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Recommendations for Improvement FY 16


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What would you like to see changed and how? List 1-3 things you would like to see improved and offer any suggestions on how to improve it.

1) Training - I'd like to see leaders spare nothing to equip their personnel (courses, literature, opportunity to implement and practice known truths, etc.).

2) Accountability - personnel changes are needed at all levels. I'd like to see, and am working on, buyer/reviewer scorecards at the operational and clearance approval levels. Essentially, these scorecards score how well or bad a package sent for review is, but can be used to evaluate a reviewer as well. The metrics will identify training needs, poor/good performers, and facilitate data based corrective actions.

3) Less opining - I'll continue to try and provide references to support my statements and ask others to prove theirs.

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Guest Vern Edwards

No. 1 is a forlorn hope..

No. 2 would be a complete waste of time.

As for No. 3, everyone can work to improve their own performance in that, good luck getting it from others.

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Vern:

I agree, in part, with 1 and 3. Care to a expound on #2?

I think firing or removing people from key positions is a sound strategy and the easiest way to do that is with documentation.

Any pragmatic recommendations of your own?

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Guest Vern Edwards

I don't believe in rating systems. They all become corrupted. People know who does good work and who doesn't. The only reason you need a rating system is to support a personnel decision that probably won't be sustained upon appeal. It just becomes something you have to work around.

No recommendations of my own. I have come to believe that we are in the hands of the fates. We cannot save ourselves. Only the fates can save us, and they probably won't. Work on yourself. Don't waste time on the system.

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1. Buy less more than last year (reduce the rate of increase in obligated contract dollars from year to year)

2. Buy no more than last year (hold the level of contract obligations from year to year)

3. Buy less than last year (reduce the obligated contract dollars from year to year)

Any one of the three suggestions listed above mitigate almost all problems in our acquisition system. If number 3 is repeated sufficiently, I may get to take my Social Security. I'm 39.

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Guest Vern Edwards

Buy less more. Buy no more. Buy less.

Ridiculous. The population grows. The economy grows. Demographics change. Government responds. International dynamics and obligations change and grow. Needs grow.

Could we be smarter about what, how much, and how we buy? Yes, but the idea that buying less more, buying no more, and buying less will "mitigate almost all problems in our acquisition system" is absurd. It makes me mad to read it. It suggests extraordinary ignorance about the problems with our acquisition system.

There are many things we could do if we could do them, but we can't. We lack the necessary political will and bureaucratic competence.

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Guest Vern Edwards

1. Read widely and deeply.

2. Develop first-rate critical thinking skills.

3. Work at becoming a skilled presenter, then make presentations whenever you can.

4. Work at becoming a skilled writer, then write for publication.

5. Read more widely and more deeply. Write well and often. Speak well to groups like NCMA.

6. Try to change job assignments every two to three years, if your circumstances will permit.

7. Keep in mind that every flaw in the system presents you with an opportunity to excel.

8. Work long and hard with the intention of becoming the best in your field.

If you succeed in doing those those things: you will greatly improve your ability to learn anything, you will learn a lot, you will become known in your field, and you will be a top-notch candidate for almost any job in the field of your choice.

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Vern, if a system is dysfunctional as you believe, it is ridiculous to push more money through it. For the record, I believe you have a superior understanding of that system (though I am no slouch), and I take you at your word no system-wide improvement is possible. This problem cannot be solved.

If a problem cannot be solved, mitigation or simple submission is all that remains. Smaller procurement budgets are and idiot-proof way to mitigate the Federal procurement system. If any alternative mitigation measures exist, I'm all ears.

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This thread has plenty of views but, little by the way of recommendations for improvement - recommendations for the individual being more valuable.

As paid thinkers, shouldn't we, collectively, have no shortage of ideas on how people can improve?

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As someone who has previously tried and failed to effect change at agencies I have been at, I am now a big fan of the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3). Not necessarily the details, but the concept of benchmarking, certification (training and external validation), and reassessment seems to be a sound and valid way to improve an organization. While the certification may or may not indicate success, the effort of training and developing indivdiuals is where I have found the value in this process (as a student and instructor).

