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End of administration rush, then quiet in federal IT contracting

Federal IT contracting will increase in the next couple of months as the Obama administration winds down, according to Professional Services Council (PSC) CEO David Berteau.

PSCHowever, that uptick will be followed by a lull in the first few months of the Trump administration as agencies find their footing under new leaders, Berteau added during a presentation at PSC’s Vision Federal Market Forecast Conference.

“The outgoing team is pushing stuff out the door while the incoming team can’t do anything,” he said. “That dynamic affects contracting.”

In January, contract obligations will go down, he added, saying. “That’s a significant trend historically.”

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2016/11/16/contracting-forecast-2017.aspx

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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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Six ways feds can improve IT acquisition and access

A group of federal contracting advocates teamed up to analyze how to improve the government acquisition process, particularly around government/contractor relations.

PSCThe team — comprised of the Professional Services Council (PSC), the Technology Councils of North America, the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the California Technology Council (CTC) — came up with six “guiding principles” that will make it easier for government to buy IT and help new and smaller companies break into federal contracting.

Download: Delivering Results: A Framework for Federal Government Technology Access and Acquisition

“Our message is simple: Government must remove the high hurdles to participation and innovation for all so that firms from across the nation can compete on a level playing field,” said Dave Wennergren, PSC executive vice president. “That we have come together around this set of overarching principles sends a strong signal that the government is constrained by how they ask for technology solutions, not who they ask.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/it/2015/12/10/delivering-results-framework/77095316/

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GSA wants to boost market share of Schedules to 33 percent of federal spending

The General Services Administration (GSA) is exploring different ways to boost its contract spending market share and enhance its Multiple Awards Schedule program, according to agency officials.

Tom Sharpe, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA, said he wants to boost the agency’s market share of federal spending from 15 percent to 33 percent in three years.

New contract vehicles such as the OASIS contract for professional services and the move to a “category management” system of expert contract advisers will help, Sharpe said.

He said at a GSA industry forum Feb. 13, hosted by the Professional Services Council, that the agency might roll out more versions of OASIS in the future for other contract areas besides professional services.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/gsa-gwac/2015/02/13/gsa-changes-schedules/23359425/

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Recommendations for DoD acquisition reform focus on 7 areas

The Defense Department added its voice to a growing list of associations and lawmakers with ideas on how to improve the military’s acquisition process.

DoD’s ideas center less on what Congress can do and more on what it shouldn’t do.

Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, sent a letter to Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) back in June detailing seven areas where he thinks DoD needs help to improve acquisition outcomes.

For the first time publicly today at the AFCEA Acquisition Modernization conference in Washington, Kendall highlighted his seven recommendations.

Kendall said the biggest thing Congress could do is end the threat of sequestration in 2016 and beyond.

“2013 was a nightmare year. We actually implemented sequestration well into the year. We bought ourselves a little time with the deal that got us through 2014 and presumably through 2015. It’s coming right back in 2016,” he said. “We are working on the budget right now. The services are finalizing their [budget plans], and we will go through an exercise this fall where we will have to look at what the President will submit and something that is compliant with sequestration to see what the damage is. The damage is huge.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/394/3676550/Kendall-shapes-DoD-acquisition-reforms-around-7-areas-

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