formerfed

I’m posting this from LinkedIn. It’s a Ryan Connell comment. Interesting and shows promise that our acquisition process can be more responsive to our nations needs. Here’s more information on Tradewinds https://www.tradewindai.com

@Vern Edwards Most agencies I see have too few supervisors to perform this. Plus not all supervisors are the best at teaching. There are some really good 1102s that just enjoy their jobs and don’t want to supervise.

Vern, I just quickly did this. It’s not good but I think the idea should come across Provide developmental assignments, conduct oversight of work, provide guidance and assistance, and provide educational instruction as needed Allow trainee to assist in and participate with completing own (Mentor’s) advanced work assignments. Allow trainee to “shadow” mentor in meetings, events, and other activities.

Joel, your description is often typical. That’s because “mentors” are assigned based because management sees no other useful purpose for them. I’m talking about assigning bright, insightful, and highly knowledgeable people that love to teach and help individuals grow and learn. The process also is a two way street where the trainee is the right fit. I’ve seen it done successfully many times. Off the top of my head I can quickly think of three current SESers that advanced that way.

Maybe the most beneficial training method I’ve seen involves mentoring. But the mentor has to be among the wisest as you put it as well as enjoy teaching and imparting knowledge.

There isn’t. It’s negotiable. In fact, assumptions often are included but subtlety overlooked. Offerors make assumptions in proposals and contracting officers then incorporate technical proposals as part of the contract. It’s a sloppy way of doing business but quite common.

Whatever. Apparently you wanted to argue this charge account terminology with your post yesterday in response to Vern’s question. I’m done.

It doesn’t make any difference. You’re conflating language of FAR 13 BPAs which always existed under FSS contracts and what is done using now with the multi-million dollar BPAs. The former could be “charge account” with verbal and informal calls. I recently saw one of the F8.4 actions with a $500 million ceiling and initials orders in excess of $20 million. These are BPAs in name only. It was a poor choice of words but GSA thought they had to come up with a term for what several agencies were doing with zero dollar orders containing IDIQ type language. By the way I know for a fact the term originated with GSA and not the FAR drafters. There’s no need to continue this because it’s really a moot point. But it’s flat out wrong to all them “charge accounts.” It’s no different than calling IDIQ contracts “charge accounts.” Let’s just say we disagree and move on.

He was but I can’t remember exactly what his role was. I think at the time he represented DoD when the ideas were kicked around. But he ultimately approved the FAR changes when became the SPE at GSA and was one of the FAR signatories.

Yes, it’s common. Sometimes agencies don’t have sufficient in-house expertise. Occasionally, they want independent views. Other times they seek buy-in from another agency through the other agency being part.

It wasn’t. I was involved a long time ago when GSA did it. GSA encouraged use of FAR part 13 BPAs for decades. But FAR 8.4 came across as completely different. It was devised as something akin to IDIQ contracts after a few agencies established initial orders with the capability of placing “sub orders” under it. As Vern posted in the old thread, it’s a shame GSA chose the same term. When you get down to it, it’s just a means to down-select to either a single or a few contractors for future task order work.

When one looks at the current practices and matches it against the regulations, I don’t think it could be called misuse. Now if one compares it against practices from years ago, someone might shake their head in wonder. The current processes evolved over time for the benefit of ordering agencies, contractors, and GSA. FAR 8.4 can’t be labeled as a Simplified Acquisition method because it’s unique.

The “charge account” terminology is an oversimplification. In practice these BPAs are similar to IDIQ contracts and the orders are placed after offerors often submit very complex proposal responses to RFQs. In fact the ordering process often resembles a full blown FAR compeitive technical/price tradeoff acquisition

I don’t believe it’s 27. It seems like the three exerted a total of nine hours (3 x 3) hours. The time watching isn’t expending energy or exerting for the stump removal.

Vern, I scanned through an old physics textbook as well as some PM training material. I combined two excerps to come up with this: Effort is the physical or mental energy exerted to achieve a purpose or result. It can be measured in various ways, depending on the context. In a physical sense, effort can be measured by the amount of force or energy expended to perform a task. In a mental sense, effort involves applying skills and knowledge and can be measured by the level of concentration, determination, or perseverance required to accomplish a goal. Effort can also be measured by the time and resources invested in a particular endeavor.