My current position is the only one where I have pursued such a structured approach to changing an organization, but change management at the small agency level is what I am hoping to learn in my current position.

If an OPM3 approach were undertaken across the career field (without the myopia of the current DAU and FAC-C refresh) with focus on relevant specializations I think some solid proficiency could be developed in the career field. I do not profess to know enough to be knowledgeable about the best specializations to use, but it does seem like the old categories of negotiator, TCO, ACO and others could be a starting place. It may also help to avoid the hiring of folks that only have systems or R&D skills into leading an operational shop, or vice versa.

While there will always be some individuals that do not want to change, there is unprecedented opportunity in the number of folks that will be retiring (assuming their positions are backfilled).

As identified above, there are certain things you cannot fix (uncertainty of funding/legislature, brain drain, individuals leaving civil service for personal reasons), but systematic approach to developing talent with more specialization than the current Level I, II, or III may do the career field some good.

On a personal level I have nothing to add to Vern's suggestions, except maybe to take some introductory law classes or teach yourself in addition to the regular educational/professional development.

Regarding my teach yourself comment check out the examples and explanations book in a field and then the best treatise. That should give you a great foundation, assuming you keep up to date on new law and whether the seminal cases you look to are still good law (or dicta). In my experience law school is a lot of teaching yourself.

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Guest Vern Edwards
Vern, if a system is dysfunctional as you believe, it is ridiculous to push more money through it. For the record, I believe you have a superior understanding of that system (though I am no slouch), and I take you at your word no system-wide improvement is possible. This problem cannot be solved.

If a problem cannot be solved, mitigation or simple submission is all that remains. Smaller procurement budgets are and idiot-proof way to mitigate the Federal procurement system. If any alternative mitigation measures exist, I'm all ears.

apso:

According to my dictionary, dysfunctional means "not operating normally or properly." I did not use the word dysfunctional in this thread. The acquisition system works. It exists for the acquisition of supplies and services, and agencies use it to acquire supplies and services day in and day out, year in and year out. The problem is that the system does not work in accord with ideals that some people have for it. That's why they want to reform it -- to make it work in accord with their ideals.

Many, many attempts have been made to reform the system with that objective in mind. All have failed. They have failed because the system that must make such reforms of the acquisition system -- the polity of the United States of America -- is highly imperfect and does not itself perform in accord with everyone's ideals. In fact, not all members and institutions of the polity agree on those ideals, as the Republicans in Congress have now discovered.

In my opinion, the acquisition system will never work as the idealists would like it to, whatever their individual ideals. They will keep trying to reform it, though, because they are, well, idealists. Since I cannot control or even significantly influence the operation of the acquisition system, all I can do, and advocate that others do, is work on myself. I think that if we all do that, work on ourselves, with the goal of making ourselves the best that we can be at what we do, then I think we can make the system perform as best we can. I think that's enough.

Jamaal:

You asked: "houldn't we, collectively, have no shortage of ideas on how people can improve?" Sure. I just gave you mine: Improve yourself. If someone comes up and asks me today something like how they can improve source selection, I say:

"I have written many thousands of words about that over the years. Many thousands, and published them for all to read and judge and use as they see fit. On the whole, I have done not one damned bit of good. I have failed utterly to achieve anything. I no longer have the energy to advise people who walk up and ask me how to improve this or that. I have done my bit. I have sat up late and gotten up early to think about problems and come with with ideas for solutions, and I have tried to see if they work, and when they have I have tried to get others to try them, and some of them have. But the system is like a Bozo Bop Bag, you can tip it momentarily, but it ultimately returns to equilibrium stupidity. When people tell me that they have effected 'Change,' I just smile and nod, but I think, "Wait." The only thing I try to improve these days is me. I don't owe you or the system anything. Have a nice day."

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