1.  Customer Alignment:  Execution of Performance Management requires customer engagement at all levels of the DCMA Enterprise to understand customer requirements, concerns and issues; to share DCMA’s unique insight into the DoD Industrial Base, and to obtain feedback for assessing customer satisfaction and improving DCMA’s performance.  Informal customer engagements will occur daily as DCMA executes its core Contract Administration Service (CAS) functions and other missions.  Daily customer engagements throughout the DCMA Enterprise are documented in emails, Memoranda For Record (MFR), contract files, minutes from informal meetings with customers, or other informal means.  Formal customer engagements will be planned, executed and documented as outlined within this policy.  Attached Customer Alignment.ppt aligns external customers to specific DCMA counterparts.  DCMA organizations will interface with their external customer counterparts as follows:   

    1.1.  The DCMA Director, Deputy Director, HQ Executive Directors or designee, will interface with strategic customers at the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD), Military Service Senior Acquisition Executives, and industry leaders to understand the DoD acquisition environment challenges, opportunities, issues and concerns and also share DCMA insight into the Industrial Base.  Analysis of information gathered during these engagements will be incorporated into the DCMA strategic plan, resourcing processes, and will be the basis for operational requirements and guidance provided to the Product Divisions and Functional Directors.
    1.2.  DCMA HQ Senior Functional Leadership and Product Division Directors will interface with customer and industry counterparts to understand strategic and operational customer issues, concerns, requirements, and levels of satisfaction.  Analysis of information gathered during these engagements will be incorporated into the DCMA strategic plan, resourcing processes, and will be the basis for operational requirements and guidance provided to the appropriate DCMA leader.  Functional leaders focus on strategic planning, policy, tools, and training regarding their functional areas and are encouraged to engage with customers and industry at functional forums, symposiums and conferences.
    1.3.  Primary Contract Management Offices (CMOs) will interface with Program Management Offices and tactical level representatives in the Buying Commands to understand customer requirements, issues, concerns and levels of satisfaction.  CMOs are responsible for working with buying command/program management office personnel to determine customer requirements and execute agreements as required to support weapon system acquisitions and maximize readiness.  Customer engagement opportunities may include attendance at Program Management Reviews, tactical level meetings, or Management Councils.  Joint CMO visits to customers are encouraged to reduce frequency of engagements at customer locations.

2.  Customer Identification.  Customer engagement begins with identifying major external customers aligned to each DCMA organizational level described in paragraph 1.0.  Customer Alignment.ppt identifies external customers and their assigned DCMA counterparts.  External customers include OSD, Military Services and DoD Joint Acquisition organizations, other Federal organizations, or foreign governments.  Information on external customers, including mission, vision, weapon systems responsibilities, organizational structures, senior leader biographies and current issues/concerns can be found at the Customer Liaison Center Webpage.
3.  Develop Customer Engagement Plans.  Formal customer engagements are important events that facilitate the collection of valuable management information allowing DCMA to properly align agency services to the requirements of the defense acquisition enterprise to improve effectiveness, efficiencies, operational capability and capacity. 

    3.1.  Product Division Directors, Senior Functional Leaders and Primary CMO Commanders/Directors will develop annual customer engagement plans to systematically and proactively engage with their aligned major customers.  The Customer Liaison Center (CLC) will consolidate Product Division and functional customer engagement plans into an Agency level plan. The CLC will coordinate approval of the Agency consolidated Customer Engagement plan through the DCMA Executive Council.  A Customer Engagement Plan lists the major customers the DCMA organization intends to formally meet with and general timeframes for the planned engagements.  Due to unforeseen mission requirements and the challenges of synchronizing senior leader calendars, Customer Engagement Plans are flexibly executed during the year.
    3.2.  In developing Customer Engagement Plans, organizations should consider current customer issues/concerns, length of time since prior formal engagements, Customer Liaison Representative (CLR) engagement recommendations, customer requested engagements, planned industry/customer conferences and symposiums, customer satisfaction survey data, negative trends, risk and process/supplier/workload/resource indicators.
    3.3.  Primary CMO Customer Engagement visits should be coordinated with CLRs at the various customer locations to promote joint customer engagements, minimize the number of repetitive DCMA customer visits to the same customer, and provide adequate time for planning.
    3.4.  CLRs will post planned customer engagements to the appropriate customer portal project calendar to provide DCMA Enterprise visibility and promote the consolidation of customer visits when possible.

4.  Execute Customer Engagement Plans.

    4.1.  Prepare for Engagement:  Engagement preparation is crucial to maximize the value of planned customer meetings.  During these meetings, DCMA leaders obtain direct senior customer satisfaction feedback on DCMA performance and identify opportunities for continuous process improvement.  Prior to the meeting, information is collected by the meeting organizer to identify DCMA support provided to the customer, potential operational issues, topics of joint interest and other opportunities for discussion.  Information in the Customer’s Portal Project Customer Priority Workload Summary or Customer Operational Summary can assist in preparing for the customer engagement.  In addition, DCMA organizations are encouraged to contact the local CLR to obtain current customer issues or concerns that potentially could be raised by the customer during the meeting. 

        4.1.1.  Product Division and Functional Executive Directors will support the Agency senior customer engagement process by consolidating operational issues, concerns, successes, and opportunities for improvement in support of Defense Acquisition Board (DAB), Defense Acquisition Executive Summary (DAES), Overarching Integrated Product Team (OIPT) Meetings or other DCMA HQ strategic engagements with customers.

    4.2.  Conduct the Engagement: Prior to the meeting and when applicable, the CLR will verify the schedule, location, and other logistical arrangements of the visit and notify the appropriate personnel of any changes.  The CLR will participate in the meeting with the senior customer to record the details of the engagement and any commitments made.  The CLR will capture the DCMA Senior Leader’s perception of the Senior Customer’s satisfaction with DCMA’s support and recommended opportunities for improvements.  Since dialogue during the customer engagement is two way, DCMA leaders should take this opportunity to convey DCMA successes, operational challenges, and opportunities to improve the working relationships and operations between the two organizations.
    4.3.  Document the Engagement:  Customer engagements that were identified on annual plans will be recorded upon completion in the E-Tools Customer Engagement Recording application (CER).  The CER will include a summary of the engagement, commitments made by the DCMA senior leader or customer, and any agreed to action items.  Customer satisfaction feedback collected during customer engagements will be documented and maintained by the Customer Liaison Center for analysis and planning purposes.   

5.  Performance Adjustment, Assessment and Follow up.

    5.1.  The Customer Liaison Center will analyze customer feedback information and provide analysis and recommendations to the Product Division and Functional Directors for addressing issues identified.
    5.2.  Customer engagement will be assessed during management reviews and by the MRT as part of their review of quadrant one (Acquisition Customer Support) of the balanced scorecard.
    5.3.  Customer Engagement Recording (CER) entries will be reviewed by the Division Customer Management Specialist (CMS) to assess how well the Primary CMOs are executing their Customer Engagement plans and whether the DCMA organization has followed up on actions and commitments made to customers during their meetings.
    5.4.  Customer Liaison Center will perform a quarterly analysis of CER entries, External Customer Satisfaction Surveys and senior customer satisfaction feedback.  A summary report of the findings will be submitted to senior management for consideration and action.

• Process Indicator/s:
  • TBD
• Workload Indicator/s:
  • TBD
• Resource Indicator/s:
  • TBD
• Supplier Indicator/s:
  • N/A

• PLAS Process code:  004

• External Customer Engagement Flowchart
• Customer Engagement Recording e-Tools application

• Customer Liaison Webpage