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What academic research related to contracts would be helpful?


jonmjohnson

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I am a former CO who has moved to the "program" side of the house but interact mostly with COs and maintain my FAC-C III certification, as well as still enjoy diving into FAR. I have just completed my quals for my PhD program in Public Administration and Public Policy. My academic focus has been on Federal IT, Federal IT Policy, Federal IT Procurement, Procurement Policy, and IT Acquisitions. I remain fascinated with government's inability to predict or deliver IT projects on time and within budget (and have a number of theories why this is).

This aside I know there are ample areas of study and research that relate to federal contracting, and the breadth of the area is large indeed. Some academics like Steve Kelman (“Remaking Federal Procurement”), Paul Light (Creating High-Performance Government), and Jocelyn Johnston ("The Promise, performance, and pitfalls of government contracting") have addressed contracts and procurement either directly or indirectly.

My question for my colleagues in the federal CO community is: What kind of research questions would you like to see explored in a way to have a functional impact on the profession? My interests are less normative positions (making value judgments of how things should be..an example being Charles Goodsell's "Six Normative Principles for the Contracting-out Debate) but rather taking a look and applying qualitative/quantitative research at how things are. I am interested in dispelling myths about the community, the acquisition process, and the roles of CO and program offices in procurement. For example, Johnston talks about the inability for the federal government to consider Transaction Costs when deciding to contract out. If we accounted for transaction costs are we still looking at the equivalent of the $500 dollar toilet seats of the late 70's (I could see how this could be the case in federal IT)?

Digression aside, what type of research would you like to see?

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I would like to see a study of what effect written technical and management proposals submitted in response to a solicitation have on contract performance. These are the parts of the proposal (typically nonbinding) where the offeror must discuss their proposed "approach" to performing the contract. Such proposals can carry significant weight in determining who wins a source selection. However, I suspect that they are not used to guide contractor performance or to assess contractor performance. They are filed and quickly become irrelevant. This raises the question--why do we use this information to select contractors? Why must source selection be an essay writing contest?

Such research would include interviewing Government contractors to determine the extent to which these proposals affect actual contract performance and interviewing Government personnel responsible for assessing contractor performance to determine the extent to which such proposals affect performance assessment.

If you pick this topic, I will help.

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How effective is past performance as an indicator of successful contract outcomes? Is there a correlation between evaluation and results?

From what I see, use of past performance as a selection factor is horrible. Agencies ask contractors for references, agency personnel send email questionaires or call contacts, they check CPARS (how often do you see bad ratings there?), and generally avoid any information other than what sources offerors mention.

I've heard several people say the government should really dig into past performance data. This includes even making personal visits to sources familar with the offeror. Yet none of that is done. Does this have any ultimate impact on whether a contract is sucessful or not?

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Don and Former Fed...you bring up some very thought provoking areas of potential exploration that could very well fit with my research. Failure and cost overruns associated with major IT projects (Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System, IRS's Business Systems Modernization, the ACA roll-out, Defense Travel System, FAA Aircraft computer upgrades....never mind the non-IT efforts like the Joint Strike Fighter) can have many areas where things can go wrong, and the two issues you mention (concerning past performance and oversight of the management plan) are areas that are often neglected. With each of these breaches, however, it may appear to indicate that there is a general inability to capture costs associated with any major IT effort. The unknown, unknowns (or after the fact known unknowns) drive up costs. But more related to your points, I wonder if CO/CORs are documenting what they need to during the course of the project to at the very least cover their backsides when breach occurs. With the above mentioned projects, they are highly visible and highly political, and having been caught between OMB, political appointees, and senior leadership it is very difficult if not impossible for a CO to cut ties and squash an effort when it is on the verge of collapse. This is the clerical function of the job, or at least the appearance of it by executives and program staff, that emaciate the position of CO in the federal workforce.

As to the later one concerning 1102 vs. 1105 and 1106...this is another area of exploration that interests me. The professionalization of the field of contracts, contracting officers, and the evolution of the field from (what starting date?) to the present? Contracting out has been a matter of course in our country since before it's founding. When do you think the modern field of contracting, guided by regulation, began? What would the starting point be? I would assume after WWII, but would need to do some historical work on that (may look at the Judge Hartman Space Gateway decision more closely). I clearly see the importance of this research to help guide policy decisions, and it clearly needs to be looked at, despite the administrative commitment to focus on acquisitions in ways other than bandaids.

