Rep. Graves requests contract reforms in next NDAA

April 19, 2012 by

Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chairman of the Small Business Committee, said on April 17 he would like several small-business contracting reforms, including a proposal to boost the annual small-business contracting goal, in the new defense authorization bill.

He made the recommendation to the Armed Services Committee in a hearing in which several House members asked the committee to include its suggested language in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. The committee is expected to release its language for the bill May 7.

“Improving small business opportunities for federal contracts is a triple play,” Graves told the committee in testimony. Small companies win more contracts, which create jobs, he said. Companies also bring more competition and innovation to the market and the government saves money through this and the industrial base stays healthy, added Graves.

In March, Graves’ committee approved eight bills to reform contracting and help small companies in the federal marketplace.

He pointed out that the Armed Services Committee’s own Panel on Business Challenges and the Small Business Committee’s legislation actually complement each other.

The panel concluded that small businesses face particular challenges in contracting with the Defense Department. DOD lacks a culture that fosters small-business participation, it said. More broadly, DOD has a confusing acquisition rule book that constantly changes, the panel said.

As for small-business reforms, one bill would raise the governmentwide small-business contracting goal from 23 percent to 25 percent — with budgetary consequences for missing the mark. Others would increase the level of responsibility for small-business advocates inside each agency, improve mentor-protégé programs and tackle unjustified contract bundling.

Another bill would address a deceptive contracting practice called pass-throughs. In a pass-through, a small company wins a contract set aside just for certain companies and then passes the majority of the work onto a large company.

About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement for Federal Computer Week. This article was published on Apr. 17, 2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/04/17/sam-graves-armed-services-committee.aspx?s=wtdaily_190412.

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GSA chief’s resignation evokes sympathy, hope for reform

April 5, 2012 by

Federal contracting experts had mixed statements of support for former General Services Administrator Martha Johnson, who resigned April 2, with calls for urgent reform in the agency she led.

Johnson stepped down along with two senior assistants following release of an inspector general’s report detailing close to $1 million in lavish spending by GSA employees at the 2010 Western Regions Conference in Las Vegas, including contractor rule breaking.

“This is a real shame,” said Warren Suss, president of federal consultancy Suss Consulting.

“I think it’s more of a shame because of the loss [Johnson] means to the agency. In the current budgetary environment and in the current political environment, this is a time when the government needs an agency like GSA, an agency that can deliver efficiency in acquisition and can step up to its role as a central buying organization and demonstrate its value to the rest of the government.”

“My guess is this will lead to some significant reorganization and maybe to improved operational efficiency in the agency down the road. But in the near term it’s definitely a black eye for GSA,” Suss said.

Bob Guerra, partner at Guerra Kiviat Inc., said: “It’s an absurdity that the administrator of the GSA should resign over something that happened a few weeks – maybe a couple of months – after she got into her position.

“Martha has done incredible things at GSA,” he said. “The biggest issue at GSA was not whether or not they had a conference of some sort; the biggest issue at GSA was the morale, and that’s where she was concentrating. As a management executive, she was working on stabilizing the workforce, improving morale – important things that any executive does.”

“I don’t think she just upped and quit. I think what happened was she told, you’re ‘upping and quiting,’” Guerra added.

But Guy Timberlake, CEO of The American Small Business Coalitions, said he thought Johnson resigned “because it was the right thing to do.”

“I’m now looking at the trickle-down effect and how it may influence contracts for the rest of the year,” he said.

Timberlake said he is concerned about the impact this incident will have on the GSA and whether the agency will be able to fulfill its acquisition requirements for the rest of the fiscal year.

Among other items, the IG report found GSA failed to follow contracting regulations in many of the procurements associated with conferences. Other failures included disclosing a competitor’s proposal price to a favored contractor and awarding a $58,000 contract to a large business in violation of small-business set-asides.

“I’m less troubled about the ‘whys’ having to do with the procurements than I am about the ‘hows’,” said Stan Soloway, CEO and president of the Professional Services Council.

Soloway said he worries about a hair-trigger decision toward new policy changes based on “one bad job procurement.”

He said he hoped there would not be a big rush to change laws or policy.

Industry expert Mark Amtower agreed. “This is a case in point for training,” he said, adding that Johnson was an unnecessary casualty.

“I listen to rumblings of warts all the time. She didn’t have any,” he said. “She was well-respected among her employees and the industry and that’s hard to accomplish.”

