jonmjohnson

I was having a discussion with some contracting folks on the problem of getting information from either contractors or program offices. This one person described a discussion that had me in stitches. Their description of the exchange reminded me of the following clip. How many of these kinds of conversations have happened in your organizations? Anyone younger than 40-45 may not know this routine, but it is one of the true classics of comedy. For your viewing pleasure.

I have no idea if this is a confirmation bias that I am witnessing or what, but every day I see evidence that C. Northcote Parkinson was correct. The function if a bureaucracy is to increase the number of subordinates and decreasing the number of rivals while making work for one another. A bureaucrat's currency is budget and people, and they have incentive to grow both. Here is a fairly good Economist article on Parkinson's Law. Applying Parkinson's Law to DOD (or any other large, federated, cabinet level agency for that matter), one may say that the acquisition infrastructure is put in place to increase the number of acquisition subordinates while decreasing the rivals who would intrude on buying decisions. Parkinson also made the observation that (and I am paraphrasing but looking for a clean article on it) while the British empire was shrinking, more resources were placed in the areas of decline and never once did that change the course of that decline.

Not sure if anyone read this, but Fortune Magazine had a fascinating article on DOD procurement this past weekend. Not every day when acquisitions gets a center stage write-up like this (and DOD does not look good as a result). Nobody looks good in this one (DOD Acquisition DefSec, Army CO's, DAU, GAO) but the underlying problem(s) are beyond DOD because the perverse incentive structures exist everywhere. Impressions? "Donald Trump, Palantir, and the crazy battle to clean up a multibillion-dollar Military procurement swamp"

Subject = Time Next person up...identify the predicate. That is a good one Don. I clearly owe you a drink.

Vern...you are correct. Subject-verb-direct object. Apso...spot on with what I am seeking. Can you think of any piece of regulation (preferably within FAR) where the subject, verb, direct object relationship is less clear or buried within a complicated sentence structure? I will be concentrating on this this weekend and will share some that I dig up as well. Thank you both Gentlemen.

Thank you apso. I will look those over. Let me clarify...I am looking for a sentence where identifying the noun. verb, direct object is not simple to identify.

Colleagues....I was wondering if I may be able to get some assistance with a study that I am looking to conduct. Here is the synopsis... Path Dependency exists in the contracting field. It is human nature to look at buying through the lens of how you conducted buy's before. It is also organizational nature to structure buys and activities as they have approved before. My question is why does the behavior of path dependency exist in federal contracting. Here is where I need some potential assistance. I am looking for run-on sentences taken from FAR that appear as they are actually paragraphs. LONG sentences that are constructed fairly complicatedly. My hypothesis is that procurement people, and those that provide the oversight for them (so some CO/KOs, legal counsel, and IGs) cannot identify the major parts of speech in these kinds of regulations, therefore they do not understand FAR, therefore they go the route that had been done before whether it is applicable to the buy they are facing or not. This is not my idea. I had actually taken this from Vern when in one of his classes as a baseline activity. It struck me then and now that this could be used as a way to do further study for academic purposes. If COs prove capable of being able to do so then it would indicate ability and capacity, meaning there is something else going on in the environment and we can eliminate that as a cause of path dependency in contracting. The problem may lie with legal or other oversight bodies. I would not mind giving the same test to managers, directors, and others involved in the procurement execution and oversight process. If, on the other hand, it is true that there are not many people capable of identifying the basic parts of speech in such regulations the implication could be mutli-fold. It could mean that the skills that are needed are not being met by folks hiring or for the policy that squeezed out liberal arts majors with degrees in history, English, and philosophy (3 subjects that are language intensive rather than business intensive). It could mean that the policy field has made overly-complicated what could be expressed in plain language. Skills gaps could exist anywhere in the chain of a procurement who have need and access to regulations that shape activities (CS, CO, Directors, reviewers, Legal, IG), and finding out where those gaps exist could also be interesting to explore. Anyone willing to help can feel free to either post onto this website their recommended sentences taken from FAR (if allowed by the moderator), message me via this platform, or you can email me directly (jon.johnson@vt.edu). Further...your thoughts on this matter are also welcomed and I thank you in advance. If you are in the DC area, your reward will be a cold pint, warm cup of Joe, or any other drink I can buy you. If outside of DC....I will owe you one.

