communication | The Contracting Education Academy

April 24, 2012 By AMK

In acquisition, more meetings might not be a waste of time

For the past few years, it seems that every conference, seminar and executive session in Washington, D.C., that deals with federal acquisition management dwells, at least in part, on the need for better collaboration and communication between government and industry. Add to that the General Services Administration’s BetterBuy project, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s myth-busters initiative, the Obama administration’s 25-point plan for improving IT management — the list goes on and on.

In my opinion, we can’t talk about it enough. However, improving government/industry communication is more difficult than simply saying we need to do it. There are many reasons for the difficulty, but let’s look at two in particular: culture and bandwidth.

At last month’s Acquisition Excellence 2012 conference sponsored by GSA and the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council, Mary Davie, assistant commissioner of GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services, posed a great question to the audience: “Has communication between government and industry gotten better in the past couple of years?”

The answers varied widely. On reflection, some organizations are easier to communicate and collaborate with than others, and the difference generally stems from culture, not policy. If agencies don’t encourage employees to reach out — or if they punish them for doing so — employees won’t make the effort.

The culture is beginning to change. In both government and industry, senior acquisition leaders have become more accessible and have begun to beat the drum for better communication and collaboration. Also, the younger generation’s adoption of social media as a method to stay in touch — that is, to communicate and collaborate — is also changing the way we all interact. That’s a good thing. Still, a fear of openly communicating and collaborating is still widespread in the middle ranks of many organizations.

One thing that might help is to keep having events where industry and government can participate at a professional and social level, such as the recent conference. Barriers start to come down when folks can interact in a “safe” environment where they can discuss their challenges and engage one another in dialogue, thus increasing their awareness, understanding and empathy (yes, empathy) for one another. Professional organizations, industry associations and public/private partnerships play a big role in opening communication and encouraging collaboration.

Another big issue is bandwidth. Today, we are all frightfully busy, and it is tough to find any time to meet with people who are not directly involved with our immediate priorities. Additionally, we all spend so much time in meetings already that the thought of having more of them is unappealing. After all, we have “real” work to accomplish.

The problem is that spending time understanding the market, the mission requirements, the technology, the vendor, the agency, etc., is part of our real work. And with extremely tight budgets on the horizon, that understanding is more important than ever. By sharing their experiences, industry and government acquisition professionals might find ways to reduce costs and stretch every dollar, whether taxpayer or corporate, as far as possible. So we need to make the time.

Industry can help by scheduling short, focused meetings with their government contacts and recognizing that none of us have time to waste.

So although communication and collaboration are happening more and more, we need to keep the pressure up, and we need to be patient. Changing culture takes a lot of time and effort. Let’s keep up the good work!

About the Author: Peter G. Tuttle, CPCM, is senior procurement policy analyst for Distributed Solutions Inc., an acquisition consulting firm, and a fellow at the National Contract Management Association. This article was published by Federal Computer Week on Apr. 6, 2012 at http://fcw.com/articles/2012/05/15/comment-peter-tuttle-acquisition-collaboration-communication.aspx?s=fcwdaily_100412.

December 23, 2011 By AMK

OFPP’s Gordon reflects on mythbusters, acquisition workforce

The investment in the acquisition workforce and the launch of the mythbusters campaign were two of the major initiatives by Dan Gordon, the outgoing head of procurement in the federal government.

Gordon is stepping down as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to become an associate dean for government contracts law at the George Washington University Law School.

When he took on the role of administrator in mid-2009, Gordon said the biggest challenge he faced was helping acquisition workers and he has made the workforce his “number one priority.”

“They had been beaten down, worn down, under-invested in, run down — every negative word you can come up with — since the mid-1990s,” Gordon said in an interview with Off the Shelf.

In the 1990s, agencies saw a “tsunami of spending” for contracting, yet there were “too few people, too little training” for contracting officials, he said.

“We were outsourcing instinctively, often without really thinking whether the work being done really should be done by federal employees rather than contractors,” Gordon said.

