Workforce members often ask us what drives Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) certification training requirements.  As a public service, wanted to share a few insights. First and foremost, it is important to understand that each defense acquisition workforce career field Functional Leader (in most instances a senior executive-level career field functional expert from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) staff), advised by a Functional Integrated Process Team (or FIPT) comprised of Service/Agency and DoD functional and Defense Acquisition Career Manager (DACM) representatives, is responsible for establishing and validating career field competencies and DAWIA certification training requirements. Additionally, those changes result from a myriad of factors, including (but not limited to):

·         Changes to or new Federal Law/Statute (e.g., 10 USC 2337)

·         Changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and/or the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS)

·         Changes to or new DoD policy (e.g., November 2013 Interim DoD Instruction 5000.02)

·         Changes to or new DoD guidance (e.g., updates to the Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAG), issuance of the new Performance Based Logistics (PBL) Guidebook, the updated MIL-HDBK 502A, etc.)

·         DoD Policy Initiatives (e.g., Better Buying Power, or the 2009 Product Support Assessment)

·         Career Field Functional Leader/ Functional IPT-directed changes

·         New or updated Career Field Competencies, or requirements to address competency gaps

·         Component-requested changes as approved by the Functional Leader

Bottom-line is DAWIA certification changes are requirements/competency-driven and Functional Leader-directed/approved.