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In acquisition, standing still is the biggest risk

The biggest risk in federal acquisition today is not taking enough risks.

Not reckless risks, but deliberate risks consistent with Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 1 guidance.

The largest chunk of U.S. research and development spending, the most significant technological innovation, and its fastest evolution all reside in the private sector. And the private sector has little interest in slogging through the rule-burdened, prescriptive, intellectual-property-devouring federal procurement process. These facts are driving a tidal wave of change in government buying, especially in Defense organizations.

Here’s the January 2018 National Defense Strategy:

“We must not accept cumbersome approval chains, wasteful applications of resources in uncompetitive space, or overly risk-averse thinking that impedes change. Delivering performance means we will shed outdated management practices and structures while integrating insights from business innovation.”

Not only is the Pentagon challenged in attracting the most innovative companies in America’s most vibrant business sectors, but our adversaries—like Russia and China—have little acquisition oversight or regulation so they are beating us to the cutting edge.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2019/03/acquisition-standing-still-biggest-risk/155397

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Army bets big on service contracts to fix aging IT

The Army’s information technology is too old, and modernization is too slow.

So the service needs a “fundamentally different” strategy that relies heavily on the private sector, Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford said the Army has to start relying on contractors to own and operate IT on the Army’s behalf — what he calls “enterprise IT as a service” — and start moving on-base IT to Defense Department clouds.

“Around 70 percent overall of that [IT] infrastructure — in the case of voice, it’s probably as high as 90 percent — is at or near end of life,” Crawford told the Association of the US Army.  “[It] would take beyond the year 2030 — if we stayed on the current path — to modernize. We ran into one brick wall after another [asking], ‘how do we get speed,’” Crawford continued. So, about six months ago, he and Lt. Gen. Steve Fogarty, head of Army Cyber Command, realized “we needed to do something fundamentally different.”

This effort’s urgent because the aging IT on Army bases can’t protect data from high-end hackers, provide the bandwidth for new augmented-reality training systems or support combat units waging high-intensity warfare against great powers (i.e., Russia and China), Crawford said. “This reform and modernization initiative,” he said, “is less about saving money than it is about increasing operational effectiveness throughout the force.”

Keep reading this article at: https://breakingdefense.com/2019/03/army-bets-big-on-service-contracts-to-fix-aging-it/

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Six futuristic concepts on the Pentagon’s counterterrorism “wish list”

A Department of Defense (DoD) branch that “identifies and develops capabilities to combat terrorism and irregular adversaries” is looking for big ideas.

According to a solicitation issued earlier this year, DoD’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) wants scientists and researchers to deliver, among other things, adhesive skin patches that double as alarms; color night vision; armed underwater drones; long-range facial recognition; and a device that can locate and identify human targets through solid walls.

CTTSO’s request represents a “wish list” of sorts, says Paul Rosenzweig, a former deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security who has written extensively about counterterrorism.

Now a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a conservative-leaning Washington, DC think tank, Rosenzweig thinks some of what CTTSO hopes to achieve is likely doable, and reasonably quickly. Certain concepts, however, will probably remain just slightly out of reach, at least in the near-term, Rosenzweig tells Quartz.

Keep reading this article at: https://qz.com/1565598/6-things-on-the-pentagons-counterterrorism-technology-wishlist/

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Security clearance process about to get its biggest overhaul in 50 years

The federal intelligence and human resources communities are preparing a coming out party for the first major update to the security clearance process in some 50 years.

For the last year, the Suitability and Security Clearance Performance Accountability Council has been working on the Trusted Workforce 2.0 framework, the start of a wide-ranging effort to overhaul how background investigations are conducted. Representatives from the intelligence community, Defense Department, Office of Personnel Management, and Office of Management and Budget are leading PAC’s efforts.

Over the next two weeks, the team plans to debut the finalized framework to the White House and Congress and offered a group of reporters a first look at what’s to come.

This is the first time ever that the legislative and executive branches are on the same page with regard to clearance reform, according to Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, who is leading the framework effort along with OPM Deputy Director Michael Rigas.

The two agencies, along with members of the Defense Department, have been working to reduce the crushing backlog of security investigations, which topped 725,000 in early 2018. That backlog has since been reduced to 551,000 as of Monday. But that number is 100 percent above what security professionals consider to be the baseline “steady state” of 220,000 to 250,000 investigations in process at any given time.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/02/security-clearance-process-about-get-its-biggest-overhaul-50-years/155229/

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2019 NDAA analysis: Commercial item contracting

The 2019 NDAA contains several provisions reforming commercial item contracting.

As discussed below, these changes include: 1) revision of the definition of commercial items for purposes of federal acquisition statutes; 2) limitations on the applicability to U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) commercial contracts of certain provisions of law; 3) modifications to procurement through commercial e-commerce portals; and 4) review of federal acquisition regulations on commercial products, commercial services, and commercially available off-the-shelf items.

The “Contracting Cone” shows the full spectrum of available FAR and non-FAR contract strategies.

Several federal acquisition statutes and regulations exist that impact commercial item contracting. The two most prominent examples are the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) and Part 12 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Before Congress passed FASA in 1994, many contractors did not conduct business with the U.S. government due to demanding terms and conditions and additional costs or risks associated with government specifications. FAR Part 12 establishes a mandatory preference for the U.S. government to purchase products and services available in the commercial marketplace using commercial terms and conditions. From time to time, Congress revises these statutes and regulations in response to shifts in policy considerations and market conditions.

The 2019 NDAA works again to reform commercial item contracting. These revisions are important for government contractors operating in the commercial item contracting space to know.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/2019-ndaa-analysis-commercial-item-15566/

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