Although there may be some contract policy tweaking, its effect on GSA contracting should be minimal because “this is mostly a PBS [Public Buildings Service] issue — I don’t see it becoming an FAS issue,” Amtower said.

About the Authors: David Hubler is senior editor of Washington Technology, and Alysha Sideman is the online content producer for Washington Technology.   This article appeared Apr. 3, 2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/04/03/gsa-scandal-react.aspx?s=wtdaily_040412.

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White House names new procurement policy chief

February 7, 2012 by

President Obama will nominate Joseph Jordan, a senior Office of Management and Budget official, to head the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the White House announced Friday.

The post has been vacant since Dan Gordon left the administration in November.

Jordan has been a senior adviser to OMB Acting Director Jeffrey Zients since December 2011. Before that, he was associate administrator for government contracting and business development at the Small Business Administration. Prior to serving in government, he worked at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

From 1998 to 2000, Jordan was an associate producer on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Observers had speculated Jordan might be slated for the procurement post after he joined OMB late last year. But the agency has been mum on who would fill the position in Gordon’s absence.

Gordon left the OFPP job to become associate dean for government contracts law at the George Washington University Law School.

– by Tom Shoop — Government Executive — February 3, 2012 — at http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2012/02/white-house-names-new-procurement-policy-chief/41094

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Aligning acquisition strategies with the times

January 23, 2012 by

The need to do more with less dictates crucial changes in national security procurement.

Top U.S. military officials are warning that the current fiscal crisis is the single biggest threat to the country’s national security. And, the most critical concern facing the United States is ensuring that it has the resources necessary to maintain its security globally—and that it is prepared for the challenges ahead.

In fiscal years to come, the U.S. Defense Department must make major changes to the way it deals with the competing forces of decreased financial resources and continually morphing security challenges.

The changing nature of security threats to the United States requires significant rethinking of how agencies procure everything from major weapons systems, to tactical communications systems, and even to the batteries needed to power gear developed from next-generation technologies, according to Dr. Jacques S. Gansler. He is the director of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs, where he holds the Roger C. Lipitz chair in the university’s Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise. He is also a former undersecretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

“The need to improve the acquisition process extends beyond just the defense arena,” Gansler emphasizes, suggesting that it increasingly includes global commercial firms. And the struggles that the Defense Department experiences are not much different than those at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) he contends. This is because the DHS taps into many of the same national security industrial base firms that sell goods and services to the Defense Department.

“Technology has changed dramatically; geopolitics has changed dramatically; international economics has changed dramatically; and most importantly, national security has changed dramatically,” Gansler explains. “We’re not talking about tank-on-tank from the Cold War. We’re talking about war among the people; we’re talking about everything from pirates to terrorists and unstable governments and even nuclear war.”

Both the Defense Department and the DHS have to cover a full spectrum of national security challenges at a time when government purse strings are by necessity being drawn tighter. “Since 9/11, we’ve lived in a rich man’s world,” he says, characterizing increases in defense and homeland security spending over the past decade.

“The budget has exploded, and now we’re going to be facing the reality that we have a deficit problem. In fact, [Adm.] Mike Mullen [USN], the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says our number one national security problem is the debt,” Gansler says. In 2014, interest payments on the debt alone will equal the amount of the defense budget, he warns.

The rising political tide of concern over federal spending, Gansler notes, means that, “We have to worry about things we haven’t had to worry about over the last 10 years.” In the past, he says, “If costs go up, we just put a supplemental in— get an extra $150 billion. But now, if the dollars are going to go down significantly, we know historically some things will go away.”

Based on past experience, he adds, the first things to go when budgets are tight generally are travel, training and research. “It’s the research that can kill us, because for the last 50 years, at least, our national security strategy has been technological superiority. How do we maintain that in the absence of research money?”

At a time when it is not unusual for major weapons systems to go tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, Gansler says that another acquisition hurdle to overcome in austere times is the increasing unit cost of equipment.

“The next fighter, instead of costing $35 million, is now going to cost over $130 million. Each [Navy] carrier is going to cost $11 billion without airplanes, and the numbers are just enormous!”

Gansler points to several examples of weapons systems developed in times of fiscal restraint that got the job done. One is the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) add-on modules developed in the 1990s by the Air Force and the Army to give so-called dumb bombs the ability to fly to specific targets.

He recalls saving a hand-written note from the chief of staff of the Air Force, outlining the three requirements for the JDAM: “It should work; it should hit the target; and it should cost under $40,000 each.” Gansler states that current versions of the JDAM “work; they hit the target; and they now cost $17,000 each.”

