procurement reform | The Contracting Education Academy

February 11, 2021 By cs

A reminder of the key provisions of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act

Each year, Congress presents us in Title VIII of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a potpourri of procurement reforms, changes, and additions.

Some are effective immediately, while some are bound for rulemaking and regulation and surface years from enactment.

Some require analyses, reports, and studies which have no immediate impact but provide a roadmap that can and should be used by government contractors in their business planning.

Finally, some provisions of the NDAAs just wither away and have no impact whatsoever.

Nineteen days before the Trump Administration ended, the U.S. Senate followed the U.S. House of Representatives in overriding the President’s veto of the William (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (H.R. 6395) (FY2021 NDAA), making it law on January 1, 2021. As for its Title VIII, the FY2021 NDAA is no different from its predecessors in its procurement potpourri.

Here’s a tour of key provisions you oughta know.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/here-to-remind-you-of-the-key-2306320/

January 29, 2021 By cs

OFPP Administrator gives ‘frictionless acquisition’ a boost on his way out the door

When it came to federal acquisition policy, the four years of the Trump administration could be considered a time of Laissez-faire.

There were only four acquisition memos signed off by the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that didn’t deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in the past 48 months. Sure acquisition was part of many, if not all, of the technology memos and the data strategy memos, but those that addressed federal procurement and only federal procurement, were few and far between.

Along with those four OMB memos, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) issued five other memos, including three in the last month, which directed agencies to take specific steps to improve federal procurement.

In all, that’s nine memos in four years or 2.33 memos a year, which equals not a lot of oversight or changes to the federal acquisition process from a governmentwide and OMB level.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2021/01/ofpp-administrator-wooten-gives-frictionless-acquisition-a-boost-on-his-way-out-the-door/

December 31, 2020 By cs

Making best-in-class contracts better for innovation

In recent years, federal acquisition policy and practice has been a competition between two different priorities: Efficiency and innovation.

Instead of balancing these priorities, innovation has taken the backseat, denying agencies access to companies that can deliver transformational solutions.

The Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration have an opportunity to implement several straightforward changes that can address these competing priorities.

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office provided several recommendations for OMB and GSA to improve their category management initiative, which oversees efforts such as the best-in-class contracts (BIC). While most of the GAO recommendations focused on improving guidance around category management, better defining requirements, acquisition workforce training and cost savings, what was left unaddressed was how OMB and GSA can improve the most important outcomes — delivering the best and most innovative product and service solutions to agency customers and citizens.

Category management has pushed government agencies to buy more like a single enterprise. This focus has prioritized driving savings and efficiency by eliminating redundancy by developing more useful governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs), such as BICs. However, having a too narrow focus on streamlining and scale sacrifices the more important priority of attracting more innovative, non-traditional companies to the federal market. That focus — long championed by organizations like the Alliance for Digital Innovation — has pushed the government to leverage inventive acquisition authorities, prioritize commercial capabilities over onerous and restrictive requirements, and encourage speed in both the pilot and production phases of IT acquisition.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2020/12/making-best-in-class-contracts-better-for-innovation/

December 17, 2020 By cs

Air Force’s next hack of the federal procurement system: One-year funding

Air Force Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt knows a little something about the complexity of federal contracting.

The deputy assistant secretary for contracting, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, started his career as a contracts manager. He served as the procuring contracting officer for the F-22 fighter and held an assortment of executive positions during his 19-year career in the service.

So when he gave the House and Senate armed services committees a list of regulations that need to be revoked, removed or replaced a few years ago, he knows what he’s talking about.

“I told them that you’ve written so many laws that we need to implement that our contracting officers in the trenches can’t even follow them all because they actually start to conflict with each other,” Holt said at the annual Government Contract Management Symposium sponsored by the National Contract Management Association. “That environment is not really paying attention to the opportunities that, for instance, the 809 panel gave to them to update the system. I think they are really focused on a different agenda right now. I hope they will join us in really streamlining, especially the defense contracting environment, but really the federal contracting environment.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/category/reporters-notebook/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/

December 14, 2020 By cs

IRS moves to speed up contracting through new procurement research partnership

The Internal Revenue Service recently set sights on introducing new technology-driven capabilities and applying innovative data science techniques to improve and elevate its procurement operations.

And last week, the agency launched a research partnership valued at almost $1 million that marks a deliberate move in that direction.

Through the newly unveiled collaboration, agency officials, university professors and students equipped with procurement and machine learning experience, and members of Virginia-based small business Data and Analytic Solutions will form a multidisciplinary team intended to accelerate the IRS’ contracting and award processes. It emerges as federal buying largely remains notoriously slow.

“When it comes to contracting, everyone seems to want it faster, cheaper, and better,” IRS Chief Procurement Officer Shanna Webbers told Nextgov over email Tuesday. “We recognized that we cannot continue to do business as usual and expect a different result.”

With that view top of mind, Webbers’ office earlier this year embarked on what she called “a game-changing transformation” that drew from feedback shared by procurement employees within the agency, as well as its customers and industry partners. Building on that, the organization is bringing forth new tools and techniques — like data analysis, visualization, and machine learning, among others — to advance how work is performed.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2020/12/irs-moves-speed-contracting-through-new-procurement-research-partnership/170431/

Each year, Congress presents us in Title VIII of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a potpourri of procurement reforms, changes, and additions.

When it came to federal acquisition policy, the four years of the Trump administration could be considered a time of Laissez-faire.

In recent years, federal acquisition policy and practice has been a competition between two different priorities: Efficiency and innovation.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt knows a little something about the complexity of federal contracting.

The Internal Revenue Service recently set sights on introducing new technology-driven capabilities and applying innovative data science techniques to improve and elevate its procurement operations.

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