There is a new and scary but potentially game-changing acquisition model catching fire across government. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be scary and is not really all that new.
Long lead times and complex, overwrought requirements have made acquisition one of the main impediments to successful information technology procurements in the federal government, resulting in no shortage of handwringing over the rules included in the Federal Acquisition Regulation that govern most transactions. But there is another way, if program managers, contracting officials and agency lawyers are willing to take a chance.
Before there was a FAR, there were “other transaction authorities,” also known by the shorthand OTAs or OTs. This contracting method outside the usual federal process is not widely used and even less understood. But that’s beginning to change.
“Is there anything here to be worried about? No,” Douglas Maughan, director of the Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate’s Cyber Security Division, told Nextgov. “Even though it’s been around for a fairly lengthy period of time, it’s just not been used very much. So, people are afraid of it because they haven’t seen how it’s worked.”
Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/03/otas-scary-new-contracting-model-isnt-scary-or-new/146964/