Wholeheartedly agree. I was going to post something similar. The basic strategic problem is CBP is trying to interject the small business program where it doesn’t fit.

But FAR 8.405-3(b)(2) requires an RFQ be either posted to eBuy or sent to a sufficient number of contractors to reasonably ensure at least three responses are received. This applies when the estimated value exceeds the SAT. One alternative to what CBP did is conduct market research to identify viable sources and solicit enough sources to comply - that may be as few as three!

It doesn’t to me. Having more than one contractor to compete on individual task requirements often is good. By that I mean a group of 2 or 3 companies. But most of these contract actions involve contractor pools of dozens and often many more. If nothing else, the administrative time and expense to compete task orders can be huge. Complying with Fair Opportunity can be tedious time consuming and that’s even before task order competition even begins. Apart from the task order competition, the award of the basic contracts is burdensome. The current CIO-SP4 procurement is a tragedy. Acquiescing to potential protests and letting complaining offerors into the award pool is common. The Navy Seaport contract has 450 contractors for 23 functional areas. Or some cases the governments makes entry very easy like STARS3. GSA initially awarded 426 contracts and later added another 557!

So many of these actions (multiple award IDIQ contracts or BPAs) are protested, especially set asides. Some reasons are companies don’t want left out of the future task order competition, they see their competitors winning and it makes them look bad, over zealous marketing people oversell opportunities within the company and are worried about their jobs, and the companies want another shot at winning. There are lots of historical instances where protesting lets companies back in for additional consideration and award. This all gives agencies incentive to just make one or two large IDIQ contract awards on an unrestricted basis where the successful contractor can perform all the required tasks. In addition just developing strategies so the entire scope of work gets divided up into bite size pieces so small companies can participate on segments is difficult.

Years ago, there were some saying experience and past performance might be all that’s needed for many acquisitions. One very convincing advocate felt past performance done the easy way - sending surveys to offeror references (or “friends of the offeror) and use of CPARS was mostly a waster of time. He went on saying the contracting team needs to find instances of offeror performance and personally question those customers to get meaningful data. For some projects such as R&D or responding to a SOO type requirements statement, a technical approach or some description of the offerors way of addressing the need might be necessary if for nothing more than assessing feasibility.

There are situations where performance evolved into something different than what the government envisioned and what the contractor proposed. And it was mutually beneficial as both parties gained insight and experience.

It might be worth it. I’ve always found the best way to pursue these issues, at least initially, is through informal dialog. I know SBA is very slow to act and even reluctant or suspicious to do much at all unless a formal request is made. Do you have any relationships within SBA or through an agency small business representative? SBA people seem to provide advice and personal insights off the record though.

One thing that really bothers me is there’s no individual accountability for contract award decisions. I wonder how many sustained protests occur because no single individual questioned things? It seems like everyone involved - CS/COs, PMs, technical specialists, technical evaluators, lawyers, reviewers including contract review boards, and others, just things slip by. instead of critically examining items and highlighting problems, too often issues aren’t brought up. If errors occur and especially sustained protests happen, there’s nobody individually responsible. When I started out as an intern decades ago, the contracting officer had personal accountability. There were COs that had warrants removed for not taking prudent actions. In some instances, they lost a grade because their job duties were classified at a lower level without a warrant. Now blame is so diffused, accountability doesn’t exist.

I would tread lightly until you have more information. By that I mean just limiting actions to conversations with SBA, the CO, and maybe senior contracting at the agency level. The JV might be totally legit - perhaps the small business owners formed the company and planned to resign from the large business if they received a contract. I don’t know whether or not it’s proper but SBA should be able to shed light on it. This must have happened before.

I’ve taken a couple training sessions on proposal writing as well as attended many seminars on the subject. One common point stressed throughout is address your proposal to what you discovered the agency really wants and not what the solicitation literally says. The winner is the offeror that clicks off all the boxes with their words. That doesn’t mean the agency got something better - it’s just the offeror that chose the right words won