Contracts aside....does anyone have experience with the two firearm manufacturers? Any enthusiasts who have a preference of a Beretta over a Sig or vise versa?

I was reading over Vern's and Joel's responses on the Old Post Office conversation and decided to finally get myself the Christmas gift I have wanted for years...the 2 Volume set of the Compact Edition of the Oxford-English Dictionary. As CO's frame their work on the meaning of words, I could think of no better gift to get (although I have wanted one of these for 20 years and just decided to get it. My excuse will be that this will be the dictionary that I will make my children use). So what gifts would you recommend, or what would a CO ask Santa, for Christmas for a Contract Officer? I can think of nothing better than a good dictionary and a few good books. I have not been sold on a kindle because I enjoy the touch, feel, smell of a book still, but I could be sold on one. So second question....Kindle or no?

Why people put those type of descriptions in their profiles just astounds me.

Chris Dorobek tagged this on his LinkedIn feed and called it a must read - https://medium.com/code-for-america/procurement-under-trump-d7c924342d21#.ahb8auwep. I read it...don't know if I needed to. Strikes me as a little sour grapes from an exiting administration who blames FAR for not allowing them to transform towards a Digital Government in the way that had been promised. It is filled with the pivots, minimal viable product, agile, waterfall, iterative, and other such VC forced language that has been used the past 4-5 years in government. Speaking of pivoting....she appears to be arguing that the "Silicon Valley" culture that had been adopted to 18F and USDS should be leveraged to "fix" procurement. Many in government think that both programs will be sent packing in the new administration, and lots of "op-eds" and other communications have been trying to continually argue their value and merits (because their output had not been able to do so successfully: re: https://www.meritalk.com/articles/ig-questions-business-practices-major-losses-at-18f/) Impressions? Must read with merit, or wasted read and more noise?

In the past I have always allowed line-item pricing at the point of competition as a redactable item, and legal counsel agreed. My understanding is that information can be shared internally between government personnel, but to post such pricing for their competitors to see would not be allowable.

No...because without expertise it raises more questions than it answers...and it is illegal to do so. FOIA exempts pricing as trade secret information that is not meant for public release. Ref: "Documents which would reveal "[t]rade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential." 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4)." (http://www.foiadvocates.com/exemptions.html)

His recommendations on contracting data is interesting, but I believe a bit more one sided. Data on commodity purchasing may work with pork bellies, or chicken parts, but when it comes to IT products and services sharing pricing is a bit more complicated. Pricing is made on a basis of terms and the structure of the agreement, therefore it would be very easy to draw the wrong conclusions based on pricing. What he should be more focused on is costs. For example, Agency A and Agency B bought the same product C, but A paid price 1.7x the price for that product than Agency B. Does that mean that Agency B got the better deal? Not necessarily. Only by looking at what else Agency B bought would that determination be able to be made. The vendor was able to give him a significant discount on product C, but also gave a slight markup to products D, E and F which are not included in the "price" comparison. Context is everything in pricing, and you would need smart people dig into the reasons why pricing is what it appears to draw conclusion, but unfortunately there is not enough time (or smart people?) to do the digging. His recommendation on sexy-ing up COR as a title strikes me as a little silly. What a surprise.....a call for more training. Pay per transaction (by the drink) is a term taken from cloud computing (pay for what you use). Many folks seem to have issues with this because they cannot easily predict the needed funds (easier with software than infrastructure). He seems to shift the term though and move it to "pay for success". I understand the concept and intent and see its application to cloud, but that may be the extent of it. I just don't know what private sector entity would put up the upfront capital for something that may not be mandatory use. To mush risk on the vendor, and it would create such high costs to account for that risk that the pay per scheme would not be tenable. I could be wrong. Lastly....LOVE the Share-in-savings contracting. Many private sector expense management or IT auditing companies engage in this practice, and it is a big win when it works right. That being said, outside of auditing inventories and usage for IT, I have a difficult time believing that the scenario he poses is one that would be adopted.

Bob...I had not posed my question properly. I am not asking if the President Elect can receive emolument while in office. I will assume that he divests himself from the company, which he appears to have done. The authors argue that regardless of doing so, GSA should still be compelled to cancel the contract.

