trust | The Contracting Education Academy

January 15, 2021 By cs

DoD bringing companies into the fold for sensitive info

After a years long pilot, the Defense Department is establishing a permanent program that will let some trusted companies in on critical military information to help build needed systems.

“As the world sees a return to great power competition, DoD must strengthen its engagement with the defense industrial base in order to respond to the national security challenges facing the United States in a more responsive and cost efficient manner,” a Dec. 15 memo signed by Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord states.

The memo goes on to state that, increasingly, technologies and information are squirreled away in special access programs.

Those are programs that exceed regular classified information and entail highly sensitive operations and black projects.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2021/01/dod-stands-up-permanent-program-to-give-vendors-access-to-top-tier-secrets/

Download the Dec. 15, 2020 DoD memo on the subject of “Special Access Program Contractor Portfolio Program Establishment” at: https://fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/sap-contractor.pdf

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/

March 17, 2014 By AMK

Bidders ‘stunned’ by sudden cancellation of federal contract

The invitation was to bid on a massive, high-stakes contract, estimated to be as high as $5 billion. Dozens of companies went for it, working for months to polish their proposals, then waiting for more than a year to see if they had won.

But instead of granting awards that would be part of the federal government’s largest training and human resources contract, the Office of Personnel Management issued a terse notice earlier this month that weighed in at five words: “This solicitation is hereby cancelled.”

The risk of losing is inherent in the business of federal contracting, but the sudden cancellation of such a high-profile contract with no explanation struck many as an unnecessarily secretive and bad way of doing business. The head of the Professional Services Council, an industry group representing more than 370 companies, fired off a letter saying many companies were “stunned” at the cancellation and the way it was handled.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bidders-stunned-by-sudden-cancellation-of-federal-contract/2014/02/26/65978f12-9f14-11e3-b8d8-94577ff66b28_story.html

After a years long pilot, the Defense Department is establishing a permanent program that will let some trusted companies in on critical military information to help build needed systems.

Bureaucracy is getting worse, not better.

The Need to ‘Excise Bureaucracy’

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