Gordon said the acquisition workforce — both in terms of numbers and training — have improved in his time as administrator. He said the Defense Acquisition University and the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy are examples of the emphasis the government is putting into training, but added, “We have a long ways to go.” For example, Gordon said every time a new Federal Acquisition Regulation is issued, training should accompany that new rule.

“Have we made progress? I think so,” Gordon said. “But I am very concerned that the budget pressures on the Hill will put much of that progress at risk. We need to protect the acquisition workforce. The good news is, this isn’t a partisan issue.”

Mythbusters requires ‘cultural change’

Gordon said his “lightbulb moment” for the mythbusters campaign came when OFPP was working with Vivek Kundra, the former federal chief information officer, on IT project management issues — particularly on figuring out why so many large IT project ran behind schedule, over the budget and under the desired performance.

“The root cause often lay in poor requirements and the reason we had poor requirement in our solicitations was we weren’t listening to industry enough,” Gordon said.

He cited some words of wisdom from his 91-year-old mother: “You learn more from listening than from talking.”

So Gordon took this advice and applied it to the acquisition community. In February of this year, the Office of Management and Budget released a memo encouraging agencies to increase communication with industry. The memo required agencies to submit a vendor communication plan.

Gordon said the response to the initiative was, for some, concern. One contracting officer told Gordon that she was nervous to meet with industry because she did not want to get in trouble with ethics officials.

“My answer to her was, If you need to, take five lawyers from your agency with you, but have the meetings. Lawyers are your friends,” Gordon said.

Acquisition workers have also expressed their concern that the memo would only increase their already over-burdened workload. They did not want a situation where they were “forced to be listening to marketing campaigns,” Gordon said.

Industry, in return, is getting guidance about the kind of information agencies would like. OMB is now launching a second mythbusters focused on contractors.

The change for both government industry will be cultural, Gordon said. “But I’m convinced that the push for the mythbusters campaign for more communication, early communication, honest communication, full communication, will pay off for the government, but also for industry.”

— by Jolie Lee – Federal News Radio – Dec. 20, 2011 – This article appears at http://www.federalnewsradio.com/145/2677691/OFPPs-Gordon-reflects-on-mythbusters-acquisition-workforce

December 16, 2011 By AMK

Second phase of myth-busting campaign in development

The White House is in the process of finalizing round two of its myth-busting campaign to improve how government and contractors interact.

“The effort for phase two is under way,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, who participated in some of the discussions on the second iteration. “While the first memo primarily addressed government barriers, this is supposed to focus more on the contractor side.”

Specifically, he noted, the Office of Management and Budget hopes to address issues like proprietary data — what the government is entitled to own under contracts and what limitations there are on what it can share. There will likely be clarification about what agencies can reveal about acquisition plans prior to the release of the solicitations, as well as their process of proposal evaluation.

“Industry is always interested in learning as much as they can about government’s actions, because ‘if I know more than you do, it can help me in my competition,'” Chvotkin said. “But that’s the line you can’t cross.”

Dan Gordon, administrator for federal procurement policy, distributed to all agencies in February a memo that addressed the top 10 misconnections about communication with industry during the acquisition process. The memo did not change policy, but sought to clarify and encourage acceptable interaction between government and contractors.

— by Jill R. Aitoro, Senior Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal – Wednesday, December 14, 2011 – http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2011/12/second-phase-of-myth-busting-campaign.html?ana=twt

May 13, 2011 By AMK

Can more talking reduce risk of bid protests?

The rising tide of bid protests has contracting experts in and out of government calling for more dialogue between government industry as way of reducing the disputes, according to a Federal Times report.

The experts cited a variety of reasons for the rise in bid protests including companies that file protests just to find out why they lost. Other reasons driving the increase in protests include the bundling of contracts and the ability to protest task orders.

A GAO official said the watchdog agency expects the number of bid protests to continue to rise.

— by Washington Technology staff – May 09, 2011 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2011/05/09/agg-reasons-bid-protests-rising.aspx?s=wtdaily_100511

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