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Progress impeded, acquisition workforce anxious as bid protests continue to multiply

If you want to strike a nerve with federal acquisition managers, bring up bid protests.

The number of protests have all but doubled over the past decade, and that’s creating a significant amount of consternation among the ranks of acquisition personnel at the General Services Administration (GSA).

Janine Wilkinson, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service national account manager for the Army, said that this was one of the main things federal customers need from industry during a Coalition for Government Procurement panel on April 4, and other GSA officials quickly piled on.

“It’s not just the Army, it’s across the spectrum of customers,” Mark Aucello, director of GSA’s Assisted Acquisition Services client support center for the Mid-Atlantic region, said. “We understand, if we do something wrong, and there’s a legitimate reason to protest, then protest. That’s what it’s there for.  But … [when] it’s ‘I want to keep it another six months because I’m the incumbent and I lost,’ I think that’s the sort of thing that creates a lot of work and expense on the government’s part.”

Tom Howder, assistant commissioner for AAS, agreed, noting that nationally, there’s been an increase in protests, which lengthens the acquisition time frame and impacts the workforce, who frequently have to be reassured that the number of bid protests are not a reflection on the quality of their work.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition/2017/04/progress-impeded-acquisition-workforce-anxious-bid-protests-continue-multiply/

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Why procurement officials shouldn’t fear debriefings

The White House has a strong message for the government’s buying officials: Talk to the companies that bid on a contract about why they did or didn’t win the award.

The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) recently released a “myth-buster” memo clearing up misconceptions about debriefing meetings, the post-award discussions often requested by unsuccessful vendors curious about why they weren’t selected.

Among common practices OFPP tried to bust: “If a company brings a lawyer, cut the discussion short.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2017/01/why-procurement-officials-shouldnt-fear-debriefings/134375

Read the OFPP’s Jan. 5, 2017 “myth busting” memo at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/procurement/memo/myth-busting_3_further_improving_industry_communications_with_effectiv….pdf

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PSC: Next POTUS should give more attention to acquisition workforce

A significant portion of the report released last week is devoted to improving the federal acquisition workforce’s professionalism and competency. 

PSCThe Professional Services Council (PSC) issued the report, consisting of a set of recommendations to the next President of the United States to improve the operations, effectiveness, and efficiency of the government.  The PSC is an industry association representing technology and professional services businesses.

Among the recommendations made in the PSC publication, entitled “PSC 45:  An Agenda for the Next President of the United States,” is a call for the federal government to improve tradecraft in services acquisition by:

  • Creating standards for the acquisition workforce that are widely recognized and adopted across multiple domains (government, industry, and academia) as a framework for best practices.
  • Creating programs and services to help people enter into and progress within the contract management profession. The desired outcome is for the contract management profession to be recognized as a career field in which education, professional development and advancement opportunities exist for long-term practitioners as well as recent entrants into the profession.
  • Making wider use of special hiring authorities to bring highly skilled practitioners from industry into government.
  • Focusing Contracting Officer incentives on program outcome/mission success to minimize risk avoidance strategies that might make the contracting process simpler but that won’t achieve the desired results.
  • Amending the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act to give OFPP statutory authority over the entire acquisition workforce, including clear authority and responsibility over program managers.
  • Creating a clearly defined career path for program management in the civilian agencies.
  • Instituting new acquisition workforce requirements to include mandatory cross-functional rotations and training.
  • Creating an “Acquisition Excellence Council” with responsibilities including redesigning and restructuring the federal acquisition training system and developing a common evaluation and assessment process.
  • Aligning acquisition workforce requirements and certifications to the type of acquisition the employee will be conducting.

Other recommendations made in PSC’s report have to do with: using technology and new business models to modernize government’s service delivery; improving government operations to better compete globally; and building a better engagement model to bring the best ideas and solutions from industry into government.

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Following bid protest, DISA re-releases $17.5 billion solicitation

The Defense Department’s IT arm is again accepting bids for its controversial Encore III contract that could buy as much as $17.5 billion worth of IT services to support the Pentagon’s modernization effort.

DISAContractors now have until Sept. 30 to revise and submit proposals for Encore III, which has been updated by DISA to adhere to recommendations the Government Accountability Office made in sustaining spring protests by CACI and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Encore III earned ire from industry groups earlier this year because it sought “lowest price, technically acceptable” solutions for potentially complex services, which many felt contradicted a directive from Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall. That directive outlined situations when it would be OK to use LPTA, such as commodity hardware purchases.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2016/09/following-bid-protest-disa-re-releases-175b-contract/131386

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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.

VAGreg 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/

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