhibit high ethical standards application, particularly relating to gender, generational and diverse cultural norms.

3. Legislation & Legal Environment: Comply with legislation, legal principles, and public procurement best practices at different levels of government, by:

• Identifying, defining, and applying legal terms, concepts, and principles in public procurement functions.
• Distinguishing between legislation and regulations governing general procurement, budget and finance, federally funded contracting, and public works and other special procurements.
• Examining the role of the attorney in public procurement and contrast it to the role of the procurement professional.
• Explaining how the laws establish the rights and obligations of all parties.

4. Program Implementation & Management: Develop and manage project scope through effective oversight and management of budgets, schedules, and timelines, by:

• Identifying and communicating with stakeholders.
• Providing guidance to program teams.
• Suggesting and implementing new procurement programs.

5. Internal Customers: Advice & Expertise: Provide advice on a variety of procurement-related topics to end users, stakeholders, and management, by:

• Identifying strategies to build trust and credibility with internal clients.
• Demonstrating emotional intelligence effectively manage difficult situations.
• Demonstrating active listening and questioning techniques to clearly understand client needs.
• Recognizing formal and informal power structures.
• Identify meeting preparation strategies.
• Selecting appropriate communication methods to ensure clarity among the stakeholders.
• Identifying techniques to resolve conflict among stakeholders.
• Appropriately respond to client questions, requests, and issues.

Focus Area 3: Planning & Analysis

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The role of the public sector entity requires strategic procurement planning and participation by procurement professionals in the implementation of many projects— particularly standardization, out-sourcing, and public-private partnerships. Risk is a critical consideration in the contracting and procurement process, and a thoughtful and proactive approach toward risk, as it relates to specific procurement actions, and contributes to the success of contract performance.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Planning & Analysis Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Requirements Planning & Understanding: Determine end user requirements in terms of quantity, frequency, characteristics, and market trends to obtain a best-value procurement, by:

• Identifying needs in requirements planning
• Developing needs in requirements planning
• Determining key stakeholders
• Communicating with key stakeholders
• Conducting site visits
• Determining priorities
• Identifying external requirements

 

2. Standardization: Establish agreements based on the characteristics and quality of purchased products through the use of standards by:

• Analyzing the requirements of various internal stakeholders in order to adopt one set of specifications for commonly procured commodities.
• Designing contracts that satisfy the shared needs of multiple internal stakeholders to promote efficiency of the procurement function.

3. Market Analysis & Forecasting: Evaluate the overall supplier market dynamics, costs, pricing, and commodity trends to enable strategic purchasing, by:

• Incorporating strategic analysis and tracking tools to determine the needs of internal stakeholders in concert with prevailing market trends.
• Applying quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and data in decision making. 
• Applying intelligence gleaned through continuous, broad-based research and analysis in order to arrive at the most suitable approach for procuring and distributing commodities needed by the entity.

4. Cost, Price, & Value Analysis: Analyze the functions of internal and external systems and products to satisfy the required purpose at the lowest price without impacting either the need of the end user, or the suitability of the purpose, by:

• Evaluating cost and price data to determine total cost of ownership to an entity.
• Comparing the price of a commodity against the benefit to be derived by the entity to determine whether the expenditure is justifiable.

5. Spend Analysis: Analyze past, current, and future projected spend to develop effective procurement and sourcing strategies, by:

• Defining spend analysis and spend management and differentiating between the two.
• Overseeing and directing all spend-related activities to promote greater efficiency and effectiveness by engaging in the continuous process of controlling and analyzing entity spend.

6. Risk Analysis: Minimize the adverse effects of accidental and unanticipated losses by analyzing the activities of the purchasing function, by:

Assessing types and levels of risk associated with a procurement project to determine risk mitigation techniques.

Identifying the components of a risk management plan and risk register and their relationship to the project management plan.

Recognizing the difference between qualitative risk analysis and quantitative risk analysis and explaining when either or both should be used.

Focus Area 4: Sourcing & Solicitation

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In addition to knowing the approved methods of procurement, the procurement professional must know the appropriate situations to use each in order to achieve the best value for the entity while meeting the needs of the end user. To do this, procurement professionals must understand how to deal effectively with individual clients across a variety of situations while ensuring the contractor’s financial strength, ethics, past performance, etc., are duly considered prior to award. Furthermore, procurement professionals must establish positive, pro-active relationships with end users and suppliers (both domestic and international) in both positive and negative situations.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Sourcing & Solicitation Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Sourcing & Contracting Methods: Identify the most favorable sourcing strategy and the most favorable contract structure while complying with applicable laws, policies, and procedures, by:

Identifying the appropriate source selection method and describing the components required to successfully meet the needs of the end user.

Identifying advantages and disadvantages of contracting for commodities.