Gansler explains that adjusting the acquisition process to meet new fiscal and security challenges is more than just writing a better contract. Instead, he asserts, a more comprehensive approach to acquisition reform demands four planks of change—represented in the form of questions—to how business is done.

Gansler says that, “The first question is what do we buy? The second question is how do we buy? The third question is, who does the buying, and do we have smart buyers? And the fourth question,” he continues, “is from whom do we buy—what’s the industrial base we’re drawing upon?”

Addressing the first issue of what to buy, Gansler says that affordable equipment is at the top of the list. “What I can afford at the quantities that I need should become a military requirement,” he explains. “The equipment we buy should also have flexibility to cover the spectrum of security challenges, including new threats like cyberwarfare.

“Cyberwarfare is not just an attack on the military; it is an attack on the civilian economy. We can have an attack easily on the power grid, or the banks or the hospitals. What we buy has to be thought of for the 21st century, not the 20th century.”

With regard to examining how things are bought—the acquisition process—Gansler says that along with changing the cost of what is purchased, the Defense Department also has to make significant changes to the amount of time it takes to acquire major weapons systems.

“Take the next-generation airplane—the F-22 has taken over 20 years to develop and deploy,” he says. “Technology changes on an 18-month cycle, and this is supposed to be the technology airplane.”

Gansler insists that doing it faster, and doing it with more cost sensitivity, is vital—and the best way to accomplish that is through effective competition.

In a study he conducted for the Defense Science Board, Gansler notes that 57 percent of what the Defense Department buys today is services. He explains that one of the proposed defense acquisition reforms calls for the re-competition of all service contracts every three years. He considers the three-year requirement by itself to be a disincentive to firms that want the government’s business, and he instead would base the three-year re-evaluation on a firm achieving higher performance at lower cost.

When it comes to who does the buying, Gansler says smart buyers are needed. He minces no words in stating that the training and retaining of skilled acquisition experts has been grossly neglected and undervalued in terms of the importance of having smart, experienced buyers.

Gansler states that he was shocked to learn that, during a study of contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan—conducted for former Defense Secretary Robert Gates—“The organization that supervises the contracting, the Defense Contract Management Agency, used to have four general officers in 1990. When I did the commission in 2009, they had zero. They went from 25,000 people to 10,000 people.”

This undervaluing of acquisition experts, both in the rank and file, serves as a disincentive to junior officers to become experts in contracting and acquisition if no visible career path exists for promotion. Gansler relays that much of the reduction in contracting staff took place during the last round of defense spending reduction, but, when the budget exploded in the mid-1990s, the number of contracting people and general officers kept decreasing.

“We’ve gotten to the point where they’re more concerned about conflict of interest, they’re more concerned about compliance, than they are about results. We’re more concerned about process than results, and that’s dangerous,” Gansler warns.

Commenting on whom the United States buys from—which is the final reform plank—Gansler expresses concern about the deterioration of the industrial supply base. “It’s very clear that in many areas, the Department of Defense is no longer the leader in many of these fields. [In] a lot of electronics, a lot of information systems, software packages, the commercial world is way ahead, so we should be drawing on that commercial world, as well as traditional defense suppliers and, where appropriate, there’s technology from around the world we should be drawing on.”

In some cases, Gansler says, U.S. regulations and laws have made the Defense Department dependent on foreign technology. One example is in the realm of night-vision technology, which is used to provide nighttime operational and tactical ability to dismounted warfighters. Gansler says he learned in a briefing by the Army’s Night Vision Laboratory that, “The French are now ahead of us in night-vision technology, and the reason is that we prohibited our people from selling around the world, and therefore, the French took over the world market in night vision.”

He says another challenge for the defense industrial base is the labor force, particularly in high-technology sectors.

“If I go over to the University of Maryland engineering department, or any school in America today, the largest share of the engineering and science people are non-U.S. citizens, but we have this foolish requirement that they have to sign, that they have to go home when they complete their student visa. That’s silly! Why can’t we take advantage of this work force?”

Gansler also points to President Ronald Reagan’s signing of National Security Decision Directive (NSDD)-189, the National Policy on the Transfer of Scientific, Technical and Engineering Information, which says fundamental research can be done by anybody, anywhere, and published freely. He says that this directive recently was re-affirmed by former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and more recently by Gates. And yet, Gansler says, the Defense Department, the DHS and the Department of Energy have placed restrictions on fundamental research awards, limiting them to U.S. citizens.