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Guest Vern Edwards

What is your area of interest: the acquisition workforce or acquisition practices? You seem a little all over the place -- 1102 workload content versus reasons for IT project problems. Those are very different matters. Which is it going to be?

What do you mean by "modern field of contracting"? What makes the "field" "modern"? Is it what is being bought? Is it how it's being bought? Is it both?

You'll get better responses if you provider a clearer, more focused statement of your interests.

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Vern...as always thank you for taking the time to look this over and offer feedback and your impressions. To answer your questions:

"What is your area of interest: the acquisition workforce or acquisition practices?" - Both, though I am more than likely going to approach the latter from a dissertation perspective.

"You seem a little all over the place -- 1102 workload content versus reasons for IT project problems. Those are very different matters. Which is it going to be?" - You are correct that they are very different matters. From a dissertation perspective I again am looking at the latter. That being said, I am also interested in what practicioners would like to see in terms of research, and I am anticipating doing more research in the field of both acquisition workforce and acquisition practices in the future. Again, the intent of the inquiry is to also see what would be of interest to practicioners rather than academics.

"What do you mean by "modern field of contracting"? What makes the "field" "modern"? Is it what is being bought? Is it how it's being bought? Is it both?" - Good question and I am glad you point this out. My intent was more on how things are being bought. I admit that I am a little lax in this area and do need to conduct some additional research in terms of what regulations guided acquisitions before FAR? I know FAR established as part of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act of 1974, so this could be a possibly be considered a point of the modenr field of contracting my some, but again, it is something I would need to look into more and think about. You are correct in calling me out on a thoughtless point.

"You'll get better responses if you provider a clearer, more focused statement of your interests." - You are probably correct. My interests are varied, but my purpose was to find out others interests as well. In the future when it comes to my particular interests I will be more clear and focused.

As always Vern I thank you for your feedback. I never mind being called out for sloppy thinking or writing.

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Guest Vern Edwards

Okay, here are some suggestions:

1. It is dogma in government contracting that contractor selection through submission and evaluation of competitive proposals and award based on "best value" yields lower overall costs and better quality. That dogma is based on long-standing beliefs, but the technique has proven to be costly and time-consuming and remarkably resistant to meaningful streamlining. What evidence is there in support of that dogma? In what ways, if at all, does the dogma comport with reality, especially in the acquisition of major systems?

2. What role if any does competitive proposals competition play in the problems experienced by government in IT and weapon system acquisition? The late Charles J. Hitch (1910 - 1995), a former president of the University of California, assistant secretary of defense, head of Rand Corp.'s Economics Division, and author of The Economics of Defense Spending in the Nuclear Age, once called contractor technical proposals "science fiction". Does competition based on competitive promise-making prompt overly optimistic proposals and unrealistic expectations about program cost and schedule, and product quality?

3. What is the real work of GS-1102s, and to what extent if any does it accord with the (once) popular image of the contracting officer as a business decision-maker or business advisor?

4. Given the real work of GS-1102s, whatever it is, is the GS-1102 eligibility requirement for 24 semester hours of business schooling (accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management) reasonable, or is does it needlessly and unreasonably limit the pool of good job candidates? (How often do 1102s use sophisticated quantitative methods in their work? How useful to their real work is schooling in financial accounting, finance, marketing, and organization and management?) Would liberal arts majors perform less well? Do the eligibility requirements reflect a "romantic" view of acquisition work? What base knowledge do 1102s really need and what base skills must they really have in order to do their work well?

5. Major system program management in government largely follows the phased "stage-gate" approach, which was introduced by Robert S. McNamara when Secretary of Defense and is designed to control cost and schedule by progressively reducing risk and establishing firm requirements. This approach is a fundamental departure from the management approach used to develop the atomic bomb, the intercontinental ballistic missile (Atlas), and the submarine launched ballistic missile (Polaris and Poseidon). Has that approach worked well, or has it merely bureaucratized the process, increasing the size of staffs, drawing the process out, and increasing its costs?

