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"Functional Independence" of Contracts


Jenius

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All- I desperately need help in amassing some data that I believe exists out there, but prior to my time. I am working as director of policy for a contracting shop whose commanding officer recently decided that it made no sense to keep the contracting office functionally aligned but rather that it should be mission aligned, and proceeded with effecting just such a reorganization with very little notice to the contracting shop. Despite being pointed towards the Wynn "functional independence" memorandum of August 27, 2008 ( and similar language in DODI 5000.66), the commanding officer has pressed forward with this reorganization using the rationale that utilizing the CCO chain for "policy and evaluations" of 1102 personnel without being the direct supervisor or resource manager of the personnel constitutes "functional independence," and the intent of the Wynn memo is therefore met.

My personal understanding of the intent of the Wynn memorandum is that placed and 1102/1105 under the control of a non-1102/1105 (with the exception of the CCO) for all hope of promotion, personnel recognition, or even whether a particular office or piece of equipment is merited for performance of the job, inserts a "separation of functions" risk into the process that has previously been determined to be an unacceptable level of risk (hence the issuance of the memorandum). I suspect that the thought process is that following the prescribed processes in the regulations, which are often counterintuitive to "normal" (or personal) procurements, is suddenly much less attractive to 1102s and/or 1105s when the person controlling their next promotion is the person requesting or requiring the product/service.

I *believe* that there was a point in history (prior to my own entry into the acquisition workforce in 1996) where contracting personnel were not functionally aligned and that something caused this to be revised DoD-wide. The reason I believe this is that I have heard more than one person speaking of this "event" from two separate commands and even agencies. Are there any readers out there who can provide me with some history on this "event?"

Alternative to that, I'm looking for stronger ammunition than the "Wynn" memorandum to fly up the chain. I have already notified the LCE and the HCA in question, but believe that there is a great deal of dithering presently going on due to various political issues. (i.e. nobody wants to tell a flag officer that this is not a good idea). To be honest, I really don't have a problem telling a flag officer that this is not a good idea (and that specific flag officer will actually be conducting a site visit to our organization in two days), but I feel like I need to present something more concrete than just my "hunches" or my own interpretations of the Wynn memo- particularly when others have clearly already interpreted the Wynn memorandum differently.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Guest Vern Edwards

The Wynn memo of November 23, 2004, says, in pertinent part:

To retain a degree of independence that allows unbiased advice based on the principles of sound business, contracting officers' evaluations will be performed within their own career program channels. The only exception will be the performance evaluation of the senior official in charge of contracting for the organization, such as the head of the contracting office. However, this exception is not appropriate when the senior official in charge of contracting is the primary contracting officer for the contracts executed within that office. Such a performance evaluation process is not inconsistent with providing support to program managers and others in the requiring community. It should be routine practice to seek input from program managers when evaluating contracting personnel.

DOD Instruction 5000.66, dated December 21, 2005, says:

5.3.12. Ensure that at least first-level evaluations of contracting officers are performed within the contracting career chain. The only exception will be the performance evaluation of the senior official in charge of contracting for the organization, when this official is not the primary contracting officer for the organization.

I think your commander can switch to mission alignment without violating those policies, as long as the first line supervisor is a military or civilian contracting type. I'm on your commanding officer's side.

When I started in contracting in the early 1970s, COs worked for, were evaluated by, and were collocated with the program manager. Their work products were subject to review and approval by the contracting ?staff? and the staff judge advocate. Then in the late 1970s the Air Force switched to matrix management, in which the COs reported to the contracting staff, but supported various program offices. My recollection was that the change was prompted by the need to make more efficient use of human resources, not to establish functional independence. My recollection may be wrong, but I don?t remember any talk of functional independence as the reason for the change.

Having worked in both systems, I preferred working for the program manager. I was never pressured to do anything improper or illegal. My recollection of the time was that most COs felt that the contracting staff and the JAG were greater threats to their independence than the program manager.