True acquisition reform will result from an overall cultural change in the Defense Department and the DHS, Gansler emphasizes. Officials in charge of contracting and acquisition must recognize the need for change, based on the four planks of reform. And they must be willing to do what is needed, including setting appropriate milestones and metrics to determine if the changes are creating the desired improvement in the way acquisitions take place.

 – by Max Cacas, published  in Signal magazine – January 2012  at http://www.afcea.org/signal/articles/templates/Signal_Article_Template.asp?articleid=2833&zoneid=244

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USAID pushes for more competition, less onerous regulations

January 5, 2012 by

The U.S. Agency for International Development is seeking to increase competition for its contracts and make its programs more accessible to small and disadvantaged businesses as part of a larger agency-wide reform effort.

Concerned that a reduction in contracting staff has led to an increased reliance on a fairly small group of contractors and nongovernmental organizations, USAID has made changes to its procurement program a key part of its reform.

In its plan for change, the agency says it is “falling short” in accessing the full range of talent in both U.S. businesses and organizations and those in developing countries.

USAID has started by promoting more competition within its programs, particularly focusing on setting aside more awards for small and disadvantaged businesses.

The agency has established a review board that looks at ways to make large contracts more accessible to small businesses, such as by splitting them into smaller pieces, said Aman S. Djahanbani, USAID’s chief acquisition officer.

“Broadening our partner base … just makes good business sense, and it furthers sustainable development,” Djahanbani said.

At the same time, the agency is trying to work with more of the organizations and companies that are local to a given country. Littleton Tazewell, senior adviser to USAID’s general counsel for implementation and procurement reform, said the agency often relies on intermediaries — such as U.S.-based contractors or international nongovernmental organizations — to work with local bodies.

“The idea here is to increase our direct engagement with local organizations,” said Tazewell, who said a deeper understanding of local organizations will help USAID craft better solicitations.

The agency also is seeking to make its regulations and rules less burdensome to encourage more companies and organizations to compete for contracts and grants.

USAID acknowledged that some larger contractors or NGOs may see reduced work as a result of its procurement reform moves.

“Our partners need to realize that there is more competition,” said Djahanbani. “However, they definitely have a role to play — maybe a different role.”

For instance, he said, in some cases a local organization could serve as the prime contractor while an international or U.S.-based organization could function as a subcontractor.

Tazewell said USAID has engaged the companies and organizations it frequently uses as it reforms in an effort to identify their particular problems.

Still, USAID is only about 18 months into what it expects to be a five-year process, Tazewell said.

“We’re going to trip and make some mistakes along the way, but our expectation is at the end of that five-year process we’ll be a much better organization,” he said. “We will have a structure [and a] regulatory framework that allows for a broadened partner base that’s both local- and small business-oriented.”

– by Marjorie Censer – The Washington Post – published December 25, 2011 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/usaid-pushes-for-more-competition-less-onerous-regulations/2011/11/28/gIQA1chUHP_story.html.

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FAI’s Donna Jenkins testfies before Congress on state of acquisition workforce

January 4, 2012 by

Below is a copy of the full Statement of Donna M. Jenkins, Director of the Federal Acquisition Institute of the U.S. General Services Administration made before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, on November 16, 2011:

Good Afternoon, Chairman Lankford, Ranking Member Connolly, and members of the Committee. I’m Donna Jenkins, Director, of the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI) which was established to facilitate career development and strategic human capital management in support of a professional federal acquisition workforce. I was appointed in February 2011, and upon assuming this role had 15 years of acquisition experience with, and the last six focused on, career management. I welcome this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss how FAI is working collaboratively to address the human capital challenges of the civilian agencies’ acquisition workforce.

Taxpayers rely on the acquisition workforce to make critical business decisions that impact the lives of every American; from protecting the homeland to supporting the small businesses that fuel our economy. A skilled acquisition workforce is more critical than ever to deliver fiscally sound and innovative solutions from responsible contractors. This demands an agile workforce with a sophisticated and diverse set of skills to define requirements, make complicated trade-off decisions among competing alternatives, and manage projects within tight budget and schedule constraints.