Colleagues: I am not sure if you came across this article by Steve Schooner and Dan Gordon, but I found it an interesting case to make. Essentially the authors are arguing that GSA should terminate the contract with the Trump Organization for the work they are doing at the Post Office Pavilion in DC. Living in DC I avoid politics (I tell my family it is like working at McDonalds....once you live here you don't want to eat the food). This is not a political argument, however, but a contractual one. http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/11/gsas-trump-hotel-lease-debacle/133424/ In your opinions, what would the correct outcome for this be? Is GSA compelled to terminate what appears to be a successful contract for the renovation of a historic DC landmark or are there other legal means to address this issue? They appear to be making the case that the President would not be capable of divesting from his company completely. I don't know that I agree with them, and their argument appears to be overly lengthy. In too many paragraphs they state the President would not be capable of divesting, and that his children are already playing a role in his administration which would not make them impartial nor able to disassociate themselves from conflict of interests laws. I have no legal background, but I can't help but think this is a political argument posed with legal justification on the part of the authors. I could be wrong.

Thank you for sharing both links Vern. I like the embedded reference in the Defense One article on Orwell's "Politics and the English Language: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/Politics_and_the_English_Language-1.pdf It strikes me that personnel in (and out of) government latch on to "loose" concepts and "loose" language as a way to 1) pitch themselves as "strategic thinkers" who are "ahead of the curve", and 2) as a way to hide shortcomings associated with their lack of understanding in how to bring things about (thus mistaking complicated with complex). I find that many over complexify the essentially simple (making solvable problems unsolvable due to artificially created uncertainty), and also overly simplify the essentially complex (thinking that they will be able to solve problems than warranted due to artificially created certainty).

I agree with Vern on this. Here is their piece in case you are interested in reading it: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/64265/theoryofcontract00hart.pdf?sequence=1 Agency theory, labor theory, incomplete contracts and "lock-in" affect, information asymmetry, bounded rationality. It is worth the read. Their premise is essentially that historically the study of contracts has been on complete contracts where everything is able to be accounted for. This is a traditional view of economists. However when dealing with complex contracting this is rarely the case, and progress is not likely when incompleteness meets preconceived assumptions. I think their work is clearly applicable to the federal space moreso than any other contractual environment.

Often when talking about contracting we mix contracting with basic purchasing, and as a result make needlessly complex the latter. Complex contracting is something that I doubt Watson could do, and my money would be on Don Henry...but what about the boring, non complex, commercial stuff? Maybe schedules awards and modification and basic commodity purchasing? If Watson would hep with that, would that not free up and elevate the 1102 field for doing the hard stuff? I know nothing about what the USAF proposes, but if I was going to gamble I would say they are looking for a technical solution for a dynamic problem. Maybe we should be looking at this for as to help with the small stuff to free up time and resources to work on the hard stuff.

Light, Paul The Four Pillars of High Performance (2005) – I am particularly drawn to Light’s views of Public Administration, and he has practical rather than idealistic application which is not the norm in academe. Good for branch chief/director level thought in what kind of team/organization they would like to build. Newport, Cal So Good They Can’t Ignore You (2012) and Deep Work (2016) – Both are consistent with the type of approach advocated for when developing excellence in a craft ~ in our case contracting. Shapiro, Stephen Best Practices Are Stupid (2011) – We get best-practiced to death in government, and they rarely work due to variance in conditions and situations. Plus the title is contrarian enough for me to enjoy. Taleb, Nassim Antifragile (2012) – He is a more cantankerous Kahneman and almost as brilliant. A modern erudite who is well versed in philosophy, literature, and mathematics. It would be fun to think of how to make the 1102 career field not only robust but anti-fragile (able to benefit from high impact-low probability events). I have my thoughts but will cook them a bit longer. Tracy, Brian Goals!, ( Berrett-Koehler Publisher, 2010) - This is good for anyone who has personal or professional expectations. Pretty basic, but a good reminder - a goal without a plan is just a wish. A CO who wants to be top of their field must work for it, and work at it every day. For Negotiations – Cialdini, Robert Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (1984) – Negotiations is 10% gamesmanship and 90% persuasion. This book helps with that 90% by looking at human behavior.

