BPA | The Contracting Education Academy

February 5, 2016 By AMK

GSA takes the easy way out to solve contracting challenge

The General Services Administration’s choice to create a blanket purchase agreement for Salesforce cloud integration and support services on the surface seems logical.

It’s a widely used platform — according to a simple search on USASpending.gov website there have been 227 contracts worth more than $61 million since fiscal 2011— and one that needs more structure and control across government.

“The marketplace for Salesforce implementation and integration services was fragmented and had some disparity in there,” said David Shive, GSA’s chief information officer during a press call on Jan. 20. “When we looked, we saw there were no established quality standards for Salesforce development. We saw there were inexperienced vendors that were winning with new Salesforce customers, but sometimes had some dubious results coming out from those inexperienced vendors. We saw there was inconsistent delivery of code and configuration from agency to agency. There was failed implementations that was negatively impacting adoption of the tools and the processes surrounding those tools. And we saw that some vendors were rebuilding the same apps for the same agency and were developing closed systems in an otherwise open environment.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2016/01/gsa-takes-easy-way-solve-contracting-challenge/

January 4, 2016 By AMK

New protest delays GSA’s Agile BPA once again

One of the main goals for the General Services Administration’s 18F is to bring agile development practices to the government acquisition process.

One of the more innovative ways the 18F team is trying to accomplish that is through its Agile BPA, a contract vehicle for companies that can support agile development that itself was built using agile concepts.

Unfortunately, the process for getting the vehicle going has been less than agile.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/gsa-gwac/2015/12/29/agile-bpa-delayed/78027246/

December 31, 2015 By AMK

Protests against 18F’s agile development deal cleared, but next steps unclear

A list of tech vendors authorized to sell digital services directly to the government is now live, though the companies on that list are still in the dark about when they’ll start getting customers.

Since September, the General Services Administration (GSA) had halted operations on the Agile Blanket Purchase Agreement — a pre-approved batch of 16 tech companies specializing in so-called “agile” development — because at least two companies had filed protests with GSA. Last week, GSA’s tech team 18F announced that the last of the protests had been resolved, and that it had awarded a 17th company, InQbation Labs Inc., a spot on the list.

According to an 18F blog post in January, the team’s ultimate goal was to reduce contract timelines to “less than four weeks from solicitation to contract kickoff, and . . . no more than three months to deliver a minimum viable product.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2015/12/protests-against-18fs-agile-development-deal-cleared-next-steps-still-unclear/124676

July 31, 2015 By AMK

Say goodbye to 100 page RFPs – 18F found another way

The sprint is over and companies that competed for a slot on 18F’s Agile BPA are lauding what they hope will become a new standard for federal procurement.

In looking for companies to provide agile development services, the innovative arm of the General Services Administration opted for a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach to the solicitation process. Rather than ask companies for reams of paper promising agile capabilities, 18F set up a proving ground: a two-week test sprint where the only real measurement of success was a working product.

“I certainly hope that this is a new way to do [procurements] going forward,” said Joe Truppo, senior manager at Octo Consulting. “Instead of us delivering 40 pages saying what we could do, we actually got a chance to show them what we could do.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/2015/07/27/18f-show-dont-tell/30737575/

January 21, 2015 By AMK

GSA aims to shorten software acquisition cycle with Agile Delivery Services BPA

The General Services Administration is seeking feedback from industry and government stakeholders on a proposed blanket purchase agreement that would feature vendors who specialize in Agile Delivery Services, or the development of software through a faster, more interactive acquisition process.

“The goal of the proposed BPA is to decrease software acquisition cycles to less than four weeks (from solicitation to contract) and expedite the delivery of a minimum viable product (MVP) within three months or less,” writes Angela Bumbrey, program analyst for advertising and marketing at GSA, in a recent post on the agency’s blog.

GSA’s 18F, the agency’s digital innovation lab, and GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services are collaborating on the establishment of the BPA.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/gsa-aims-shorten-software-acquisition-cycle-agile-delivery-services-bpa/2015-01-08

The General Services Administration’s choice to create a blanket purchase agreement for Salesforce cloud integration and support services on the surface seems logical.

One of the main goals for the General Services Administration’s 18F is to bring agile development practices to the government acquisition process.

A list of tech vendors authorized to sell digital services directly to the government is now live, though the companies on that list are still in the dark about when they’ll start getting customers.

The sprint is over and companies that competed for a slot on 18F’s Agile BPA are lauding what they hope will become a new standard for federal procurement.

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