While procurement spending more than doubled between 2000 and 2008, equally significant is the increasing complexity of what agencies buy to support their missions. Agencies have shifted from buying commodities, requiring a process-based procurement approach to the acquisition of complex services and technology, the success of which depends on a knowledge and accountability-based acquisition management approach. Our professionals must navigate an evolving commercial marketplace driven by rapid advances in technology, global supply chains, and emerging security concerns. Keeping the workforce’s skills refreshed is key to our success.

Significant improvements have been made in the training and management of the acquisition workforce to meet these demands, but we still face three fundamental challenges:

1. The demographics of the acquisition workforce;

2. The availability of effective and shared workforce management tools and technologies; and

3. The need for improved collaboration across the acquisition community.

Although the retirement rate of contracting professionals slowed from 7% in 2009 to 4.7% in 2010, retirement eligibility within the next ten years remains almost constant at just under 50% of the workforce. However, the 11.7% growth in the contracting workforce in 2010 to a total of 35,048 members helps alleviate some of the immediate concerns related to our aging workforce. More importantly, the legislation requiring a college education and our recruitment efforts at colleges and universities is paying off. The number of college graduates in the contracting career field has increased from 59% in 2000 to an all-time high of 80% in 2010. However, even a more educated entry-level contracting workforce needs acquisition training and realigning skills to keep pace with the dynamics of the commercial marketplace.

While information on the contracting workforce has been collected since 1978, information collection and analysis for Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) and Project and Program Managers are relatively recent. FAI relies on agencies’ annual Acquisition Human Capital Plans for this data. In FY-10, agencies reported a total of 47,959 CORs and 13,893 Project and Program Mangers.

Civilian agencies have employed a variety of approaches to collect and analyze data on their acquisition workforce – not without struggle and with varying degrees of success. The absence of centralized tools and processes has resulted in a less than effective ability to collectively understand and manage the civilian acquisition workforce.

Just as agencies used a variety of processes to collect and analyze data on their acquisition workforce, they have also individually funded agency-unique training delivery and development programs. In many cases this has limited standardization, been costly and redundant, and stymied the ability to share leading practices across the workforce.

FAI’s strategic focus on improving the workforce through shared use of resources and technology, positions it to lead the civilian workforce in meeting its challenges in this time of budgetary constraint.

Since assuming the role of Director eight months ago, I have focused the efforts of FAI on investing in and managing the workforce and improving communication and collaboration across the federal space.

Investing in the Workforce

Recruitment efforts:

FAI is partnering with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), the Chief Acquisition Officers Council (CAOC), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to establish an acquisition track in the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program. In FY-12, FAI will establish a cohort style acquisition cadre of 24 PMF interns. FAI will provide acquisition certification training to level II, and other acquisition specific learning opportunities in addition to the PMF program training. This will foster collaboration and increased sharing of leading practices across federal agencies as members of the cohort participate in a 6-month rotational assignment outside of their host agency. In addition, it is reasonable to expect that incorporation of an acquisition track in such a prestigious program will drive colleges and universities to promote acquisition as part of their curriculum.

Classroom Training:

In FY-12, FAI is providing training opportunities to reach more members of the acquisition workforce. Between FY-11 and FY-12, FAI more than tripled the number of locations offering classroom training nationwide, from 4 to 13 locations. For the first time, FAI is offering a
curriculum-based program for Project and Program Management and COR training. In addition, FAI, through registration system improvements and process enhancements, has improved its course fill rate resulting in an average of over 94% capacity for the last six months of FY-11.

On-Line Training:

From FY-10 through the first quarter of FY-12, FAI developed ten new and improved training modules in critical topic areas such as: Shaping Smart Business Arrangements, Buy American Act, Green Purchasing, Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), Price Analysis, Combating Human Trafficking, and Preparing an Independent Government Cost Estimate.

Additionally, class enrollment for FAI sponsored online courses increased by 30%. In FY-10, civilian agency workforce members completed 2,249 courses and in FY-11 this number increased to 3,172. DoD students also completed over 5,100 FAI on-line modules in FY-11. Benefiting from the Defense Acquisition University (DAU)/FAI partnership, civilian agency workforce members completed nearly 87,000 DAU sponsored on-line courses.

Training Satisfaction Survey Methods:

In the 4th quarter of FY-12, FAI will eliminate use of vendor managed, paper-based course surveys, and launch a standardized, cost-effective on-line survey form to provide immediate feedback after completion of both classroom and online courses. This will improve FAI’s ability to conduct comparative analyses of the quality of training, student materials, instructors, and locations to better serve the workforce.

