communication | The Contracting Education Academy

May 22, 2018 By AMK

DoD implements FY18 NDAA requirement for post-debriefing Q&A process

This past March marked the beginning of a more fulsome required debriefing process for defense contracts.

The Director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) issued a class deviation memorandum, effective March 22, 2008, requiring contracting officers to: (1) provide unsuccessful offerors an opportunity to submit additional questions within two days after receiving a debriefing; and (2) hold the debriefing open until the agency delivers written responses. The class deviation implements Section 818 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (NDAA).

Federal agencies have long been required to debrief unsuccessful bidders after it awards a contract on the “basis of a competitive proposals.” And the existing FAR provisions applicable to such debriefings, FAR 15.505 and 15.506, already require agencies to include, as part of the debriefing process, “reasonable responses to relevant questions about whether source selection procedures were followed . . . .”

In practice, however, agencies regularly ignore that requirement — often providing a limited written debriefing, declaring the debriefing closed with no opportunity for questions, and thereby putting the disappointed offeror on a 5-day clock to protest, without all the information to which it is entitled.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/05/questions-department-defense-implements-fy-2018-ndaa-requirement-post-debriefing-qa-process/

December 12, 2016 By AMK

Breaking the ‘institutional density’ of industry, government communications

Two mythbusters memos from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP); the reestablishment of the Frontline Forum for contracting officers; a host of Web and in-person educational sessions over the last five years, and still the idea that government and industry can communicate about contracts is hard for many acquisition workers to grasp.

federal-register-tilted Someone called it a matter of breaking through the “institutional density” of an organization.

The latest attempt to break through that historic blockage is a proposed rule by the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council in Nov. 29’s Federal Register.

The proposed rule says “government acquisition personnel are permitted and encouraged to engage in responsible and constructive exchanges with industry, so long as those exchanges are consistent with existing laws and regulations, and promote a fair competitive environment.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/reporters-notebook/2016/12/breaking-institutional-density-industry-government-communications/

June 17, 2016 By AMK

VA needs to better market its new acquisition approach, industry says

The need for better communication is driving the Veterans Affairs Department’s acquisition shop to rethink the way it buys products and services. But industry says the VA’s new approach has been slow to trickle down to contracting officers in the field.

Greg Giddens, the department’s chief acquisition officer and principal executive director for the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, released two memos last December detailing 10 new guiding principles for VA acquisition.

“The intent behind this was to give documented coverage for our employees to go out and take risks,” Giddens said. “If it’s not against the law, not against statute, not against an executive order, and it’s good for taxpayers, veterans and employees, then we need to figure out how to move out on it.”

And he says more change is on the way. His office will likely roll out a new acquisition program management framework this summer.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2016/06/va-needs-better-market-new-acquisition-approach-industry-says/

April 28, 2016 By AMK

Why you can’t run government like a business

For years, politicians have been telling us the federal government needs to operate more like a business, but can a private sector leader truly be a great public sector leader? Is the reverse true?

Successful leadership in business or government requires a mastery of communication and negotiation skills, and an ability to engender trust and credibility. But routinely ignored are the different responsibilities and skills required.

When private sector leaders are tapped for government service, they must recognize that different skills are needed for success. The high wire act of learning on the job can be disastrous for both the office holder and citizens.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t (HarperCollins 2001), wrote a monograph entitled Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is not the Answer. It explores the differences in detail. Collins writes that social sector organizations look to the private sector for leadership models and talent, which may be a mistake, “because of the checks and balances that exceed the capacity of private sector leaders in their facilitative leadership capacity . . . Indeed, perhaps tomorrow’s great business leaders will come from the social sectors, not the other way around.”

Keep reading this article at: http://m.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/04/why-you-cant-run-government-business/127213

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:

This past March marked the beginning of a more fulsome required debriefing process for defense contracts.

The need for better communication is driving the Veterans Affairs Department’s acquisition shop to rethink the way it buys products and services. But industry says the VA’s new approach has been slow to trickle down to contracting officers in the field.

For years, politicians have been telling us the federal government needs to operate more like a business, but can a private sector leader truly be a great public sector leader? Is the reverse true?

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.

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