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Interesting that this discussion has started now. Just last week the GAO issued a decision in a bid protest where the protestor alleged that it had not been notified of the recompete, even though it was the incumbent. The GAO found that there was nothing unusual about that, stating "we also find it unremarkable that the VA program staff were unaware that the RFP had been issued, as contracting actions are not generally undertaken by the program office, but by the agency's contracting office."

Are the program and contract functions really so independent of each other that there is nothing remarkable about the program staff having no clue that a recompete was ongoing, and the contractor was about to be replaced? Or is the GAO just winging it?

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This is getting way off topic but I don't see GAO is inferring what you said. Rather GAO likely meant it's not unusual for a program office to not know when an RFP actually gets issued. The protest is for a very routine commodity that VA contracts for - home health care services and the contracts office, not the program office, prepares and issues the RFP.

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I don't know, maybe I'm blowing it all out of proportion. It's very hard to tell since I've spent the last eight months working 10-12 hour days, weekends and holidays (on my own time as well)- and am frankly ready to throw in the towel. This organization is on the cusp of losing it's procurement authority, and I've spent all of that time laying plans, attempting to train and implementing policies that should resolve the issues- and frankly, not only resolve them, but actually turn them clear around. So under the circumstances I'm likely to see any realignment that I didn't personally suggest as a complete travesty.

I was purposefully being vague earlier since I didn't want to reveal the actual location since I thought the situation was really "wrong." But the reality is that it's probably a misnomer to state that the realignment is concurrent with a mission (seeing as how contracting is actually a specific mission in this organization (in and of itself)), but rather the realignment is regional. This particular procurement shop is spread across seven different countries, and does hardly anything but SAP work- and is, in fact, one that Vern is likely quite familiar with having visited it several times when he was well acquainted with a prior director of acquisition. And frankly, the organization appears to have been on a steady downhill slide since that person left- until it reached the pit of noncompliance that I appear to have walked into. The pressure is on the personnel in these locations to skip almost every appropriate procurement process and just "do it." In fact, that's why we're on the cusp of losing our procurement authority, because people have been just "doing it." Sole sourcing to whomever without any documentation, awarding contracts without any documentation, awarding contracts in some cases months after the services were performed, and I could go on and on.

The reality is that this realignment has removed every single training resource I had at my hands (zero budget now), and it has removed all accountability for any sort of compliance to the CCO. As such, the people who I have so desperately been trying to get to do things properly now are directly accountable to regional coordinators who just want to "get it done"- in fact, since the realignment has taken place I have already encountered several instances of the new supervisors explicitly directing procurement personnel to disregard the rules that we have previously been written up for. And I strongly believe that in our next review we will lose our procurement authority- because the only thing that was working in holding people to the "rules" was a strong accountability chain. The reorg has essentially eliminated that. So essentially the last eight months of my life were just wasted. A prepaid vacation of $2K that I gave up and spent working procurement issues, my annual leave for the entire past year, all of it- gone. So I guess I'm prone to feeling overly sensitive about this particular situation- I was only doing it to try and "fix" the problems. I wasn't looking for promotions, or even accolades. But I wasn't looking to have the rug pulled out from under me entirely in the middle of a turnaround. We can't even get supplies (as in paper) approved for our own purchase because the regional director in this location's case is focused on his mission and really wants nothing to do with contracts.

I realize that one of my many weaknesses is failing to recognize the validity of other people's opinions when they differ from my own, and I've been working to remedy that. I can see that mission alignment of contracting personnel (in lieu of functional alignment) could be productive assuming that the mission personnel were relatively sophisticated in procurement processes and didn't actively encourage contracting personnel to disregard the rules or, maybe even worse, just ignore them and hope they'll go away. Another weakness is working too much and taking things far too seriously. It's funny because I specifically took this job in a concerted effort to work much less than I had been- and yet I find myself once again in a frenzy of work hoping that I can make a difference- however small it may be.