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Thank you Vern. You, Don, and FF have given me quite a bit to think about and I appreciate you taking the time to provide such a thoughtful response.

On a side note, in terms of your 4th suggestion. I was hired through direct hire authority. The director who hired me said "Do you know why I like you as a candidate? You aren't burdened by management and business courses...(My undergrad is in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy)...that means you can think (or at least have the capabilities of attempting logical thought) and can write (somewhat legibly and coherently)." I did have the requisit courses covered to be considered, but I tend to agree with you.

The most capable COs I know are those that have the capability to think logically, which is often more of a product of a liberal arts education than a business/management education focused on rules and formulas. Businesses seem pretty adamant that the MBA curiculum is not fostering candidates with the skills needed to excel in their positions or as leaders, and I would think that you (and I) would contend that an undergraduate education in business or management doesn't provide the proper foundation for an 1102. Whether in business or as an 1102, what is needed are people who have the ability to think logically, are capable of pointing out flaws in logic, express their thoughts clearly and coherently in both written and oral form, and has an inquisitive nature backed by an ability to research the subject matter they are acquiring. If they can do that, then everything else can be picked up in time. If you don't have that capability, I would think it would be a dubious proposition that it is something that can then be learned through training or on the job. I would have to put some thought into how one would study and measure (quantitatively or qualitatively) educational discipline and performance (prove it), or just make a logical claim based on existing evidence (anacdotal or via survey's).

Thank you again Sir. You and the others have given me plenty to think about. Again, I appreciate the time you all had taken to respond.

Respectfully,

JJ

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The most capable COs I know are those that have the capability to think logically, which is often more of a product of a liberal arts education than a business/management education focused on rules and formulas.

Hmmmm. Not sure I agree. The ability to think logically, in my opinion, is developed early in life and has very little to do with choosing a liberal arts degree as your field of study when almost 20 years old.

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Hmmmm. Not sure I agree. The ability to think logically, in my opinion, is developed early in life and has very little to do with choosing a liberal arts degree as your field of study when almost 20 years old.

I agree. I have a business degree and think just fine. My question to the person majoring in liberal arts, what do you do with that degree? What is the thought process for getting a degree such as liberal arts, or general studies? That said, I remember having a discussion with an accounting manager at a CPA firm I met in school, and she told me she was hesitant to hire someone with a 4.0 because the fact a person can follow instructions is good, but in her experience, those people could not solve a problem without another person giving instructions.

I will end with saying, my BA in accounting, the only class i can actually say was really relevant for 1102 work, was my business writing class.

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I would like to see a study of what effect written technical and management proposals submitted in response to a solicitation have on contract performance. These are the parts of the proposal (typically nonbinding) where the offeror must discuss their proposed "approach" to performing the contract. Such proposals can carry significant weight in determining who wins a source selection. However, I suspect that they are not used to guide contractor performance or to assess contractor performance. They are filed and quickly become irrelevant. This raises the question--why do we use this information to select contractors? Why must source selection be an essay writing contest?

Such research would include interviewing Government contractors to determine the extent to which these proposals affect actual contract performance and interviewing Government personnel responsible for assessing contractor performance to determine the extent to which such proposals affect performance assessment.

If you pick this topic, I will help.

Interesting point. I had a new ship construction source selection where the successful offeror requested a debriefing. It should be noted that upon award we incorporated the technical proposal, discussions, and final proposal revision as a material part of the contract into the award document. So I provided a scripted debriefing that was about an hour and a half long. The VP of the company wrote down notes of all of the strenghts and weaknesses that I presented. At the conclusion of the debriefing the VP, a bit vexed, stated "well, I guess there are a lot of things that we told you that we would do in our proposal that we are going to have to now do". My reply: "Yes". The rest is ...

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If you are still taking ideas, I was always interested in Paul C. Light and his notion of the true size of Government.

I often wondered why invoicing systems and vouchering systems couldn't 1) require the contractor to enter FTE for "support services" contracts; and 2) why a report from each Department couldn't be required quarterly.

We were actually told at one agency back in 2010 to never use the words "support services" in our FPDS descriptions because it could give someone the wrong idea about the nature of the services. This was right around the time that ARRA required the reporting by ARRA recipients of their FTE numbers so we could show how many jobs were "saved or created".

