Acquisition Strategy | The Contracting Education Academy

July 23, 2018 By cs

The new structure for the Pentagon’s tech and acquisition offices

Pentagon leaders, already worried about the emerging technologies that will shape the next generation of war, have reorganized their leadership structure to emphasize quantum science, artificial intelligence and directed energy, Defense News has learned.

The new effort is a major restructuring for the two Pentagon offices that determine how the Department of Defense buys and develops weapon systems. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan approved the changes in a July 13 memo, obtained by Defense News.

The 17-page document lays out the organizational charts for the offices of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, as well their responsibilities. The two offices were created Feb. 1, when Congress required the former Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) office to be divided. A potential organization chart was published in August, but the new document features significant changes, particularly on the R&E side.

**The chart above shows the organization of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. (click on image to enlarge)**

**The chart above shows the proposed organization of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Evaluation. (click to enlarge)**

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/07/17/revealed-the-new-structure-for-the-pentagons-tech-and-acquisition-offices

April 23, 2018 By cs

Pentagon names first head of software acquisition

The Defense Department will have an official guiding all software strategy, regardless of what platform it runs.

In another sign of the Defense Department’s desire to change the way it buys and develops software for its weapons, Ellen Lord, the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, has tapped Jeff Boleng—a former Air Force cybersecurity operations officer who is now the acting chief technology officer at Carnegie Mellon University—as her special assistant for software acquisition.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/04/pentagon-names-first-head-software-acquisition/147438/

March 19, 2018 By cs

Market research: To do or not to do?

Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition teams currently struggle to obtain clear and consistent market research documentation on a regular basis.

They also struggle with the question of whether market research should be completed. And many firms or agencies sometimes become confused somewhere between the market research and the solicitation phases. In 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) completed a review of 28 DoD contracts, at least 50 percent of which had inadequate, inconsistent and unclear market research documentation.

In 2017, the International Journal of Market Research noted that no one possesses a “crystal ball” for obtaining information on a specific market, especially given the regular disruptions or changes in various market sectors over the last 30 years. Does your acquisition team have a crystal ball for obtaining information on a specific business market sector? Are your team’s research methodology and documentation adequate to get clear and concise results?

For an interpreter of public contract law and regulations, many more catechisms will come to mind: Do acquisition teams place any value or importance in completing market research? What are the required elements in market research? What is the proper time to complete market research? Should market research be undertaken at all?

Background

The governance statute of market research comes from Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 (CICA). Many sources state that the empirical requirement of market research comes from the Federal Acquisition Streamline Act of 1994, which only clarified the differences between the commercial and noncommercial items. CICA requires research of a market for competition and possible sources for a requirement. The governance regulation for market research is found in Part 10 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). According to FAR Part 10, market research documentation needs to entail and describe requirements from the acquisition team.

One source of guidance provided to agencies is found in GAO’s bid decision and case studies. GAO’s publication, Market Research: Better Documentation Needed to Inform Future Procurements at Selected Agencies, GAO-15-8, describes market research as a dynamic process of examining a marketplace or obtaining intelligence about a sector. The publication, issued late in 2014, noted that market research provides the dynamics “used to collect and analyze data about capabilities in the market that could satisfy an agency’s procurement needs.”

Decisions in the federal court system, including the Supreme Court, have clarified the role of market research in procurement processes. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kingdomware Technologies v. the United States that market research is required in order to understand products and services in a particular market sector.

Observations over the last 30 years indicate that many acquisitions teams “put the cart before the horse” when obtaining the outcome of a hypothesis or question about possible sources for a product or service. These thoughts transcend public and private sector acquisition teams and lack value or purpose in market research. From the start, we need to understand what research entails and its importance.

In 2017, the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary noted that research is a planned exploration of materials and sources to establish facts and conclusions. Documentation of research must include methodology, structure and guidance on how to interpret the data. Without a general framework or structure for interpretation, the data collected are worthless to the acquisition teams and customer.