When I left DAU I thought I had made a difference, but now I feel like so much of what I had worked for has been undone. Though I will personally take credit for two things which I believe will have a profound impact in the future- which is talking Don into coming to work at DAU and insisting that he be made the CON 090 course manager.

Okay, I'm done whining now. I'm just feeling really discouraged over everything right now and had hoped for some wifcon- "hey, here's some citations where you can point out that this is wrong" support in lieu of the "hey, your CO is dead on with this reorg" replies. But I will adjust my expectations accordingly and figure out my next move. (Which may well be out of the government... ugh.)

Thanks for the help and opinions. And in case you're wondering I'm also well aware that another weakness of mine is too much verbosity as well as trickling out additional information when I don't get the opinion I like to hear. I think all three times I've posted a question on here Vern has blasted me for doing that, so I apologize for that- and please feel free to blast me a fourth time for the same mistake. :o

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Guest Vern Edwards

It is very hard if not impossible for a single person who is not in charge to turn an organization around, and you shouldn't burn yourself out trying to do so. You are a valuable government resource. If possible, you should leave and find a place where they will appreciate you and where you can get some personal satisfaction.

Contracting is going through dark times now, due primarily to poor or nonexistent leadership by bland managers who lack idealistic vision, fire, and charisma. (Where is Gordon Rule now that we really need him?) Competence within the contracting community is at its nadir. Our hope lies in the young, whom we must not allow to be ruined by the people now in charge. We must make them hungry for professional knowledge and fire them up with professional idealism. We must get them to take the long view, past the current work on their desks and the boundaries of their cubicles, so that they won't be left with little or nothing to be excited about once they realize that what once seemed so interesting and important is actually routine and mundane.

Contracting is important work and it is important to do it well. That is what we must teach the newbies, that and how to know good work when they see it.

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Jenius,

It sounds like you face an uphill battle with no signs of winning. I know nothing about your organization other than what you wrote in the two posts above but I would really be surprised if your position as head of policy can make a large enough impact to bring about change. It sounds as if it is largely disfunctional and if so, alot of people supporting change and a common sense of direction are required to turns things around around. If it's as bad as you say, all you will get is extreme frustrated.

I would do as Vern suggests and find someplace where you are appreciated.

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Okay- I'm feeling much better now (after a good night's sleep). I'm not really as pathetic as I sounded earlier- just maybe half as pathetic. :P

In any case, I am appreciated by my immediate management and by the HCA as well- so it's just an awkward situation where the "middle" management, who happen to be the ones that control resources, are not as appreciative. I think it's because they just don't know very much about contracts and are under the impression that it's largely a paper pushing job of little to no complexity or value. In their defense, that's what it has turned into in this organization- which is exactly why we're on the cusp of losing our procurement authority. But just because a function isn't working properly doesn't mean the entire function is worthless, and "fixing" the function without knowing anything about it by a reorganization that splinters the organization into smaller segments and moves them under direct control of mid-level officers who also don't know anything about procurement isn't really a prudent move. (At least not in my opinion).

I think I must have an addictive personality and what I'm addicted to is work and "fixing" things, so this organization is like a siren song for me- I keep thinking that if I can just get this policy in place, or give that training, or hire that person then things will magically get better. Of course things have gotten substantially better, and the work I have soaked into this organization has been working. But I think I need Steve (the interventionist from the show Intervention) to come stage an intervention on my behalf so I don't drive myself crazy trying to make a difference. :o

Thanks for the words of encouragement- they are helpful. For the moment anyway I'm going to keep on plugging away (with perhaps less personal time dedicated to the effort) and hope that I can continue to keep things moving in the right direction.

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Okay, a couple suggestions for you to consider. First, make sure your senior management and HCA share your vision and ensure they openly provide support for it frequently. Second, be patient and don't expect significant changes to happen for quite some time. You need to win people over slowly with your ideas. I think the numbers I read from studies are that organizational change requires about 40% of the people believing and supporting your ideas. A second 30% are indifferent and will go with the flow and the remaining 30% either are against your ideas and just want the status quo.

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