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As a liberal arts major with a business degree, I decline to join the silly conversation as to the value of either to a career in acquisition.

On the other hand, I would be interested to see a critical analysis of the alleged linkage between Technology Readiness Level (TRL), contract type, and cost/schedule outcome. Implicit in that analysis would be the impact of changes in requirements from baseline to final product.

GAO asserts that TRL maturity links to better cost/schedule outcomes. I'd like to see that linkage evaluated.

Many people assert that contract type impacts cost/schedule outcomes, though I've seen reports to the contrary. I'd like to see this assertion verified or kicked to the curb.

I assume most everybody would agree that requirements creep impacts cost/schedule outcome, but can that impact be quantified? Can it be predicted? Is there more or less requirements creep based on contract type awarded? Based on TRL maturity?

Hope this helps

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Dingoes...I am always taking ideas, and I like very much the work of Paul Light. I am going to make it a point to get more in depth into hiw work and have his RAND study on order now. He is somewhat similar thematically to a collegue of his at NYU whose work I am equally fond of in Nassim Teleb (Fooled by Randomness, Black Swan, Anti-Fragility). Fragility and robustness of federal programs is still something that I play with and was the initial impetus of pursuing an advanced degree. Thank you.

here_to_help...intuitively I think you are correct. I will have to look at that GAO report and think about it a bit more to see what they mean by TRL if it makes logical sense. Without knowing how they are using the reference, just because something is commercially ready and in use doesn't not necessarily mean that it can be easily applied to the federal government. Commercial readiness and Federal readniess are two very different things in terms of technology. Cloud computing and mobile technologies are a prime example of this. I thank you for adding to my reading list!

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Guest Vern Edwards

As a liberal arts major with a business degree, I decline to join the silly conversation as to the value of either to a career in acquisition.

It's not a silly conversation. It goes to the heart of the question of the nature of 1102 work and who is eligible to be considered for a contract specialist position. See Krieger, Professionalism in the Acquisition Workforce: Have We Gone Too FAR?, Defense Acquisition Review Journal, No. 45 (September 2007) p. 317.

I would not be eligible for an 1102 position if I were applying today, because I do not meet the course requirements. THAT is silly. The people who came up with those requirements were trying to get OPM to agree that contract specialist is a professional career field, instead of an administrative field, which is what it was when I was hired. It appears that they neither understood the 1102 job nor the nature of the college courses that they decided to require of candidates.

Any person who has a professional interest in 1102 work, if any such people are still around, which is something I wonder about more and more, should read Krieger's article.

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Vern,

It is a silly conversation because it ascribes to individuals the traits of some group -- a group whose traits are arbitrarily defined by assumptions regarding causation. Somebody is saying that liberal arts majors are this or that, or that business majors are this or that, because they are linking coursework with behaviorial traits that are exhibited by individuals, not by groups. There may be (loose) correlations between coursework and behavioral traits but there is no causation. People within groups may display similar behaviors but there is no causation -- i.e., liberal arts majors don't display behaviors by virtue of the fact that they are liberal arts majors, they display behaviors by virtue of the fact that they are individual human beings.

Confusing correlation with causation, and individual behaviors with attributes of arbitrarily defined groups, is what makes it a silly conversation

Logic. How does it work? :-)

And you would be eligible for an 1102 position because if you wanted to be an 1102 you would take the courses necessary to qualify for the position, regardless of whether they actually prepared you for the position. Barriers to entry will be overcome by those who want to be admitted. I agree, though, that those barriers are poorly conceived.

The whole DAWIA approach to training needs a fresh look, in my opinion. I wrote an article on that a few years ago, but it was killed by my superiors because it was deemed too critical of DAU and revealed too many trade secrets we were trying to sell to acquisition folks employed by contractors. A shame, really: I kind of liked that article.

Best,

H2H

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Guest Vern Edwards
And you would be eligible for an 1102 position because if you wanted to be an 1102 you would take the courses necessary to qualify for the position, regardless of whether they actuallyprepared you for the position. Barriers to entry will be overcome by those who want to be admitted.

You obviously don't know how much I hate school. No, I would not take the courses. I would do something else. Which means that the government would lose a talent.