2. Specification Development: Create a detailed description of a commodity to effectively communicate to all stakeholders the precise requirements of the end user, and to maximize competition in the marketplace, by:

• Assisting the end user in developing and preparing effective and open specifications, pricing strategies, and terms and conditions to promote maximum competition in the marketplace.
• Assessing stakeholder standardization requirements to determine supplier testing or demonstration needs.

3. Evaluation Methods: Justify the best methodology and criteria to consider the management, financial strength, ethics, past performance, and technical capabilities of suppliers, by:

• Evaluating offers, make awards, and/or negotiate an optimal contract solution.
• Identifying and describing the different types of evaluation methodologies and their associated application.
• Explaining the process of receiving, opening and analyzing offers, methods for award, and award strategies.
• Identifying and selecting the most responsive offer(s) and responsible supplier(s).

4. Negotiations: Demonstrate effectiveness in three phases of the negotiation process: preparation, negotiation and agreement, by:

• Preparing to conduct a negotiation by engaging in market research, determining negotiating strategy and goals, and selecting the negotiating team.
• Conducting and documenting negotiations with each selected offeror to determine the proposal that best meets entity needs.

5. Protests & Appeals: Resolve complaints or objections by suppliers during the procurement process based on applicable laws and entity policies and procedures, by:

• Creating a protest procedure.
• Identifying the most common causes of protests.
• Processing and responding to protests appropriately.
• Determining the sustainability of a protest and responding appropriately.
• Developing solutions to prevent a recurrence of the protest conditions.

6. International Procurements: Analyze the nuances of international trade related to cultural differences, currency exchange rates, government practices, and respective standard procurement processes to effectively procure from non-domestic suppliers, by:

• Determining if a trade agreement is applicable to a specific procurement.
• Identifying potential legal issues in an international procurement.
• Identifying potential logistical issues in an international procurement.
• Identifying potential cultural issues in an international procurement.
• Recognizing actions that are considered unethical in an international procurement.

Focus Area 5: Contract Administration

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Public procurement professionals must be prepared to demonstrate good contract writing and management skills when pursuing procurement engagement and supporting uninterrupted public service delivery of commodities for their entity. For the procurement professional, this includes all aspects from the time the need is recognized until the commodity is used or disposed of, including, but not limited to receipt, inspection, logistics, inventory management, and contract/supplier management.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Contract Administration Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Contract Management & Performance: Draft and finalize a legally enforceable contract. Manage all parties and stakeholders to ensure obligations are fulfilled as defined within the contract while documenting and maintaining the contract file, by:

• Ensuring all of the required duties and tasks, along with applicable legal clauses, are included in the final contract by consulting with end users and legal staff as required.
• Identifying the roles and responsibilities of contract administration team members.
• Ensuring that all parties involved in a contract are meeting identified deliverables, payment milestones, and terms as specified in the contract.
• Promoting enhanced supplier relationship management through consistent, intentional, and effective communication.
• Describing how to create or customize terms and conditions in a contract to meet the needs of the entity.

2. Quality Assurance, Inspection, & Acceptance: Employ strategies and processes to ensure quality and to verify that commodities conform to specifications and other contractual requirements, by:

• Creating Quality Assurance processes for contracts.
• Performing quality tests and inspections of various types of contract deliverables.
• Accepting or rejecting deliverables based on criteria.
• Developing action plans to address non-conformance.
• Evaluating and conducting a termination of contract.

3. Logistics & Transportation: Demonstrate the ability to plan, implement, and control the efficient and effective transportation and storage of commodities from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption, by:

• Analyzing the requirements for a procurement and determine which transportation and logistics processes provide the best solutions for the entity.
• Defining freight and logistics terms and conditions with internal and external stakeholders.

4. Asset & Inventory Management: Ensure oversight and control of inventory to minimize the invested funds while optimizing commodities available for the entity, by:

• Identifying warehousing and logistics issues or concerns, to include the storage, movement, and delivery of materials throughout the life of their usage in order to best meet entity needs.

• Discussing various techniques for safely and effectively managing inventories and optimizing inventory supply services to stakeholders.

5. Surplus, Disposal, & Closeout: Develop a plan for surplus commodities to be disposed of in the best manner, for excess property to be appropriately reallocated, and for effectively closing out a contract file, by:

• Developing processes and procedures to ensure safe, efficient, and ethically-aligned disposal of surplus, excess, or obsolete commodities.
• Identifying the checklist of items which need to be considered in closing out a contract file.
• Identifying the purpose of a lessons learned memo.

