jonmjohnson

These people on the stage use terms with no definition, and the definition that they actually use is wrong. Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Agile...everything they say included buzzwords that they talk around rather than offering anything clear. The one clear definition came from the moderator who stated that "the definition of innovation is introducing something new, and not much more than that" (1:00:00 mark). Actually..that defines novelty, not innovation. Innovation is the introduction of something new that replaces and repeals something that is pre-existed (creative destruction of markets). People across government (and Silicon Valley) continually confuse novelty with innovation. Novelty also means a cheap or inexpensive toy, which could also describe policy development in government. He went on to say that "innovation is people. Its ideas." Watered down tripe.

No...viewed that one. Holy crap! I think I am beginning to imagine things! It was a line of argument that was something like COs often over-value their role and responsibility, and that program offices are responsible for the success of the program, by which the CO contracts out to help satisfy program objectives. COs are not the ones driving the bus, they are more like the navigators. At least that is how I recall it. I should advise my wife to start with the long-term care insurance because my mind may be slipping. She accused me of remembering things in my own way to begin with.

One other recollection ~ it was a post about who was in charge. I believe Vern was making that the PMO was in charge of the success of the program pushing back a bit on the notion that the CO is ultimately in charge. Ringing any bells?

Colleagues...I have been searching and searching and can't find a particular post. I believe it was one of Vern's talking about the role of the program office vs. the role of the contracting office, and articulating the responsibilities of the PMO vs. the responsibilities of the contract office(er). If someone recalls this better than I could you please either message me or post the link. Thanks in advance, and if you are in DC...stay cool...this will be a hot stretch. ~ JJ

Could you please expound on this?

This is a topic of conversation down in the VIP Lounge section of this cite that I would like to bring down to the commoners. The thread is found here: To begin this thread Vern argues that "DOD that should have its own regulation...in part because DOD acquisition serves a unique mission" and concludes with "free DOD from the FAR System and let it go its own way." I have heard this argument before. Can you not make the same argument for federal agencies throughout government? Couldn't you argue that the State Department, because of mission and geographic diversity is unique? Couldn't you argue that the Department of Treasury has a unique mission to which it is uniquely qualified? Same with DHS? Same with NASA? Now I understand the limitations of this argument, and most other agencies are not building missiles, ships, tanks, and advanced offensive and defensive weaponry. The uniqueness of mission certainly holds water when viewed in this lens. But every agency does buy commodity goods and services to which there is nothing unique. The "uniqueness" argument, I find, is really a resource argument whereby you have folks whose job it is to buy...lets say...paper, and despite the fact that paper is easy and ubiquitous, an agency's "unique" circumstances require they they maintain their own, internal, paper buying operations. Unique then becomes an excuse. Lastly, wasn't FAR an attempt to begin reducing the number of agency-specific acquisition rules and start bringing consistency to the process? The expansion of FAR can also be seen as the drawing in of common agency specific regulations (with a healthy dose of social policy advocacy). If that is the case, then would not the expansion of rules be an indication that the FAR is actually accommodating more of what DOD requires, therefore free the FAR from DOD? If agency specific requirements end up being burden some that is on them, not the FAR. We focus on what can be streamlined and interpreted in FAR, but maybe we should be talking instead about streamlining (or eliminating) our agency supplements to the FAR. Just some thoughts.

I think the people on this thread miss something when it comes to the adoption of advanced technologies, so let me attempt a contrarian view. There are agencies who not only adopt but fund technological advancement. It can be argued that Prof. Schoner's conditions are meaningless because technological adoption are not matters of competition but rather security risk and lifecycle costs. Advanced technologies are adopted once they have met federal security specifications, and the cost for adoption is justified by the replacement costs of previously procured technology. In other words, they are adopted when the products are ready to be adopted, and when agencies can afford to adopt. The Sec-Def sweet talk to Silicon Valley is for these security considerations (DOD specific considerations) end up being baked into the products up front, rather than asking industry to change them once developed.

Colleagues...thank you for the directional responses and the homework assignments. I have it from here.

I was not sure which section to post this particular scenario. A University has a "Center" whereby they receive industry support (money) for a particular program, and that support is paid directly to the university and funneled to the "center". As part of this support this university program has their graduate and undergraduate students work on a particular, well defined problem posed by the company, and a student group with expert oversight provides monitoring and end product (study) delivery. The entities who fund fund future prospective employees while giving them real world problems to work on, and at the same time gets the benefit of some targeted research overseen by SMEs in the field. If a federal agency was going to engage/support this center, what would this be considered? A contractual relationship does not appear to me to fit. An R&D relationship seems plausible, but I am not sure that actually captures the sense of the arrangement either. I can plausibly make the case for a membership, but that would be stretching things a bit. It appears to be a simple grant. Is this a reasonable conclusion based on the above information? Although all agencies contract, not all agencies have a grant-making capacity. Is this capacity a specialty? Does anyone have experience with establishing a grant in an agency that rarely engages in such an activity? Any advise, insight, or suggestions would be welcome.

