18 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

@KeithB18 I don't know you mean by that. Please explain.

Are you saying that qualitative value judgments cannot be described with numbers?

The definition of "qualitative" via google is "relating to, measuring, or measured by the quality of something rather than its quantity." You can assign a number to quality, but I think the assigned number is, at least in part, an expression of the assigner's values.

On 12/31/2025 at 1:07 PM, Vern Edwards said:

@Motorcity I hope that's not true. Because if it is, it doesn't say good things about "contracting personnel".

Expediting contractor selection and contract formation processes can lead to this:

https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423785

Protest sustained. December 18, 2025. Merry Christmas! 🎄

What happened? The agency didn't understand the legal meaning of a key sentence in its own solicitation.

Look, Motorcity--AI is coming, whether we want it or not. Don Mansfield convinced me of that years ago. Used by the right people in the right way it may provide benefits. Probably will. But that remains to be seen, and we won't know for years, either the good or the bad.

I hope the incompetent know they are incompetent, but don't expect AI to be the cure for what ails them. I hope they work to fix themselves. They can do it if they try.

See, AI isn't coming. It is already here and folks should accept it and learn to let AI work for us, rather than having us work for AI.

21 hours ago, KeithB18 said:

To delegate decision making to AI is a further dereliction of duty.

48 minutes ago, KeithB18 said:

The definition of "qualitative" via google is "relating to, measuring, or measured by the quality of something rather than its quantity." You can assign a number to quality, but I think the assigned number is, at least in part, an expression of the assigner's values.

I think you have it right. One of Vern's favorites, Decision Analysis for Management Judgment (Fifth Edition), states the following on page 4:

While we should not expect decision analysis to produce an optimal solution to a problem, the results of an analysis can be regarded as being 'conditionally prescriptive.' By this we mean that the analysis will show the decision maker what he or she should do, given the judgments which have been elicited from him or her during the course of the analysis. The basic assumption is that of rationality.

My takeaway is that, while AI can certainly help to elucidate our decision making processes in ways with which humans struggle, to protect the integrity of the process the value inputs and final decision must be human-determined.

19 hours ago, KeithB18 said:

Like, is there any other decision making context, in the entirety of human experience, that works like Federal procurement decisions do?

I'm curious to know what you mean by this. Boiled down to its essence, I'm struggling to think of anything that makes a Federal contracting source selection decision unique from any other decision involving tradeoffs.

21 hours ago, KeithB18 said:

* To delegate decision making to AI is a further dereliction of duty.

I agree, but I think more people will rely on various AI tools to help offer options or various pathways and strategies to get to a decision.

42 minutes ago, FrankJon said:

I'm curious to know what you mean by this. Boiled down to its essence, I'm struggling to think of anything that makes a Federal contracting source selection decision unique from any other decision involving tradeoffs.

When you bought your house (most people's largest purchase) did you:

• Set evaluation criteria that could not change?

• Ask for a written proposal from each house for sale without, potentially, even stepping inside the house yourself?

• Have 3, 5, 7, or more extended family members review each house against the evaluation criteria and make a recommendation to you, as the selection authority?

• Document the reasons you made your decisions and the tradeoffs you made?

(As an aside, when my wife and I started looking for our home, we thought we wanted three bedrooms and a basement. We bought a home with two bedrooms and no basement. We chose this house because it was very close to metro and a grocery store. Our initial evaluation criteria were incorrect! Happens all the time--people are not always very good at knowing what is important to them.)

What about when you picked your spouse? Did you write down the tradeoffs you made? (I hope not!)

Do you shop around to get a better deal on your dry-cleaning or just go to the most convenient one? I would posit that there are very few commercial, daily transactions where we make more than the most basic tradeoffs. Often they are only implicit: "I don't want to pay that price for that can of green beans."

So while it is superficially true that tradeoffs are made at the individual and government levels, the form those tradeoffs take is so significantly different that it constitutes a completely different thing.

1 hour ago, Motorcity said:

See, AI isn't coming. It is already here and folks should accept it and learn to let AI work for us, rather than having us work for AI.

