This course teaches the students the cost and pricing skills, methods and techniques necessary to analyze a cost proposal and presents an opportunity to learn and apply leadership, problem-solving, and negotiation skills to develop a government contract negotiation objective.

The course provides a concentrated review of the principles, techniques and objectives of the acquisition process to analyze a contractor’s cost proposal and to develop a negotiation goal. Students will be presented with the concepts, definitions and relationships of cost elements to pricing analysis. It examines application of audit information for decomposition of direct material and labor, indirect costs in overhead and general and administrative costs will; it focuses on procurement of price/cost proposals, analyzing and evaluating price/cost proposals through contract award from a practical application of negotiation skills; and applies the knowledge and skills gained in this course to cover an integrated case study approach for contract award.

This course prepares the student for several industry standard certifications offered from the National Contract Management Association (NCMA). These certifications are accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The curriculum content for this course aligns with NCMA’s Contract Management Standard (CMS) as well as the NCMA Contract Management Body of Knowledge (CMBOK), which is one of the recommended textbooks for many CON series courses. Both the CMS and CMBOK are ANSI accredited.