Furthermore, in 1992, The Journal of Marketing Research noted there is a relationship between the source and the customer of market research. All stakeholders need to be able to trust the outcome of the market research. Not just the information, but the sources and interpretation of the whole process.

In 2017, The Balance website (thebalance.com) noted that the purpose of research on business marketplaces is to narrow results to a specific target in a market. Additionally, in 2017, Entrepreneur magazine reported that market research is a dynamic to gather, evaluate, and illuminate market information about a product or service for sale. Also, the term “market intelligence” has popped up in the business world in connection with market research. There is a slight difference between market intelligence and market research. In 2015, Business News Daily defined market intelligence as the information obtained to make a business determination — i.e., acquisition strategy.

And in 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics classified market research as the process of evaluating market conditions concerning a probable need for product or services by a customer and obtaining data from various sources. This information provides a clear understanding of vendors’ marketplace positions and their pricing and ability to perform the work required.

Methodology and the Right Question

Now that there is an understanding the purpose and value of researching a market sector for products and services, your team needs the right tools for acquiring this knowledge. In July 2015, Raconteur’s Future of Market Research publication noted the five critical steps to obtaining the best outcome of researching a market sector: compute a meaningful topic; compile new or old results; have questions in any survey seek more information than the price; and enable effortless communication of the results.

In 2017, Entrepreneur magazine noted that an acquisition professional’s research of a business sector would acquire primary and secondary information or data. Primary data is directly received from the source. This information typically derives from a Request for Information (RFI) or Sources Sought (SS), industry days or questioning vendors. Secondary data research assembles information from governmental organizations — e.g., agencies, trade associations and local chambers of commerce.

In developing the requirement, RFI or SS can be complicated and a challenge for most teams. As stated earlier, GAO’s case study of DoD’s contracting of market research was inadequate in many ways, including its determination of price reasonableness. The typical technique for finding price reasonableness is to look at a vendor’s published pricing, historical data or industry surveys. For example, a government survey can ask, “What have you charged for this product or service in the past?”

At times, the acquisition teams forget to ask the right questions. Initially, asking the right questions in developing the market intelligence is very important. The topics should include cost, historical experience information, technical information, and management information.

The following additional questions should get your team thinking:

To what agency have you provided the product or service?
After reviewing the RFI, SS or draft Performance Work Statement or Statement of Work, is your firm interested in submitting a proposal to the following Request for Proposal [RFP], Request for Quote [RFQ], or Broad Agency Announcement?
Is your firm interested in Prime or Subcontractor work?

Responsiveness Versus Responsibility

From my experience, acquisition professionals use the market research process as a “Down Select” or Pre-Source Selection instead of obtaining market intelligence. Businessdictionary. com defines a “Down Select” as a reduction in sources as the acquisition team proceeds through the process. Acquisition professionals use methodology for determination of responsibility to eliminate a possible source of a product or service that is felt to lack sufficient responsibility. Procurement dynamics of responsibility determination or FAR Part 9 requirements need to be completed by the contracting officer and acquisition team later in the process. This step usually is completed after proposals from an RFP or RFQ are obtained, which makes responsibility determination a part of source selection.

In 2011, GAO stated that the contracting officer only needs to make a determination of responsiveness from the market research tools — e.g., RFI, Industry Days. Additionally, the market intelligence will assist in deciding acquisition strategies — e.g., Small Business Set-Asides (SBSA) or Full and Open Competition. For example, the respondent to a RFI or SS need only answer the intent of a question to its fullest, then the vendor’s information should go toward an acquisition strategy, such as SBSA. The Cambridge Dictionary defines responsiveness by an organization or individual to a communication or request as one that is made in a satisfactory speedy manner. For this discussion, ‘respondent’ is typically a business or vendor that provides a service or product in a certain market. In 2010, the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing noted that responsiveness consists of a vendor’s response to a customer’s need that can affect or improve performance.