Certification Programs:

We have established a repeatable methodology to map skills to agency missions so that professional certification programs reflect agency needs. The COR certification program was the first to be retooled. The COR plays a key role in ensuring program objectives are met through government contracts and is the front line in overseeing contractor performance. Effective January 2012, the new professional certification program for CORs combines additional training and experience requirements for the highest level of certification, ensuring training dollars are allocated using a risk-based approach that optimizes the government’s return on investment.

Managing the Workforce

The Federal Acquisition Training Application System (FAITAS):

In partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), FAI has launched a comprehensive and robust workforce management system. The Federal Acquisition Training Application System (FAITAS) will eliminate duplicative systems across government and advance our ability to effectively manage the acquisition workforce. With its recent launch, FAITAS has already produced impressive results. Replacing four outdated and burdensome systems, FAITAS allowed FAI to cancel a $28 million solicitation and will save an estimated $1 million annually in operations and maintenance costs. More than 48,000 users have registered in FAITAS since its launch in May, which exceeds the number registered in the predecessor system after more than a decade of use.

FAITAS will provide agencies with the capability to centrally manage their workforce, certification, warrant, and training programs eliminating the need for duplicative systems across the government. By FY-13, agencies will use the system’s business intelligence tools to analyze the demographics of their workforce, supporting more effective human capital planning. FAITAS will also serve as a platform for government-wide comparative analysis and oversight of the acquisition workforce and its management.

Webinar Technology:

FAI invested in web-based technology to cost effectively expand training opportunities beyond the classroom. On November 4th, 2011 FAI and OFPP sponsored a webinar for the COR community. The event hosted speakers from FAI, DAU, DHS, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Health and Human Services. FAI reached over 5,600 workforce members world-wide in one session.

Improving Collaboration and Communication

FAI has worked with OFPP to re-energize the FAI Board of Directors (“Board”). With a quarterly meeting schedule, and an approved governance structure, the Board is empowered to guide FAI in meeting its statutory responsibilities to meet the needs of the federal acquisition workforce.

FAI chartered interagency working groups to promote two-way communication, guaranteeing FAI remains stakeholder focused. The new format for the Acquisition Career Managers Council fosters the sharing of leading practices in human capital planning and management across the civilian agencies. The Functional Advisory Boards (FABs) shape the certification and training programs for
Contracting Officers, Program Managers and Contracting Officer’s Representative.

Lastly, The Chief Acquisition Officers Council (CAOC) recently approved FAI to establish the interagency Training Consortium Board, to pool resources and collectively develop acquisition training. To validate the benefits of this type of collaboration, FAI is developing the Contracting
Officer’s Representative Level I Certification course, which will be available in January. This effort ensures the government invests only once in the fundamental training, while affording agencies the flexibility to add modules to meet unique mission needs. Such collaborative efforts will not only save time and money, but will promote consistency in training quality and a more mobile workforce.

Conclusion

With the support and leadership of GSA and OFPP, FAI has delivered innovative solutions, which demonstrate the value of cross-agency collaboration. I appreciate the Committee’s attention to this critical issue and the proposals that would support smart investments in the acquisition workforce. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before your Committee. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

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Second phase of myth-busting campaign in development

December 16, 2011 by

The White House is in the process of finalizing round two of its myth-busting campaign to improve how government and contractors interact.

“The effort for phase two is under way,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, who participated in some of the discussions on the second iteration. “While the first memo primarily addressed government barriers, this is supposed to focus more on the contractor side.”

Specifically, he noted, the Office of Management and Budget hopes to address issues like proprietary data — what the government is entitled to own under contracts and what limitations there are on what it can share. There will likely be clarification about what agencies can reveal about acquisition plans prior to the release of the solicitations, as well as their process of proposal evaluation.

“Industry is always interested in learning as much as they can about government’s actions, because ‘if I know more than you do, it can help me in my competition,’” Chvotkin said. “But that’s the line you can’t cross.”

Dan Gordon, administrator for federal procurement policy, distributed to all agencies in February a memo that addressed the top 10 misconnections about communication with industry during the acquisition process. The memo did not change policy, but sought to clarify and encourage acceptable interaction between government and contractors.

 – by Jill R. Aitoro, Senior Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 – http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2011/12/second-phase-of-myth-busting-campaign.html?ana=twt

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Collaboration needed now more than ever

December 9, 2011 by

With the imminent departure of Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Dan Gordon, rightful praise has been given to his legacy of collaboration and needed improvements in how government and industry interact. However, the “MythBusters” campaign is an ongoing activity that needs continued focus in this environment of budgetary uncertainty.