^This. I agree that we should expect more from the 1102 profession (and I'd argue that we should have been doing so for the past 15 years at least). There is an obvious need (that isn't really new) to add to Vern's description of how we should be setting expectations and hiring/developing our 1102 workforce: acquisition applications & tools technical knowledge and capability (including but not limited to using AI-based tools, agentic AI for rote tasks, or AI as an assistant, etc.). It's not enough to be an expert in federal acquisition. If we use the bank teller analogy described earlier, now is the time to consider the evolving roles of the practitioner and hiring manager, leaning in to the increased sophistication required to be effective. I've seen so many acquisition systems/application projects fail because those leading the charge for modernization don't understand the basics of the system they are trying to build or change, and the practitioners who DO are not brought in to inform how that system is developed or updated. Well-meaning IT experts brought in to make the changes don't know any better (they usually aren't acq-savvy) and end up building based on theoretical concepts that don't translate well to operations. This creates a lot of waste with mediocre (and sometimes systematically detrimental) results. The missing link is technical (IT) proficiency in the acquisition career field. I'm not talking coders and architects; I'm thinking more along the lines of folks who have a basic understanding of ITIL and are fluent enough to effectively describe their needs to those who work their magic in IT. Those who also understand the tools already available enough to effectively leverage them for acquisition purposes (think: the entire MS Suite of tools). I think those big failed projects are too often blamed for the shortcomings of the workforce, and that blame is sorely misplaced (linking back to Vern's spoon-feeding comment). Pre-AI I've seen enough "workslop" from folks who have been over-promoted and are very skilled in giving the appearance they know what they are doing; so this concept is nothing new. We need to raise our standards. AI will just be another (leatherman) tool in our toolbox.

@KeithB18 in your earlier post you stated:

21 hours ago, KeithB18 said:

I'm trying to understand what's really going on when procurement decisions are made, and adjust accordingly. Like, is there any other decision making context, in the entirety of human experience, that works like Federal procurement decisions do?

This sounds like you're questioning the decision process itself. But apparently you were referring to things like:

19 minutes ago, KeithB18 said:

• Set evaluation criteria that could not change?

• Ask for a written proposal from each house for sale without, potentially, even stepping inside the house yourself?

• Have 3, 5, 7, or more extended family members review each house against the evaluation criteria and make a recommendation to you, as the selection authority?

• Document the reasons you made your decisions and the tradeoffs you made?

With the exception of Bullet 1, I have a hard time seeing how these impact the decision in ways that are unique.

• Bullet 1: Yes, the decision criteria are less malleable than what we find in pretty much any other life decision, but it's not true that they can't change. We would simply need to resolicit.

• Bullet 2: This isn't referring to a rule or custom. Agencies base decisions on the wrong information all the time just as private companies and individuals do.

• Bullet 3: Is this so different than telling family and friends what you value and asking for their input on a decision?

• Bullet 4: Purely an administrative requirement.

35 minutes ago, KeithB18 said:

So while it is superficially true that tradeoffs are made at the individual and government levels, the form those tradeoffs take is so significantly different that it constitutes a completely different thing.

It seems like you're really comparing the rigor applied to a Government source selection decision vs. that applied to other decisions. To that, I'll refer back to Decision Analysis, which advises that for important decisions, we ought to be applying greater rigor than most of us actually do. Instead, most of us utilize heuristics that don't always serve us well.

1 hour ago, FrankJon said:

Boiled down to its essence, I'm struggling to think of anything that makes a Federal contracting source selection decision unique from any other decision involving tradeoffs.

I struggle as well.

@KeithB18 I wonder with some very simple examples -

Where in the Federal procurement rules does it state that evaluation criteria can not change prior to final source selection?

House, maybe not during final evaluation but I have got to think that during what I will term market research. Would it be foolish to consider real estate listings to be similiar to GSA FSS ergo a purchase from an established listing of possiblities? Recent experience with one of my children and his wife as first time home purchasers, I did not step into any of the possibilities but they were shared via emails and I voiced thoughts.

Documentation maybe not as a formaility all the time but a mental exercise of the same decision processes. And by my own personal experience there might be the use of the old trick of a pros and cons list. Something I have used several times throughout my lifetime.

Legislated socio-economic demands are what sends Federal procurement down its unique path.

