A recent Federal Computer Week story by Mark Rockwell, “Teaching feds not to fear the FAR,” has gotten a fair amount of attention in the Twittersphere and is definitely worth reading.

It discusses a number of efforts underway — including a “Buyer’s Club” led by Health and Human Services Chief Technology Officer Bryan Sivak and a TechFAR document being prepared at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy under the leadership of the indefatigable Mathew Blum — to lower the fear factor in the government IT community around the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and to emphasize flexibilities available in the regs.

These are very good efforts that deserve support. Many new and exciting procurement techniques, such as contests and crowdsourcing, are — as those quoted in Rockwell’s article note — already permitted by the FAR. The government can access some crowdsourcing websites for less than $3,000, which means services there can be purchased without further ado using a government credit card.

Keep reading this article at: http://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2014/07/fixing-the-far.aspx

See article entitled “Teaching feds not to fear the FAR” at: http://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/2014/07/teaching-feds-not-to-fear-the-far/