The Government Accountability office recently reported on the critical success factors on programs that met cost, schedule, and performance goals, and it was no surprise that active engagement by the program with its contractor base was listed. Only through this active engagement can programs properly define requirements, properly define metrics, and execute on them.

However, many programs see this critical success factor as just a time-consuming, and low-value added effort. The reality is that the current environment of low-cost contract selection, combined with a budgetary environment that may turn into a nuclear meltdown of sorts beginning on 2013, is a vital step to ensure any form of program success.

One clear example of this fact is the Navy’s Next-Generation Network or NGEN, a program that will replace the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet or NMCI, with an estimated cost of around $10 billion. The program office recently announced the importance of cost on this program, effectively warning the handful of competitors that price is the factor for contract award selection. It is an example of things to come, with prices being cut, margins being squeezed, and badly needed innovation and performance as possibly the latest casualties resulting from the current madness that seemingly has taken hold of Congress.

In this environment, doors need to be swung wide open in the area of industry and government collaboration and communications. Government needs to be realistic about what it can afford, and industry needs to be given the chance to work with government buyers on realistic solutions that do not sacrifice performance for price. Regretfully, the dominant communications are “no calls or emails” in conducting market research, especially with Requests for Information or Industry Days, if even conducted at all.

Further exacerbating the issue is the desire to cut training and support contracts, which will only fuel the desire to close even more doors through a poorly trained and overtaxed acquisition workforce, pressed for time and overly pressured to do more with less. This is the wrong strategy, yet budgetary pressures are such that laying the foundation for program success early in the acquisition process is a nice-to-have, a luxury that is just not affordable.

Effective collaboration is a necessary strategy to prevent the future wave of waste, fraud, and abuse that is currently running rampant throughout the federal government. By properly developing requirements and program goals, combined with a focus on realism and reasonableness when it come to program affordability, programs have a much higher chance of being successful and surviving the “more with less” pressures.

Contractors can still provide the needed innovations in technology, but it requires the government to understand that only through a strategic partnership and open and honest communications can this be possible. It is just a business reality in industry that margins will be squeezed, and fewer opportunities will exist. However, it is growing decidedly more difficult for industry to succeed when they do not have the opportunity to work together with procurement officials in the constraints of this fiscal reality of the government market.

Dan Gordon will no doubt be missed, but it his leadership in helping shape the future best practices in federal buying that will be a significant gap to fill. We need to be talking more, not less, and ensure the “MythBusters” campaign is not another passing fad in the continued need on acquisition reform.

About the Author: Jaime Gracia is president and CEO of Seville Government Consulting, a federal acquisition and program management consulting firm.  Published by Federal Computer Week on Dec. 2, 2011 at http://fcw.com/articles/2011/12/02/collaboration-needed-now-more-than-ever.aspx.

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Three “disconnects” roiling the government market

December 5, 2011 by

The Professional Services Council’s annual conference last month featured discussions and presentations on a wide array of issues and trends affecting this industry.

From cybersecurity to energy sustainability and green buying, from the future of homeland security to the fierce competition for resources in a fiscally constrained environment, from fostering innovation to emerging, yet sometimes conflicting, acquisition policies and practices, we covered a lot of ground. But reflecting on the substance of the conference, I am struck by three overarching disconnects that emerged.

First and foremost is the ongoing collision between what the government needs or wants, and how it buys. This was particularly evident in an excellent discussion on fostering innovation that featured the General Services Administration’s Dave McClure, Homeland Security Department CIO Richard Spires, and Peter Highnam from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

The clear disconnect here is between those seeking to drive innovation—as each of them are—and the “system’s” tendency to acquire solutions in an increasingly monochromatic, commoditized and low bid manner. A similar theme emerged, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, in other discussions as well, including a terrific exchange on key acquisition policies that featured four of the government’s top acquisition officials.

Second, and related, is the continuing disconnect between senior leadership and the front line. The misalignment between the leadership’s intentions and directions and how that has been interpreted in the field was highlighted by Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator Dan Gordon in his discussion of the resistance to, or ignorance of, Office of Management and Budget’s important myth busters campaign to foster better and more consistent communications between government and industry

It is also evident in the tendency of government activities, despite leadership guidance to the contrary, to default to fixed price contracts even when logic suggests it is the wrong contract type for the specific requirement (and to then manage them as if they are cost reimbursement contracts). This disconnect is also abundantly clear in the worrisome growth in the use of low price awards even when the government is buying complex services, where such a strategy is particularly risky and wrong.