5 hours ago, KeithB18 said:

You can assign a number to quality, but I think the assigned number is, at least in part, an expression of the assigner's values.

What else would it be? Are you suggesting that value is an objective measure, probably true?

@Motorcity

5 hours ago, Motorcity said:

See, AI isn't coming. It is already here and folks should accept it and learn to let AI work for us, rather than having us work for AI.

By "accept" do you mean we should uncritically take whatever AI gives us?

4 hours ago, FrankJon said:

I think you have it right. One of Vern's favorites, Decision Analysis for Management Judgment (Fifth Edition), states the following on page 4...

@FrankJon My man!!!

Someone has actually looked at a book I recommended. My professional life is not absurd, a la Sisyphus!

Seriously, Thank you! 

3 hours ago, MediocreOG said:

AI will just be another (leatherman) tool in our toolbox.

I hate the phrase "tool in our toolbox." It's acquisition Madison Avenue𑁋something out of Contract Management magazine.

The most important tool in any human's "toolbox" is their mind. It's the tool we must hone, master, and learn to use effectively.

1 minute ago, Vern Edwards said:

What else would it be? Are you suggesting that value is an objective measure, demonstrable by proof?

What I'm trying to say is that there is a false expectation that the output of our evaluation and selection process is an objectively correct answer. We can change our processes in ways that make it more likely we've selected a correct answer (there could be many), and I've exchanged posts with you on ways I think we should do that--capabilities based assessments; oral presentations preferred to written responses, much of which I learned from reading your writings. But it won't get close unless we continually interrogate it, and also I don't think anyone here is suggesting otherwise. Maybe this isn't much of a radical position. I would say, however, I have recent experience that suggests some decision makers rely on the process as a way to avoid criticism and discretion.

To tie it back to the original subject of this thread--relying on process without being intensely critical of the process itself is similar relying on AI.

As an aside: Attaching a picture I took moments ago of decision books recommended by Vern. Can't say I've read either cover to cover, but I have referred to them over the years. To some extent we are all Camus' Sisyphus perpetually rolling the boulder up a hill.

Here

1 minute ago, KeithB18 said:

What I'm trying to say is that there is a false expectation that the output of our evaluation and selection process is an objectively correct answer. We can change our processes in ways that make it more likely we've selected a correct answer (there could be many), and I've exchanged posts with you on ways I think we should do that--capabilities based assessments; oral presentations preferred to written responses, much of which I learned from reading your writings. But it won't get close unless we continually interrogate it, and also I don't think anyone here is suggesting otherwise. Maybe this isn't much of a radical position. I would say, however, I have recent experience that suggests some decision makers rely on the process as a way to avoid criticism and discretion.

To tie it back to the original subject of this thread--relying on process without being intensely critical of the process itself is similar relying on AI.

As an aside: Attaching a picture I took moments ago of decision books recommended by Vern. Can't say I've read either cover to cover, but I have referred to them over the years. To some extent we are all Camus' Sisyphus perpetually rolling the boulder up a hill.

Here's the picture, anyhow.

33 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

@FrankJon My man!!!

Someone has actually looked at a book I recommended. My professional life is not absurd, a la Sisyphus!

Seriously, Thank you! 

Haha....Merry Christmas??

Just now, KeithB18 said:

As an aside: Attaching a picture I took moments ago of decision books recommended by Vern. Can't say I've read either cover to cover, but I have referred to them over the years.

Thank you for that, Keith! You and FrankJon have given my new year a happy start. Now, if only I can survive being 80.

5 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

I hate the phrase "tool in our toolbox." It's acquisition Madison Avenue𑁋something out of Contract Management magazine.

The most important tool in any human's "toolbox" is their mind. It's the tool we must hone, master, and learn to use effectively.

@Vern Edwards Touché. It’s not the first time I’ve used corny catch-phrases and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I found my way to using that one because I was surrounded by folks who evangelized one PIL method or another as though the PIL is a panacea for all contracting ills. I was helping the program team understand that there are many paths to a solution. You are correct, as usual, sir …and you help make my point that tools will come and go, but the true resource is the human.

I came back here to drop a quick link to a short and relevant read: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-ai-without-losing-critical-thinking-leading-physicist-2025-12