OMB | The Contracting Education Academy

October 9, 2020 By cs

Why government must change its management model

Bureaucracy is getting worse, not better.

COVID-19 and the sudden shift to working remotely has accomplished something presidential initiatives, commissions and consultants failed to do — it’s forced work units and their managers to rethink working relationships. There is no time or reason to do another study; agencies have to make it work.

On the positive side, this could finally provide the impetus to shed bureaucratic practices. As John Kamensky argued in a recent column, it’s time to “strengthen unit-level health and performance.” That’s also the theme of a new book, Humanocracy, a “passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better.” The book advances the ideas in Kamensky’s column in some important ways.

The Need to ‘Excise Bureaucracy’

Government today is confronted by multiple workforce concerns: the abrupt need for highly qualified, dedicated front line workers to battle COVID; redefined manager-employee working relationships imposed by remote working; the continuing aging of the workforce; a work experience that by all reports contributes to early turnover of new hires; and a need for improved performance. Government is also affected by demographic trends, the changing career choices of the next generation of workers, and talent shortages in a number of fields. Looking ahead, in the absence of needed change, the workforce problems will deepen and performance will deteriorate.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/why-government-must-change-its-management-model/168449/

October 8, 2020 By cs

Contractors seek clearer, uniform guidance for returning to offices

Lack of such guidance is a “huge hole” in the federal government’s pandemic response, industry group says.

A lead trade association would like federal agencies to issue uniform guidance for their contractors’ return to workplaces amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The approximate 4.1 million federal contractors play an integral role in the functioning of the government, but are often managed differently than the 2 million federal employees. After calling on the Trump administration to issue guidance regarding telework at the onset of the pandemic, the Professional Services Council, which represents over 400 companies that work with the federal government, now would like to see agencies issue some form of uniform guidance regarding returning to workplaces.

The Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management outlined in April how federal agencies should consider bringing employees back to offices, while noting it will vary based on the region. Although there have also been questions, confusion and concerns, individual agencies have been issuing their own reopening plans for their employees.

“The guidance needs to be clearer, it needs to be more uniform, it needs to be consistent and it needs to be visible, transparent,” David Berteau, PSC president and CEO, told Government Executive during an interview last week. “I think it’s a huge hole in the government’s response. They don’t tend to think of contractors as part of an integrated workforce when they absolutely are.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/contractors-seek-clearer-uniform-guidance-returning-offices/168668/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

October 1, 2020 By cs

GAO issues definitive list of most important federal IT acquisitions

The Government Accountability Office scored more than 100 federal IT projects and offered detailed breakdowns of the most “essential mission-critical IT acquisitions.”

**Click on image above to download GAO report.**

With technology now at the center of every aspect of American life, the Government Accountability Office took a look at the state of federal IT acquisitions and came up with a list of the 16 most important technology buys going on right now.

Every federal agency and program office has at least one major IT project in the works, with many juggling several simultaneously. But a report released on Sept. 8 puts a spotlight on major ongoing IT acquisitions that will have the biggest impact on some of the most critical government services like paying taxes, managing biometrics databases, making sure planes don’t crash and maintaining the health of soldiers and veterans.

“Our specific objective was to identify essential mission-critical IT acquisitions across the federal government and determine their key attributes,” GAO auditors wrote.

To find the most important IT acquisitions in government, GAO began by issuing a questionnaire to the 24 agencies covered under the CFO Act. All but one agency — the Defense Department — responded with their five most critical programs, giving auditors a starting list of 98 acquisitions.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/09/gao-reviews-16-most-critical-it-programs-government/168347/

August 12, 2020 By cs

IRS floats experimental contract vehicle to help Administration meet procurement CAP goals

The IRS wants to mash up acquisition data to find insights into federal buying patterns and is using its experimental Pilot IRS procurement vehicle to test out new ideas.

The tax collection agency is working with the Office of Management and Budget on the Frictionless Acquisition Cross-Agency Priority, or CAP, goal, which “calls upon the government to modernize the collection, analysis, availability, and visualization of acquisition data for smarter and faster mission decision-making.”

To supplement this work, IRS officials are looking at current and innovative ways to combine distinct databases and sources on labor and wage rates into coherent, easy-to-use datasets with visualization and other analytical tools.

As part of this effort, the agency tapped its relatively new Pilot IRS program, which uses procurement methods in the Federal Acquisition Regulation to develop a phased funding contract vehicle that supports research and development. The program launched in early 2019 with a $7 million funding ceiling. But after some early successes — and well-managed failures — the program is growing in scope, both monetarily and programmatically.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/08/irs-floats-experimental-contract-vehicle-help-administration-meet-procurement-cap-goals/167442/

July 22, 2020 By cs

We need $10 billion to pay contractors’ Coronavirus expenses, Pentagon tells Congress

It’s the first time a defense official has put a specific price tag on DoD’s COVID relief efforts.

The Pentagon needs Congress to approve “around $10 billion” to cover defense contractors’ coronavirus-related expenses, a top defense official said Monday.

Alan Shaffer, deputy defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, became the first Defense Department official to put a price tag on the relief effort.

“If there is another supplemental or stimulus package for realistic economic adjustment, we could be looking at somewhere around $10 billion in additional program costs,” Shaffer said during a taped appearance on the Government Matters television show that aired Monday afternoon.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/07/we-need-10b-pay-contractors-coronavirus-expenses-pentagon-tells-congress/166852/