Results

Acquisition professionals can use market research results or market intelligence in various ways to arrive at a business decision for the federal government. The data outcome should represent a cross-section of a market sector. The market research processes should have built-in validity and reliability methods to make sure the data represents a particular market sector. The acquisition team should look at each data point. The market research also needs to address limitations and delimitations. A data point could be anomalous and not genuinely represent a market sector or be generated within a constantly changing industry, such as that of information technology.

Another example of understanding the market intelligence would be the following: The results or market intelligence from an RFI or SS show no responses or interest to provide a service or product. In such a case, an acquisition team typically would go to a different route or source. First, the acquisition team should re-evaluate the requirements package and research methodology for shortcomings, inconsistencies and clarifications. The more information provided to a market sector in market research the better will be the market intelligence that a team acquires.

Conclusion

As public servants, we need to ensure that research and intelligence of the market sector are done completely and thoroughly as outlined in CICA and FAR 10. Also, acquisition professionals need to ask the right questions and provide correct information to the market sector in order to obtain precise results. Furthermore, the market research documentation should always include a robust method, timeframe, analysis of the data, and a recommended procurement strategy. Passing on a little knowledge provides us with purpose and direction.

This article appears in the March-April 2018 edition of Defense AT&L Magazine. The article was written by Claude L. Cable, a freelance author, teacher and acquisition professional. He holds a doctorate of Business Administration and is a Certified National Contract Manager (National Contract Management Association). The author can be contacted at clcable12@gmail.com

September 8, 2017 By cs

Making DoD an employer of choice

Now, more than ever, the Department of Defense (DoD) needs to attract the nation’s top talent to be part of the uniformed and civilian DoD team.

The United States faces new and unpredictable global threats to its security. As emphasized by Secretary of Defense James Mattis in a Jan. 20, 2017, memo when he came on-board, we will ensure that our military is ready to fight today and in the future; and we are devoted to gaining full value from every taxpayer dollar spent on defense. We absolutely need the very best people to join the uniformed warfighter ranks. We also need the nation’s top talent for critical civilian support missions — such as acquisition. A highly capable acquisition workforce, comprised of the nation’s top talent, is critical to ensuring that our military is equipped and ready to fight and that DoD gets full value for every taxpayer dollar spent.

Today’s acquisition workforce professionals are more capable than ever before. Workforce certification credentials and education levels are at an all-time high. Recent analysis shows that DoD is effectively controlling costs on acquisition programs better than at any time in the last 35 years — the highly capable acquisition workforce contributes to that success.

However, our work is not done. Thirty-five percent (about 40,000) civilian members of the acquisition workforce are eligible to retire or will be within the next 10 years. While DoD has strategically rebuilt the early and midcareer workforce, we must do more to strengthen the new-hire pipeline — attracting the nation’s top talent to join the civilian acquisition team. DoD offers a wide variety of career opportunities in support of acquisition—including program management, engineering, contracting, logistics, financial management, science and technology, information technology and more. While the nation is very familiar with the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, observers commonly associate the Services with a uniform. Unfortunately, they are not nearly as familiar with the great DoD civilian career opportunities in positions that support our men and women in uniform. Therefore, our goal is to make DoD an employer of choice. We are launching a branding campaign to communicate and educate the public about DoD civilian career opportunities in acquisition.

Our Challenge and Opportunities
We absolutely must answer the following three questions:

How can we familiarize the nation’s top talent with the great civilian opportunities across DoD and how can we compete more effectively for that talent?
How do we communicate the exciting opportunities to the next generation of acquisition professionals?
How do we attract seasoned professionals with key skills from the private sector who are looking for ways to serve their nation; and, how do we attract college students to DoD?