There seems to be a government-wide misconception regarding the GSA Schedules program. This is nothing more than the issuance of fishing permits. The GSA Schedules CO cannot negotiate volume discounts because there is no work associated with the schedules award. You are right that it is counter to strategic sourcing, and Desparado notes that that program is separate from Schedules itself. The same hucksters who convince the Amish to invest $10,000 to get an award are yelling from the rooftops concerning strategic sourcing as a way of limiting or eliminating small business competition, never mind the Congressman who calls GSA and says "why aren't you awarding a schedule to small business x in my district, even though there are hundreds of ukulele resellers in a market where only a few agency look for and buy ukuleles? Substitute ukulele for any commodity and you get my drift. Too many conflicting priorities; too many unmanaged expectations. GSA may have a very real problem of trying to be too many things for too many people, as well as communicating poorly, which created channel confusion and mismanaged expectations.

Wow...interesting legislation and actually fits well with the other conversation on fairness. This legislation is proposed because simple LPTA competitions for complex IT solutions and services were not doing justice (fairness?) to neither the DOD, vendor community, nor taxpayer justice. My question to the grey-hairs on Wifcon (of which I am now one...not because of KSAs but because of some folicular discoloration)....Why? Why are they legislating something that is already fairly clear and allowable under FAR? Is this a problem that needs to be legislated, or is it a DPAP issue that could have been resolved with a simple statement or memo? Is it issued because KOs are not practicing sound business judgement and are defaulting to LPTA for the sake of convenience and expedience?

Here is exactly where you go wrong. GSA is not the buyer of anything. You are the buyer. GSA just established a structure whereby you can do as Vern suggested earlier: 1) do you homework, 2) pick 3 vendor, 3) compete the pricing, and 4) make an award. Here is how pricing under schedules is established. A vendor provides the pricing information needed for a contracting officer to make a determination that that entity is selling a particular product. It could be a direct manufacturer, but more often than not we are talking resellers, particularly in federal IT. The basis of pricing cannot include pricing given to universities, state or local govermnent, or other federal agencies. Also, although a GSA CO can ask, a supplier is required to give the government pricing equal or better than their "most favored customer" pricing. This absent of spot discounts, credits, or any other mechanism a supplier can use to lower the total commercial price. A CO may try to elicit significant discounts, but a vendor is not required to give them. Why? There is no work associated with the schedule award. How much of a discount would you provide someone for no work? Where does the discounting happen then? At the task order level, and the level of discounting is affected by the task order term and conditions. The GSA CO determines a fair and reasonable price, based on the commercial entities commercial practices that they justify and provide evidence for, in order to allow for an item to be placed on their schedule contract. These are ceiling prices that are established, or MSRP for government. They are not, nor have they ever claimed to be, floor pricing as would be given to a buyer who has money and is ready to make a buy. GSA from my understanding has been involved in an effort to try and scrub their systems of the pricing scenarios that you describe above, so they appear aware of this. That being said, if any government-wide purchase holder is spending current generation prices for a 2nd or 3rd generation technology, then that agency deserves exactly what they get. As much as folks try, you cannot legislate or regulate carelessness, laziness, or stupidity. On another note, when is the government going to start accounting for transaction costs, transition costs, and opportunity costs associated with federal contracting? Are we spending 8 to save 5 and calling that a victory? If that is the case, have we really gone away from the $200 toilet seats and $90 hammers of the 1980's? Start adding up the costs, and with contracting penchant for making complex the essentially simple, we are no better off now than we were then.

This statement alone indicates to me that you really don't know what you are talking about, at least as it pertains to Schedules, pricing, and FAR Part 8. That this was listed at this price is only an indication that the market rate for the item was that at a particular time. Prices for IT decrease over time. The CO at GSA established the fair price for that item at a time when that was the market rate of $800 (which it was when it was initially released). That price point decreased over time, as it typically does for consumer electronics. You characterize this as the fault of a GSA CO, whereas this is nothing more than the market at work. Your cell phone that you pay $600-$700 today will be worth .99 in 12 months. This is not the fault of a CO that sets a market price at a particular point in time, it is simply the way that the IT market works, and has nothing to do with your "fairness" argument. You are correct that nobody pays this anymore, just like nobody pays $600 for an iPhone 4. Market research will bore this out, just as it did in your example above. When you use schedules, you still do your research, and negotiate a price.

