formerfed

It’s now more true than ever, especially in todays Congressional environment, that any project moving forward has overstated benefits and understated costs.  PMs and senior management already have excuse stories at day I for overruns and less than promised results.

Bob, you are a blessing for all of us.  This forum adds so much to our profession and it’s something many of us check daily.  I’ve been a participant from the beginning.  When I started here and working for the government, I used my name, Stan Livingstone for posting.  I retired from the government and worked for a consulting company while continuing to post.   A government client saw my responses and said “why are we paying you to help us when we can get your answers for free on Wifcon?”  😁Since then I started using the alias of formerfed.

Why not?  It’s obvious the Biden Administration doesn’t know what they want out of procurement.  Why not select someone to maintain the status quo and not disrupt anything. 

That is an excellent exercise and should be part of training for everyone. Unfortunately the situation is a reality most of us will face at least once if not many times more.

The good part it doesn't happy everywhere. There are places where the contracting field is viewed as valuable and supportive and adds to the mission accomplishment. Those places are too few however. There are other agencies where contracting is viewed as an obstacle and CO's are obstructionists. That's where this exercise becomes reality because planning just doesn't happen. Program offices do their thing in isolation and then want the CO to rubber stamp and endorse their actions. When you face that work environmnet, that's usually a sign to move on.