During my recent visits to colleges and universities, from the East to the West Coast, I found a clear, significant and broad lack of understanding of the DoD organization and of awareness about the multitude of DoD civilian career opportunities. Again, when most people think of DoD, usually through films, advertising and news media, they think of warfighters on the front line defending our freedom every day. However, our civilian workforce designs, procures, tests, delivers and sustains the most technologically advanced warfare systems in the world to ensure the warfighters win and come home safely. Helping the nation understand the great ways civilians can contribute to our national defense — for instance, in acquisition — is an opportunity we must not miss.

While we must do a better job in promoting public awareness of the abundant available civilian opportunities, we must combine that success with attracting and then competing with industry in hiring that talent. Today, industry proactively exercises its advantage in hiring top talent. Industry has aggressive marketing and outreach programs, robust college student internship programs, the ability at college recruitment events to make on-the-spot job offers with competitive salaries and modern workplace environments.

DoD is working hard to increase its hiring, compensation and benefits flexibilities to become more competitive. It is most important that we communicate the incredible opportunities we offer for prospective employees to serve our nation and make a difference. We can and must compete successfully for top talent. The DoD acquisition mission is the largest buying enterprise in the world. The acquisition workforce will invest more than $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars to equip and sustain the warfighter over future years, with employment opportunities in 6,000 locations and 163 countries. Civilian members of the Defense Acquisition Workforce will have access to excellent educational and professional development, tuition reimbursement, student loan repayment, worldwide travel, superb health care and generous amounts of leave and retirement options. Simply stated, DoD has great benefits and a great acquisition mission — we have the tools and programs in place to compete for top-notch talent.

We must seize the opportunity — and we can do so, by strategically leveraging industry best practices, such as improved branding of DoD acquisition civilian opportunities, implementing student internships and new hiring authorities, and continuously improving our approach to taking care of today’s acquisition workforce. Of course, this must all follow from a thoughtful human capital strategy. This past year, DoD released the 2016-2021 Acquisition Workforce Strategic Plan. This plan was developed through a collaborative effort across the DoD that included the military departments and our Defense agency partners. Leadership across the board is very enthusiastic about the plan as it provides strategic goals that all components and functional leaders can use to strengthen and shape their workforce.

The plan establishes four strategic goals:

Make DoD an employer of choice.
Shape the acquisition workforce to achieve current and future acquisition requirements.
Improve the quality and professionalism of the acquisition workforce.
Continuously improve workforce policies, programs and processes.

Goal No. 1 is the cornerstone of the strategic plan. Attracting the best possible talent, including those experienced in the private sector with critical in-demand skills, is the foundation for shaping the acquisition workforce to meet current and future requirements (Goals 2 and 3). Branding, getting the word out on the rewarding acquisition civilian career opportunities, and leveraging other industry best practices are keys to achieving this goal.

Branding and “Getting the Word Out”
The first and most important step in making DoD an employer of choice is to “brand” the acquisition workforce’s profession and mission. Effective branding helps the audience understand who we are, what we do and what they can expect from the organization. It’s a promise of sorts that helps establish a reputation and differentiate us from other brands in a crowded marketplace.Our brand will convey that a career in DoD acquisition means working in support of our men and women in uniform, gaining value from every taxpayer dollar, designing and developing dominant warfighting capability, and ultimately contributing to our national security. By associating a career in acquisition with excellence, professionalism and service to the nation, we believe we’ll draw top talent to apply for student internships and jobs in the Defense Acquisition Workforce.Our branding plan is designed to target three primary audiences: college students and recent college graduates looking for a rewarding career, civilians experienced in private sector careers and interested in public service, and current DoD employees.