Govt2310 - This is actually an excellent question, and one that I never thought to pose. Thank you for raising it. ~ JJ

OK...by older pros I was referring to you (as well as some of the others). One piece that fits with Deep Thought (as well as your THINK! Blog post and over all approach) was this West Point lecture that someone on this discussion board noted. I have read and re-read this piece on more than one occasion. The author ties leadership, thinking and solitude in with Conrad's Heart of Darkness to deliver what I think is one of the best lectures I have read. https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/ Here are a few quotes from the speech: "We have a crisis of leadership in this country, in every institution. Not just in government." "What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision." "That’s the first half of the lecture: the idea that true leadership means being able to think for yourself and act on your convictions. But how do you learn to do that? How do you learn to think? "Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts..." "Concentrating, focusing. You can just as easily consider this lecture to be about concentration as about solitude." "So solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading." "I started by noting that solitude and leadership would seem to be contradictory things. But it seems to me that solitude is the very essence of leadership. The position of the leader is ultimately an intensely solitary, even intensely lonely one."

So I have not read this book yet, but am looking to do so. http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692 This concept reminded me of both what some of the older pros have taught and advocated on this board in the past. They often advocate that when thinking through FAR isolate yourself, break the problem down, break the FAR parts down, understand each completely, then arrive at your position due to depth of thought and understanding. The book also mentions first principle reasoning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_principle) which can be kind of confusing for some. Elon Musk articulates it in a more practical way by describing it as "a way to boil things down to a fundamental truth" ( For contracting officers, is this even possible to do anymore? There seems to be a premium on exchanging ideas and "crowd-sourcing" acquisitions rather than providing significant depth of thought to ensure understanding and thereby proposing solutions for acquisitions. Are others experiencing something different?

Here is another source of this effort/trend: http://moneyballforgov.com/moneyball-for-government-the-book/ We can all thank Bill James, who has a remarkable story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_James

Jammal and Vern...thank you. Here is the embarrassing part. The first citation that you list, Jammal, was in response to the same question posed me in a separate thread. I must be getting old. Suffering from CRS. Thank you both gentlemen.

Yes sir.

Experts, I could use your help identifying the threads that contain the answer to this question. I have searched and have not seen the smoking gun I am looking for. This is associated with FAR Part 8. What does an elevator do when they have knowledge of a shortcoming of a solution that is not clearly explicit in a response while their CO is telling them they can only evaluate based on the contents of the response and evaluation criteria? You can drive a truck through FAR Part 8 with the amount of flexibility it gives a CO to make a good sound business decision, but I find some treat the evaluation component without much logical basis. It is as if some expect the evaluation team to take all of their past knowledge and expertise, put it on a shelf, and not to use it during the course of the evaluation, looking only at the responses and the criteria. There is confusion on this issue in the field. What say you?

Were only this a new or recent trend. Government and public administration have been engaged in including data and statistics as a decision making shortcut for some time. In the early 1990's government was focused on "reinventing" itself, and started measuring results rather than outputs: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED367424.pdf Also in the early 1990's, CompStat was introduced in New York as a means to use data to track crimes and focus assets in the areas where the crimes were occuring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat Coincidentally, this method never achieved any success outside New York, suggesting that it was the right solution, for the right location, in the right environment. Statistically driven police measures never bore the same fruits as it did for New York, so some wonder if there were other reasons for the success rather than this data-driven technique (never mind other massaging the crime statistics or under-reporting crimes). Simultaneously we have the "New Public Management" approach to public administration, which uses contracts as a coordinating function: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_public_management This may get even more tedious for contracting personnel. OMBs "category management" initiative where they will engage in government-wide analysis of spend data and purchasing behavior: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/procurement/memo/simplifying-federal-procurement-to-improve-performance-drive-innovation-increase-savings.pdf Experience would suggest that this effort is driven primarily by two interests: a) technologists (and the commercial adoption of very robust tools that capture an incredible amount of information), and b ) "data scientists" (which is just a big, fat sexy name for nothing more than statisticians). Because b doesn't have much subject matter expertise they will always call for more and more data, which means greater investment in a. Aside from responsible statistical execution, for data to produce results one needs to know a) the data sets, b ) where they come from, and c) what is being said and not being said. There are examples where this is being done and done effectively (for example, IRS using data analytics for increased fraud detection). But from a contractual perspective, that agency A is paying price x for a commodity, and agency B is paying price y for the same commodity is not very meaningful in-and-of itself. One has to consider pricing strategies and how those commodities are bundled with other services or complimentary commodity packages. How price correlates with terms will be completely lost when looking at trees rather than the requirements and terms driven forest that accounts for that price of that tree. I am a little concerned that this kind of subject matter expertise is being lost on this effort at this point in time. I am also a bit concerned that the data will never be complete for those who want to conduct analysis without that expertise, and that every contracting officer in government will be asked to modify existing agreements to account for the data need (no...can't do that looking back but could consider doing so moving forward). I am not experienced enough in administrative changes to know what is sticky and what is schticky, but looking back on GAO reports and OMB memos over the past 20 years concerning private sector procurement practice adoption and recommendations into the federal sector, this data-driven trend looks to me to be something that will cross administrations.

