Acquisition Training | The Contracting Education Academy

November 27, 2018 By cs

DoD ready to further define and expand fast moving procurement vehicles

The Defense Department’s acquisition office is planning on utilizing and further defining two expanded authorities focused on speed in the next few months.

DoD’s will release detailed policy early next year on “middle tier” acquisition — an authority given to the Pentagon in the 2016 defense authorization act, said Ellen Lord, DoD undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment.

Middle tier acquisition is an interim approach that focuses on delivering products in two to five years. It allows DoD to work outside traditional acquisition regulation if the program abides by certain criteria. The acquisition vehicle must use rapid prototyping or rapid fielding to deliver innovative technology and products that meet emerging military needs.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2018/11/dod-ready-to-further-define-and-expand-fast-moving-procurement-vehicles/

October 22, 2018 By cs

Defense acquisition workers seeing a new era in training

The Defense acquisition workforce may see a new era in training, recruiting and retainment as the Pentagon and military services change the way they view the value of their employees.

Both the Army and the Defense Department are making changes in how they evaluate and prioritize the experience and education of the acquisition workforce.

The Army recently released a directive focused on acquisition talent management.

“We want our people to have an appropriate set of experiences,” acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said of the directive during a speech this week at an Association of the United States Army conference in Washington. “We want our program managers and officers to have fellowships with industry, masters degrees within certain disciplines. It’s also about the tenures for people in program management. We’re looking at tours of three-to-four years, so more continuity and the right set of experiences so that they have a broader perspective than the ones we’ve had previously.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2017/10/defense-acquisition-workers-seeing-a-new-era-in-training/

October 4, 2018 By cs

Agencies need in-house techies to know how to buy good tech, GAO reiterates

Spend enough time around personnel from tech-in-government organizations like 18F and the U.S. Digital Service, and you’ll hear them say something like this: Their teams save the taxpayers money not just by building things, but also by being in the room during large-scale tech acquisitions and knowing the right questions to ask or how to call a salesman’s bluff.

It’s a simple value proposition, leaders say, but a powerful one.

According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, the federal acquisitions workforce writ large needs more of that expertise.

Asked to survey how the acquisition landscape has changed in the past decade, GAO found various improvements in the form of workforce planning and training. But ultimately, it decided, “finding workers with the technical knowledge for complex IT purchases is still difficult.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/federal-agencies-tech-expertise-acquisition-gao-report/

September 27, 2018 By cs

GAO sees progress, more to do on acquisition workforce

The government has made progress to address issues with the acquisition workforce in the decade since a special advisory panel report found that workforce to be “understaffed, overworked, and undertrained,” GAO has said.

That workforce primarily encompasses contracting officers, contracting officer’s representatives and program and project managers, but it also extends to related positions such as engineers, logisticians, and cost estimators, a report said.

Steps in response to that report have included establishing the defense acquisition workforce development fund to help DoD recruit train and retain acquisition personnel and which “has helped DoD close some staffing gaps,” with the department’s acquisition workforce increasing by a quarter in that time. However, the department has not achieved its growth targets for each career field, falling short in six.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedweek.com/federal-managers-daily-report/gao-sees-progress-more-to-do-on-acquisition-workforce/

September 25, 2018 By cs

3 big problems continue to dog federal procurement

Congress and the executive branch have worked for years to improve the quality of and reduce costs for federal acquisition, but some problems continue to hamper many agencies, according to a Sept. 12 Government Accountability Office report.

“Acquisition reform has been on everyone’s agenda for many, many years, decades. There have been proposals in the Congress, there has been changes to the regulations. This has been a very, very active area for a long time,” said Bill Woods, director on the Contracting and National Security Acquisitions Team at GAO, in an agency podcast.

The report evaluated federal agency acquisition improvements against 89 recommendations made by the Acquisition Advisory Panel in 2007 and divided the areas of improvement into three “buckets” that represent the acquisition life cycle: requirements and definitions; competition and pricing; and contractor oversight.

“One is in the requirements, definition process of actually deciding. What is it does the agency want? What does it need, and what’s the best way of getting what we need?” said Woods.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/09/17/3-big-problems-continue-to-dog-federal-procurement/

The Defense Department’s acquisition office is planning on utilizing and further defining two expanded authorities focused on speed in the next few months.

The Defense acquisition workforce may see a new era in training, recruiting and retainment as the Pentagon and military services change the way they view the value of their employees.

The government has made progress to address issues with the acquisition workforce in the decade since a special advisory panel report found that workforce to be “understaffed, overworked, and undertrained,” GAO has said.

Congress and the executive branch have worked for years to improve the quality of and reduce costs for federal acquisition, but some problems continue to hamper many agencies, according to a Sept. 12 Government Accountability Office report.

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