communication | The Contracting Education Academy

April 13, 2016 By AMK

More mythbusting needed around industry-government communications

The continued inability of agencies to provide truly educational debriefings to contractors when they lose out on a contract is one of the biggest problems with federal procurement.

Time and again, I’ve written about debriefings as the one outstanding issue for how agencies could easily avoid bid protests and help industry down a continuous improvement path.

Well, there might just be some light at the end of this contracting tunnel. Anne Rung, the administrator in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said at the recent Acquisition Excellence conference that she’s working with the Chief Acquisition Officer’s Council to share some debriefing best practices governmentwide.

“Industry communications ranges from the informal to the formal and so we are looking across the whole range on things we can do better and to identify those best practices,” Rung said. “From the informal, it’s even events like this. It’s sitting down with the leaderships of the companies to get their input to the more formal channels like Acquisition 360, where we are asking for specific input on specific IT acquisitions or through the series with ACT-IAC. I think we are trying to identify some of those best practices and put them out as a second generation Mythbusters.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/industryassociations/2016/03/mythbusting-needed-around-industry-government-communications/

See the OFPP’s “Mythbusting Memorandums” at:

May 19, 2015 By AMK

IGs creating ‘fearful paralysis’ among agencies, vendors

Right Then Forward — The inscription on the IG crest (Droit et Avant) is French and literally means “right and forward.” Freely translated this motto embodies the IG philosophy of “First be right; then take action.”

The number of successful investigations by inspectors general has more than doubled in 20 years. Does that mean IGs are doing a better job weeding out waste, fraud and abuse in government, or are they creating mountains out of molehills?

Kymm McCabe, founder of ValueStorm Growth Partners, said the increased oversight is creating a “fearful paralysis” in the acquisition community.

“We’ve become so focused on using oversight to try to solve every problem, that folks are now just afraid,” McCabe said on In Depth with Francis Rose . “It’s really caused a freeze on communication.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/147/3851146/IGs-creating-fearful-paralysis-among-agencies-vendors

October 30, 2014 By AMK

New survey identifies procurement challenges, solutions from both industry and government perspectives

There are as many ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal acquisition process as there are procurement challenges, and rapid improvements to the procurement process are possible.

These are the overarching conclusions reached by the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) in conjunction with their recent government and industry procurement survey.

APMP’s survey highlights the fundamental differences between industry and government viewpoints. The survey focuses on the difference between official policy, as represented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation and “myth-busting” memos issued by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, and what actually happens in day-to-day practice. The significant difference between policy and execution provides the foundation for the title of the survey report: “Closing the Procurement Gap.”

In all, nine specific actions are recommended to industry, and eight recommendations are made to government acquisition professionals. Highlighted among them are:

Recommendations to Industry

Focus on providing solutions to government.
Respond seriously to RFIs and market surveys.
Stop filing so many protests, and consider their validity and business impact.
Help the government evaluate risk, cost, probability of success, and paths to success.
Communicate with government acquisition personnel and don’t waste their time.
Make white papers focus on a successful procurement, not skewing the procurement to your favor.

Recommendations to Government

Mandate that communication with industry remain open until final RFP release, and make sure contracting and program officials know the communication rules.
Eliminate the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) procurement strategy for services and allow its use only for commodities.
Include sections L and M in draft RFPs (section L addresses proposal preparation requirements, and section M discloses the government’s proposal evaluation factors).
Regularly publish and update projected release dates for RFPs.
Consider eliminating “alternate proposal” options.
Carefully review RFPs to ensure they are complete.
Quit being so risk adverse of debriefings, and provide more meaningful information to offerors in debriefs.

The APMP’s survey report is based on more than 500 responses — 350 from industry and 157 from government. The full survey, including detailed findings and all recommendations, can be downloaded by clicking here.

February 26, 2014 By AMK

NASA’s Johnson Space Center takes customer-first approach to IT

NASA’s Johnson Space Center is taking a different approach to working with vendors and one that the Obama administration has been promoting over the last few years.

Annette Moore, the acting chief information officer, said vendors approach her organization through a vendor management office.

Annette Moore, acting chief information officer, Johnson Space Center

“When Larry Sweet was the CIO at NASA Johnson Space Center, Larry made an intentional decision to get us more in the direction of a business technology office,” she said. “We actually created a position for vendor management support and IT procurement support. So we actually have a staff dedicated here on our directorate level that works that vendor management piece to ensure that the vendor gets connected to the right office in our directorate, gets connected with the right individual in our directorate and gets the right level of attention to get them connected into what we are doing with our initiatives and our priorities. We also have a chief technology officer on the directorate staff. That CTO does the same thing and those two positions work hand-in-hand to ensure that the vendor gets the appropriate level of contact at the right level within our directorate.”

Sweet moved on to become NASA CIO in June.

Moore said the goal is to simplify the path for vendors to find the most appropriate person and to help her office ensure they are using their time most wisely.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=494&sid=3565374&pid=0&page=1

October 11, 2013 By AMK

Army awards year-end communications contracts worth $4.7 billion to 12 firms

The Army has awarded year-end communications contracts valued at $4.7 billion, including a $4.1 billion deal Thursday with 12 companies for long-haul communications and transmission systems.

These companies will compete for task orders on the five-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract supporting the Defense Communications and Army Transmissions Systems program, which provides satellite and terrestrial communication systems to Army and Defense Department organizations, including the National Command Authority.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2013/09/army-awards-year-end-communications-contracts-worth-47-billion/71072

The continued inability of agencies to provide truly educational debriefings to contractors when they lose out on a contract is one of the biggest problems with federal procurement.

The number of successful investigations by inspectors general has more than doubled in 20 years. Does that mean IGs are doing a better job weeding out waste, fraud and abuse in government, or are they creating mountains out of molehills?

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