H_2_H Just viewed the trailer. Other than Ray Liotta wearing too much mascara this looks like a great film. Hope to get through it this evening should my kids allow the pleasure. I am competing with Alvin and the Chipmunks right now.

I was having a conversation with a colleague who asked me whether a particular person reminded me of someone else. Without knowing who she had in mind I had instead described what would be the archetype of this person. (In this instance it was a person who is a retired fed, had a wealth of management and policy experience, but had never done the actual operational work themselves - therefore they were vaguely familiar with policy without ever having to provide work products beyond that.) OK...I used the term archetype, and a case can be made that what I did was stereotype...but it did get me thinking, and thinking of the difference between an archetype, a prototype and a stereotype. (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/archetype-vs-prototype/) Karl Jung (http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html) and Joeseph Campbell (http://www.hccfl.edu/media/724354/archetypesforliteraryanalysis.pdf) applied archetypes to psychology and literature respectively. What also had me thinking of this...Netflix now shows the entire collection of M*A*S*H. For those too young to know, M*A*S*H was first a movie and later television show that ran from the 1970's through the early 1980's. Many people who watched this show view this as a allegory for Vietnam. The writing was excellent and the character development was playful. It dawned on me, however, that this show could be an allegory not for war in Vietnam but rather the kinds of people one comes across in a public administration bureaucracy. Frank Burns - the by the book federal employee who allows strict adherence to rules and structure to inhibit progress. Hawkeye Pierce - the polar opposite of Frank who never allowed a rule or policy inhibit his performance of doing what was necessary to achieve a positive outcome. Hotlips Hoolighan - a well connected member who longs for structure and adherence to the rules, is completely dedicated to her role, but can turn the other way when convenient. Max Klinger - always seeking an out from his circumstances but ends up never leaving. Radar O'Reilly - the lowest ranked member whose knowledge of the paper process of bureaucracy can be used to suit various purposes. My question posed to this community...are there archetypes that can be developed that can generally characterize the types of figures whom we see in the federal government? Would stereotypes or general characterizations instead be easier and more appropriate (informative) to categorize? What kind of archetypes/stereotypes/general characterizations (good and bad) could you come up with? Aside from that, is there a line from M*A*S*H that you are particularly fond of? Too many to mention, but one that had me giggling when I heard it was Radar's announcement: "Attention, by command of the new commanding officer all officers report to the commanding officer's office, sirs."

Someone had brought this to my attention: https://www.challenge.gov/challenge/digital-service-contracting-professional-training-and-development-program-challenge-2/#_edn1 I find this a bit amusing. Here is an article that describes it: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2015/05/teaching-contracting-officers-about-agile-could-net-you-360000/113419/ My thoughts are: #1. The money is far, far too low and wouldn't be worth anyone's time. To do so successfully you would need an acquisition SME (who has actually bought stuff), a technical SME (who has actually designed software), and an educational training SME (who has actually designed training and coursework to accomplish an end result rather than just slapped information into a power point or collecting and regurgitating white papers, Gartner "reports", and federal guidance (often based on the Gartner reports...so hell, why bother with the middle man?). #2. The nextgov article is a bit misleading. The content developed would be provided to DAU and FAI....you wouldn't actually be teaching the course, just developing the content. You would not make money on the backend as would be the case with DARPA projects and their commercialization goals. #3. It assumes that training is one of the issues for the federal government's inability to conduct agile development. #4. It assumes that agile is applicable to contracting rather than simply as a software development function. Agile contracting appears to me to be the latest buzz word without thinking this through. What is it? It is simply a step by step approach to the development of something that accounts for changes in design based on certain stages of the design process. I don't know why this is being applied to a particular contracting method because there may be a very easy way to address this: Lead System Integrator with FAR 51 authority. My guess is that the end result will be a cumbersome training that complexifies the process in a way to make it unworkable. The government has a very difficult time with requirements definition when there is ambiguity or a high probibility for a change in direction. Rather than embedding this in a contracual sense why not just allow for the contractual rules to allow for it, let experts design a system in stages, and monitor them to ensure that things are occuring above board and when things were promised? A milestone is met, the next step now is this, this is why, therefore we will do this. "Agile Contracting" seems to me to be an overly though, needlessly complexified solution for an approach that can be done much more simply and cleanly without the need for establishing training. As always...I could be wrong.

I don't know if there are too many contracts, although I would agree there are far too many means (vehicles) to procure through (agency specific vehciles and government-wide vehciles). I couldn't agree more with your last sentence which actually supports my point.