Advanced Technology | The Contracting Education Academy

September 13, 2019 By cs

For DoD, innovation isn’t the problem — so what is?

Three officials from varying military offices focused on innovation asserted that the department’s research and development game is strong, it’s the follow-through that causes problems.

The Defense Department doesn’t have an innovation problem, according to three top officials in charge of leading innovation efforts. The military is very good at coming up with new technologies; the problem comes when services try to adopt those new ideas.

The department has a long history of innovating, according to Steven Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which 50 years ago created the networking protocols that would later become the internet.

“The country is innovative,” he said during a panel Wednesday at the 2019 Defense News Conference. “It’s the application of some of that innovation that we struggle with.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/09/dod-innovation-isnt-problem-so-what/159670/

March 20, 2019 By AMK

Creating space for innovation

“Innovation” is an overused buzzword that obscures the messy reality of making change happen.

True innovation requires the right people, the proper mix of technologies and a critical grasp of customers’ needs and expectations. For agencies, the many layers of federal governance and regulation add another degree of difficulty.

FCW recently gathered a group of IT leaders from across government to talk about the obstacles they’re encountering and how they’ve addressed them. The discussion was on the record but not for individual attribution, and the quotes have been edited for length and clarity. Here’s what the group had to say.

Procurement is no longer the obstacle — security is

The Federal Acquisition Regulation’s restrictions, both real and perceived, have long been a friction point for digital reinvention efforts, but most participants said the contracting process is not holding them back.

“It used to be the in-vogue complaint was, ‘Oh, it’s all procurement’s fault,'” one executive said. “But actually, procurement has gotten much better. What our agency is grappling with is the IT monstrosity that came out of” the Federal Information Security Management Act.

“FISMA came out because we were doing these things wrong in government,” he acknowledged. “But now we’ve created this very burdensome process that is not well-aligned to where cloud architecture is going,” and agencies must find new ways to navigate that process. “Obviously, we can’t bend security principles, [but without a new architecture,] you’re waiting two years to deploy. That’s not innovation. That’s not acceptable in this day and age.”

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/02/21/fcw-perspectives-innovation.aspx

August 17, 2018 By AMK

Pentagon’s startup outreach office no longer an experiment

Diving into long-term relationships can be scary, but the Defense Department said it’s ready to go to commit to its startup outreach program.

Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), the office charged with bringing Silicon Valley tech to the Pentagon, will now be known as Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).

The name change reflects military leaders’ “commitment to the importance of its mission” and signifies the permanence of the group within the country’s defense apparatus, according to Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

“DIUx has generated meaningful outcomes for the department and is a proven, valuable asset,” Shanahan wrote in a memo to agency leaders. “Though DIU will continue to experiment with new ways of delivering capability to the warfighter, the organization itself is no longer an experiment.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/08/pentagons-startup-outreach-office-no-longer-experiment/150408/

June 26, 2018 By AMK

How a contractor’s bid protest was a surprise boost for procurement innovation

Late last month, the Government Accountability Office overturned a $950 billion contract award to a small Virginia firm to provide cloud services for the Defense Department.

The deal was unusual not just for the extraordinarily high price tag, but for how it was handled. Instead of following traditional, competitive procurement rules, officials used something called a “production other transaction agreement” crafted by the Pentagon’s innovation outpost, the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx). This essentially allowed the department to make the award based on the success of a prototype developed by REAN Cloud, thus bypassing the government’s expensive and time-consuming traditional procurement process. It was a bold move, and to many observers, it offered a far more efficient way to purchase technology — where traditional procurements can take years to play out, OTAs can be conducted in a matter of months.

Not surprisingly, some traditional federal contractors weren’t happy. One of them, Oracle America, filed a protest with GAO, and the watchdog agreed with the company that the Pentagon’s use of other transaction authority was improper. GAO’s decision was a blow to many officials desperate to reform the government’s antiquated procurement practices.

But it shouldn’t be.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2018/06/how-contractors-bid-protest-was-surprise-boost-procurement-innovation/149151

May 31, 2018 By AMK

USDS to certify new acquisition specialty

The U.S. Digital Service is adding a digital services contracting certification to create a cadre of “technology acquisition mavericks.”

After two pilot efforts , USDS, along with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, is launching a new certification program for digital services contracting for civilian agencies with an eye to reducing the cost and time it takes to procure digital services in government.

The idea for new program stemmed from a Challenge.gov winning submission, proposed by ICF International and ASI Government.

Government “didn’t teach how to buy digital services,” said Joanie Newhart, Associate Administrator for Acquisition Workforce Programs, Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2018/05/23/usds-new-specialty.aspx

See the Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s memorandum May 18, 2018 on this subject at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/fac_c_digital_services_05_12_18.pdf