It is a silly conversation because it ascribes to individuals the traits of some group -- a group whose traits are arbitrarily defined by assumptions regarding causation.

All HR qualification criteria do that, so do college admission criteria, so do military enlistment criteria, etc., etc. Since such criteria affect human and organizational futures and, in the case of 1102s, what talent the government will get and lose, the conversation is not silly. The criteria might be silly, but conversation about them most certainly is not. In fact, conversation might be a cure for silliness.

We can disagree on the silliness of the conversation thing. However, Socrates would have had the time of his life with your statement. A liberal arts major should know that.

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Guest Vern Edwards

Socrates "posted" in the Athenian agora at the foot of the Acropolis. I visited it last October. Haunting to walk around where Socrates walked and argued.

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I agree that it is not a silly conversation to have; also, I wasn't trying to imply the degree isn't beneficial.

"My question to the person majoring in liberal arts, what do you do with that degree?"

Are you serious? Do you need someone to explain that to you?

I know what a book or statistic answer would be, but yes I was completely serious with that statement. If a person is going to rack up $10,000 - $20,000 or more in student loans (provided they are paying) what does one want after graduation. Go on for a masters in a different course of study, be a teacher, sales, social work, an occupation that requires a degree in any field, for personal interest?

To stay on topic in relation to what classes/degrees are really relevant to the 1102 profession, we have a Student career experience program employee working in our office part time, and he is catching on very quick, just finished his AA in fine arts. Can’t figure out if any degree or no degree is relevant to the 1102 profession, but i don’t believe any degree is useless.

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Guest Vern Edwards

This is from "Why the Liberal Arts Still Matter," by Michael Lind, Wilson Quarterly (Autumn 2006):

Liberal arts education is, first and foremost, training for citizenship. The idea of a liberal arts education as a gentleman’s education reflects the fact that, until recent generations, citizenship was restricted in practice if not law to a rich minority of the population in republics and constitutional monarchies. In a democratic republic with universal suffrage, the ideal -– difficult as it may be to realize -– is a liberal education for all citizens.

The first thing that must be said about liberal education is that the word “liberal” is misleading. In this context, “liberal” has nothing to do with political liberalism, or “liberation the mind” (a false etymology that is sometimes given by people who should know better).

“Liberal arts” is a translation of the Latin term artes liberales. Artes means crafts or skills, and liberales comes from liber, or free man, an individual who is both politically free, as a citizen with rights, and economically independent, as a member of a wealthy leisure class. In other words, “liberal arts” originally meant something like “skills of the citizen elite” or “skills of the ruling class.” Cicero contrasted the artes quae libero sunt dignae (arts worthy of a free man) with the artes serviles, the servile arts of lower-class trades. As the Renaissance humanist Pier Paolo Vergerio wrote in “The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth” (1402-03), “We will call those studies liberal, then, which are worthy of a free man.” Once “liberal arts” is understood in its original sense of “elite skills,” then the usefulness of elements of a traditional liberal artes education for a ruling elite becomes apparent[.]

Originally, the liberal arts were the "Trivium", which included logic, grammar, and rhetoric. See: The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric (2002) by Sister Miriam Joseph, C.S,C,, Ph.D.

Here are some people who received a liberal arts degree:

Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO, medieval history and philosophy, Stanford

Carl Ichahn, philosophy, Princeton

Ken Chenault, CEO, American Express, history, Bowdoin College

Michael Eisner, former Disney CEO, English, Denison University

Hank Paulson, former Treasure Secretary, English, Dartmouth

Gloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs, government, Harvard

Sheila Bair, FDIC Chair, philosophy, Univ. of Kansas

Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate in medicine, English, Amherst

George Soros, hedge fund manager, philosophy, London School of Economics

Ted Turner, CNN founder, classics, Brown University

Ann Mulcahy, former Xerox CEO, English, Marymount

Richard Anderson, CEO Delta Airlines, political science, Univ. of Houston

Brian Moynihan, CEO Bank of American, history. Brown

Alexander the Great received education in the liberal arts from Aristotle.

One of the greatest civil servants this country has ever produced, George F. Kennan, received a liberal arts degree from Princeton, as did Prof. Ralph C. Nash, Jr., one of the greatest experts and authors in government contracting.

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