Moreover, individually and together, each of these trends is directly linked to the ability of both the government and companies to drive innovation and optimize both performance and outcomes.

Finally, it is clear that a disconnect remains between industry and the government itself. On one level, this disconnect is a close cousin to the collision between what the government says it wants to buy and how it buys. For companies, it becomes a high risk guessing game of trying to determine if their customer really wants new and innovative ideas, a less costly modification to an existing program, or just reduced cost for the same deliverable.

But on a broader scale, it also speaks directly to our responsibilities as an industry and to the enormous pressures our government customers face.

Spires posed the issue directly, challenging the executives in the audience to not only be bold and candid, but also to ensure they are both fully attuned to what their customers face and that they are forces for forward progress. Looked at another way, as partners that are so closely joined—and will remain so—in executing the missions of the government, we have to be willing to look inward as well as externally as we chart a path forward.

None of these disconnects is new. In one form or another they have existed for many years. But in many ways they have become more acute, particularly as agency resources have become increasingly constrained. Some can be partially addressed through basic policy guidance but other elements require sustained leadership on both sides of the table.

Given the current fiscal and political environment, none of them can be ignored.

About the Author: Stan Soloway is president and chief executive officer of the Professional Services Council.   This article was published by Washington Technology on Nov. 28, 2011 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2011/11/14/insights-soloway.aspx?s=wtdaily_281111.

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War-related contracting wasted up to $60 billion, commission reports

September 8, 2011 by

A staggering $12 million squandered every day for the last 10 years — that was among the findings the Wartime Contracting Commission uncovered in more than two years of investigating war-related spending since 2001.

Releasing its report on Wednesday, the bipartisan commission set up by Congress urged lawmakers to enact many of its recommendations in order to prevent billions more in wasteful spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It found that between $31 billion and $60 billion spent on projects in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years has been lost to waste and fraud. That amounts to as much as 29 percent of the $206 billion spent on security, infrastructure, and other projects in those two countries over the last decade. If the amount of contract fraud and waste falls in the middle of the commission’s estimated range – and at least one commissioner said he believes it is closer to the high end — the commission concluded that it comes to $12 million wasted every day for the last 10 years.

“The commission sunsets on Sept. 30, but the problems in contingency contracting do not,” said former Rep. Chris Shays, D-Conn., the commission’s co-chair. “There is still time to make a difference in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will be new contingencies.”

The commission acknowledged that many of its recommendations, such as the creation of a permanent inspector general for contingency operations and more personnel and resources to protect the government’s interests in war contracting, would require an upfront investment during a time of fiscal belt-tightening.

But several of the eight commissioners argued that the money required to implement the reforms would be significantly outweighed by the savings generated.

“Unfortunately, the current stress on the budget may discourage members of Congress from supporting the investments that some of our recommendations would require,” Shays said. “I appreciate the difficulty of proposing new spending in a time of revenue constraints, but some of the reforms require no new spending and some could be made by simply reallocating existing resources.”

But holding back funds and blocking the reforms that do require some upfront funds “would really be false economy,” Shays added.

Among its 15 recommendations, the commission wants Congress to provide resources for contingency contracting reform to mitigate the problems uncovered in the report. In addition, the commission wants lawmakers to pass legislation requiring the agencies to provide updates on their efforts to implement the recommendations.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight and who pushed for the creation of the commission, said she intends “to go at this as hard as I know how.” McCaskill, a former state auditor, said the commission’s recommendations could save billions and could make it easier to find the significant cuts to the military’s budget that are expected over the next 10 years.

“Particularly in this budget climate, we cannot waste this kind of money under the umbrella of contracting practices,” she said during a teleconference with reporters.

There could be amendments as a result of the commission’s report made to the fiscal 2012 defense authorization and appropriations bills, which are both expected to move through the Senate this fall, McCaskill said. Several congressional committees are expected to hold hearings on the report after lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next week.

Shays, meanwhile, said he hopes the super committee charged with trimming the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion reviews the commission’s recommendations to find savings.

“We’re just one small part of their mammoth task, but if they don’t take a good look at it, it would be a failing,” he said.

– by Megan Scully – National Journal – August 31, 2011 – published at http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=48691&dcn=e_gvet

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