College Students: Industry is offering internships as early as the sophomore year. DoD branding needs to reach college students who are interested in internships. Also, Congress has provided new hiring authority for student internships through the Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In combination with using this authority and expanding college student internships, DoD can better compete with industry for talent—attracting and hiring students who will gain experience and be better prepared upon graduation to join DoD’s acquisition team. Combined with a robust internship program, a highly effective hiring pipeline must include broad awareness of DoD acquisition job opportunities by other talented college students who will soon or already have become graduates. We can do so by adopting an aggressive regime of campus visits that tell the DoD acquisition workforce story in a compelling way. We must also continue efforts to improve use of direct hire authorities and reduce the time-to-hire so we can effectively compete with others for the top talent. Our next steps include leveraging social media across all audience demographics; continued implementation of the 2018 college campaign and engagement plan; improving our measures of outcomes and adjusting messaging as appropriate. We also are researching ways to establish a College Acquisition Internship Program to leverage the FY 2017 NDAA college student direct hire authority, provide centralized support to components using and then hiring interns, and support a significant expansion of acquisition college student internships across DoD components.

Private Sector-Experienced Professionals: Our nation’s defense needs industry professionals’ experience! We seek professionals who wish to answer the call to public service and support the critical mission to equip and sustain the warfighter by contributing their expertise and experience. Doing this requires a strategic communications plan to leverage recent NDAA hiring and exchange authorities. We also need to leverage the opportunities afforded by our presence at selected job fairs and recruiting events. We also must establish a robust social media presence that gets the DoD acquisition story to this audience.

DoD Employees and Veterans: Effective branding of DoD careers will boost awareness within DoD of the opportunity to contribute through the acquisition mission. In addition, the branding will motivate the current acquisition workforce, as it brings together the big picture story on the great acquisition mission and the workforce’s contribution to the warfighter and taxpayer.

Continuous Improvement — Taking Care of Today’s Workforce

It is clear that DoD must become more competitive with the private sector in attracting, hiring and retaining the nation’s best talent. But, it is also important that we take care of today’s workforce professionals — which in turn will improve recruitment and retention, not to mention workforce esprit de corps and satisfaction. As described above, we will improve both our branding and outreach. We will also work hard to continuously improve our development strategies for today’s acquisition workforce. We will seek ways to offer competitive compensation and incentives and reward outstanding talent by promoting initiatives such as tuition reimbursement and student loan repayments. We can help improve work-life balance by developing, implementing and promoting policies and programs that improve the workforce quality of life. Finally, we will strive to ensure that our workforce has the skillsets to achieve technical excellence through training, proper job placement, advanced educational opportunities and thoughtful succession planning. We will work tirelessly to sustain our recent workforce investments and resulting quality and capability improvements.

We will improve analytics for acquisition workforce planning and decision making. We are working to continuously improve management and the investment in acquisition professionals using the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund. We also will continue efforts to expand and provide the DoD civilian acquisition professionals with a premier, contribution-based, personnel management system through the DoD Civilian Acquisition Workforce Personnel Demonstration Project. Our nation expects the acquisition workforce to successfully equip our military to fight and win today and in the future and to gain full value from every taxpayer dollar spent on defense. To ensure that success, we can and must strengthen our efforts to attract and hire the nation’s top talent to be part of the civilian DoD acquisition team. We can do this by making DoD an employer of choice.

Thomas-Rizzo is the director of Human Capital Initiatives in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. The author can be contacted through rene.k.thomas-rizzo.civ@mail.mil.

January 13, 2017 By cs

CYBERCOM setting up new acquisition office for rapid procurement funds

U.S. Cyber Command will soon be hiring an acquisition expert to handle the $75 million Congress afforded the command in last year’s defense authorization act.

CYBERCOM is looking for a command acquisition executive to field new systems and develop capabilities as quickly as possible, states a Nov. 14, 2016 report from the Defense Department.

The 2016 defense authorization act gives CYBERCOM $75 million to rapidly deliver cyber operations particular equipment, capabilities and services. The money will also be used for the sustainment of cyber operations equipment.

The command will continue to receive $75 million a year until 2021.

The Pentagon is planning to set up a team of 10 people within CYBERCOM to handle those funds. The acquisition executive leading the team will be a Senior Executive Service employee, who will report directly to the CYBERCOM commander.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2017/01/cybercom-setting-new-acquisition-office-rapid-procurement-funds/