Looking at the list of contributors (Section V, page 47) is anyone surprised at the results or recommendations? Is this just an argument for more training? I honestly don't know the answers to either question. What are the main take-away's? 1) That CO's know what they are doing but requirements definition is lacking; 2) that there is little engagement with program offices at the start and are not included as part of the team; 3) that there is little product or market expertise for many assets; and 4) information asymmetry is a real factor that makes negotiations guesswork. All a complete and utter oversimplification on my part. The methodology was not very good in my opinion. Only 4 contract specialists of the 42 interviewees? There was not test of competencies (which would have been a stronger and more interesting study)...only a self measure of what some people think is important and how they assess the field. Don't these type of reports come out fairly regularly, strengthening the argument for more training but not really doing much more than that? ~ Jon

HA! OK...I am clearly showing my age because I was about to poo-poo crowd sourcing before ji20874 replied. That is a matter for another debate...but carry on.

I would like to see people who want to see things do things. If you want to see it...do it. Prove or disprove the premise of the argument. I am not intentionally being a jerk Matt, but I am guessing you are in a command where you are having people act on your behalf. You may be right, and if it is something that you are willing to undertake (rather than request) I would welcome it. Forget about strengthening a case, either make the case or disprove the case. I was thinking about this and my car. When I bring my car to get something fixed someone under the age of 40 will inevitably tell me they have to do a diagnostic to fix the problem ($90 charge). I refuse and then find the oldest mechanic in the room, ask him what he thinks the problem is, and he tells me without the need for analysis (and usually offers the lowest possible cost to fix the problem). He goes by what he hears from the engine, what he knows through years of experience, and what he observes from other less senior mechanics. The younger mechanic will want proof via analytics thinking that they will validate their approach. The older mechanic only engages in the analytics if it saves time and money, or when he wants to prove to the younger mechanic that he knows exactly what he is talking about. Congress would certainly agree with you in that to support the claim they will want more robust metrics and analysis. What Vern had closed with was this "If you are a GS-1102 with a long time to serve until retirement, you cannot be neutral about this. This is your career that I’m talking about." If you are not neutral, then pick up the torch and carry it.

Not sure a new thread is needed, and thanks for bring this up Pepe. This point of view is what had been sorely needed in "The Great Debate". However, can the bureaucracy actually adjust? C. Northcote Parkinson developed Parkinson's Law when he retired from military service and made the observation that the Navy had more admirals than ships. He also noted that as the empire was shrinking, foreign posts were increasing. He then developed a Public Administration Theory that stated bureaucracies expand over the course of time, and this is the result of two behavioral factors: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." I think it can be argued that the 1102 job series and functionality has been a by product of both factors over the course of time. We can see this internally within our branches, and we have seen this across government "lets hire people and then we will figure out what we want to do." Sound familiar? What Vern proposes would try to decrease the amount of subordinate 1102s (while increasing the number of subordinate 1105's and 1106's). I would also argue that many in the 1102 community may not be totally on board with his proposal, because now they (we) would be ill-suited for 1102 work if the basics were stripped from their (our) responsibilities and thus need to be knocked down a peg based on skill sets alone. Who on this thread would welcome a demotion because of where we stack as compared to the requisite skills needed to be considered professional (strategizing, program/industry engagement, analyzing, writing, advising, performing, developing, resolving, determining, negotiating, etc...)?

One other point. The head of DCMA talked around this (1:07:00 mark), but what if federal contracting and contracting policy had a foundation of first principle reasoning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_principle) instead of political (or interest group) expediency? This ties in with Vern's syllogisms, but takes it one step further. Elon Musk actually applies this in his product design and development: http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-first-principles-2015-1 Requirements for technology, and that panel, would be smart to apply this. It allows requirements to become more concrete, otherwise it is reasoning by analogy and we have seen where that has gone wrong in technology. Cloud computing is like [pick your analogy]. Most of the concepts discussed were analogies to activities taken on part of the private sector (whose conditions are not applicable to public administration) or from design thinking (software development applied to contracting - e.g Agile). A messy thought, but one I wanted to get out there.