Focus Area 6: Leadership

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Public procurement professionals must be prepared to demonstrate good leadership skills when faced with everyday challenges, striving to ensure that both employees and leaders have the necessary agility, innovation, and drive to proactively transform their procurement cultures in strategic, practical ways. In addition, the procurement professional must master communication strategies, problem solving and critical thinking skills, and relationship management skills, learning to operate as forward-thinking stakeholders in their entity to ensure continuous, proactive solutions that align with their entity’s strategic objectives. As the practitioners leave the profession or age and retire, public procurement professionals must ensure that talent recruitment and development, along with long-term succession planning, play a critical role in their public service, working collaboratively to establish and oversee expectations for career progression, retention, and life-long learning for the procurement function.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Leadership Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Driving Change, Innovation, & Agility: Develop and implement agile processes and procedures to meet an entity’s strategic objectives and transform its culture, by:

• Applying leadership principles as they relate to a current role or position.
• Determining how to use key leadership principles effectively to increase employee impact.
• Identifying opportunities for self-improvement in leadership.
• Determining how and when is the best time to change a process.
• Soliciting ideas for improving processes and solving problems from stakeholders.
• Providing guidance to stakeholders throughout the implementation of innovative processes to achieve the operational goals ofthe end user.

2. Communication Strategies: Develop practical, effective, and audience-targeted communication strategies to achieve objectives, by:

• Developing effective communication strategies that for different audiences.
• Recognizing different personality styles.
• Identifying communication strategies based on personality styles.

3. Problem Solving & Critical Thinking: Demonstrate innovative solutions that balance stakeholder needs, best practices, mission, goals, and procurement regulations to address strategic objectives, by:

• Defining Critical Thinking in terms of leadership.
• Evaluating possible solutions to a problem using a problem-solving process.
• Analyzing a problem and collaborate with others to build a solution.

4. Talent Recruitment & Development, Succession Planning: Effectively manage public procurement professional development tasks, including managing individual performance and setting expectations for career progression, retention, and life-long learning, by:

• Defining employee sustainability and its application in an organizational setting.
• Applying sustainable management principles to workplace scenarios, including hiring practices, employee growth, job satisfaction, and succession planning.
• Creating internal career ladders and lattices to promote employee growth and retention.

5. Relationship Management: Internal Customers & Suppliers: Practice ongoing oversight of relationships with stakeholders to ensure alignment with strategic goals, by:

• Developing and managing a marketing plan to deliver information and resources to internal and external stakeholders.
• Training internal and external stakeholders to develop more effective relationships and create efficiencies in the procurement process.
• Establishing trust with stakeholders through open, transparent communications.
• Clarifying roles and responsibilities to create more effective interactions and decrease risk to the entity.
• Creating and monitoring effective performance measures for managing stakeholder relations.
• Fostering customer service and building partnerships with internal and external stakeholders.

Focus Area 7: Business Principles & Operations

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In our ever-changing and increasingly complex world, the ability for procurement professionals to perform their professional responsibilities alongside common business principles and operations is critical to the success of an entity’s procurement function. It is no longer feasible for the procurement professional to merely be concerned with the purchasing process. Instead, they must understand, apply, and master the use of business, financial, technology, and project management soft skills to serve as an effective and contributing member of an entity’s management team, thereby ensuring project and program success while efficiently and ethically serving as stewards of the public trust.

After reading each of the competencies that make up the Business Principles & Operations Focus area, rate your overall ability in each.

1. Business Management & Continuity: Analyze future entity needs and demands to ensure proper staffing, resources, contracts, and lean processes are in place to promote continuity of operations, by:

• Explaining the major steps to create a business continuity plan.
• Prioritizing essential procurement functions.
• Identifying the resources needed for each procurement function, activity, or task.
• Identifying and evaluating risks to procurement operations.
• Identifying any needs for policy or documentation changes.
• Creating and compiling back-up documentation.
• Planning communications strategies.
• Identifying appropriate emergency contracts and internal entity agreements for specific events.
• Creating a plan to execute the strategies such as prioritizing timelines, budgeting, resources, etc.
• Conducting formal emergency preparedness training.
• Testing emergency preparedness policies and procedures.
• Determining lessons learned from a business interruption or simulation.

2. Economics, Budget, Financial Management, & Accounting: Use and safeguard financial resources effectively and economically by ensuring decisions and operations are implemented in compliance with applicable policies, procedures, standards, and regulations, by:

• Explaining the major steps to create a business continuity plan.
  Prioritizing essential procurement functions.
• Identifying the resources needed for each procurement function, activity, or task.
• Identifying and evaluating risks to procurement operations.
• Identifying any needs for policy or documentation changes.
• Creating and compiling back-up documentation.
• Planning communications strategies.
• Identifying appropriate emergency contracts and internal entity agreements for specific events.
• Creating a plan to execute the strategies such as prioritizing timelines, budgeting, resources, etc.
• Conducting formal emergency preparedness training.
• Testing emergency preparedness policies and procedures. 
• Determining lessons learned from a business interruption or simulation.

3. Technology Management: Employ digital systems that enable efficient and effective procurement in support of entity mission and goals., by:

• Examining technological trends and their impact and suitability for use in the procurement function.
• Using techniques for dealing with changing technology to overcome stakeholder hesitancy or reluctance.
• Employing skills to promote professional usage of current technology in support of the procurement function.