Vern Edwards

Embrace it! For the ambitious, this is the opportunity of a career lifetime. Chances like this don't come often. Some book recommendations: The Essentials of AI for Beginners: A Step-By-Step Guide To Grasp AI Concepts, Stay Current With Future Trends, and Uncover Practical Applications (2024) (149 pp) by Caroline Hylands. Includes glossary and references. The AI Workshop The Complete Beginner's Guide To AI Prompts: An A-Z Guide To AI Prompt Engineering for Life, Work, and Business. No Coding Required.2025) (169 pp) by Milo Foster. Lastly, a very handy 6-page laminated reference sheet, ChatGPT Uses & Prompt, by Frank Blackwell (2024). All are. available at Amazon. The most useful thing I have learned thus far is to think in terms of having a conversation with AI, not just asking a question, one-and-done. More reading recommendations to come as I work through them.

👍 BTW, for all: What DOGE taught us about AI and federal workersNextgov.comWhat DOGE taught us about AI and federal workersCOMMENTARY | Mass layoffs have left thousands of federal workers unemployed and struggling to find their footing as AI accelerates disruption across the public sector.Also: When AI Forgets the Middle: A Hidden Risk for Proposal Ev...What Stanford research and David Timm's webinar tell us about why AI in source selection is harder than it looks ⏱️10–11 min read | 3 copyable AI prompts included I sat in on the Greg and Camille BaroAnd: Prompt Productivity: Using AI in Government Contract WorkExplore how government agencies are leveraging AI to boost efficiency in contracting processes, streamline workflows and redefine productivity in the public sector.And: The Transformative Power of AI in USG Procurementhttps://udayton.edu/law/government-contracting/articles/transforming-government-procurement-ai.php And:

@Voyager This thread isn't about mastery of negotiation. Why don't you start one? Why haven't you done it already? In the very first post in this thread I asked: I haven't seen one yet. My own ideas are to (1) develop a deep understanding and appreciation of AI, (2) keep up with developments, and (3) become skilled at using it effectively. I've already provided one book title. Here's another: The AI Prompt Playbook: Master AI Prompt Engineering with 140 Ready-to-Use Templates for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini & Copilot (2026), by James Caldwell. There's also the 2025-2026 GHATGPT Anthology by Ryan Lee, and a host of others. Well, good! So, how will you use AI to help you achieve mastery in negotiation? Have you thought about that? Any imaginative ideas? Survivors and victors use the tools available to them to adapt, improvise, and overcome when facing a challenge, and by all accounts, AI is a powerful tool. Have you bought the book I mentioned earlier in this thread? I asked AI: "Can you use AI to improve your negotiation skills?" Here is what it said: It referred me to the following Harvard University Law School Program on Negotiation daily blog link about how AI is Transforming Negotiation--"From Agent to Advisor: How AI Is Transforming Negotiation." PON - Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law SchoolFrom Agent to Advisor: How AI Is Transforming NegotiationAt the Program on Negotiation’s 2025 AI Negotiation Summit, negotiation and computer science experts from around the world described how AI tools can empower us to negotiate more effectively for ourseBut you knew about that, right? You came here to tell the rest of us. Right? Not just to complain about my fatalism. Right? See... If I were still working for the government I would be one of the 1102s who will live long and prosper. So would people like Don Mansfield and Matthew Fleharty and some others here. My fatalism is grounded in the realization that not everyone will be up to the challenge. Tell us about Harvard's program when you get a chance. Start a thread. Heck, start a business.

The story, "A Famous Math Problem Stumped Humans for 80 Years. AI Just Cracked It," was in the May 29 issue of the WSJ. According to the story: It is well-documented that it can take an agency a year or longer to award a simple contract, even without a bid protest.

AI is going to take over most of the daily work of GS-1102s, and it is becoming faster, more capable, and more reliable with each passing day. AI will even be able to negotiate. Statutes and regulations will be revised accordingly. The age in which people wrote essays about "the role of the contracting officer" ended at least a decade ago. Even before now, that "role" had become greatly diminished from what it was when I started out. The 1102 career-field is going to be radically changed within the next few years. Far fewer of them will be needed. Why pay humans to cut and paste? There will be fewer opportunities for advancement, and many executives will be very glad to have fewer pain-in-the-neck humans to train and manage. PALT and bid protests will be greatly reduced, along with agency personnel costs. The same will be true of all paperwork jobs. (Lawyers are very worried.) Faux "contracting officers'"will remain for a while to provide token human review and oversight, but only those who are masters and who figure out how to use AI effectively will survive and prosper, and even they may not for long. My work, too, will go away, and so will this website. It's too bad, because I had a lot of great fun doing, teaching, and writing about contracting. But Capitalism is all about creative destruction. It's always looking to eliminate workers. That's been one of the keys to its continued success. And the Silicon Valley capitalists are the most relentless strivers in history in that regard. They're even cutting workers in their own companies. Why hire human coders when AI can write great code? So for GS-1102s, while it's not dark yet, it's getting there. (Dylan). Faster than they may realize. I would not be shocked if this presidential administration were to issue an OMB directive or even an executive order to that effect before it leaves office. In fact, I will be astonished if they don't. If you doubt any of this, read Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI (2024), by Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. If you want to extend you time a while, learn to write good AI prompts. Lots of books out there about how to do that. Don Mansfield tried to convince me of all this several years ago while we were riding to Politics & Prose Bookstore in a D.C. taxi, but I wouldn't hear it. I am now convinced. It's a done deal. There will be no appeal. I nostalgically wish I were wrong, but I'm not.

@Motorcity What do you think people should do who are early-career or mid-career?

No. Not to comprehend in depth. Not only new 1102s, but many contracting officers, as well. Regulations (and government contracts based on them) are a species of legal writing that one must have proper education to properly interpret and fully understand. The government does not give its 1102s that kind of education. They must seek it on their own by reading books and cases. Even then, they may need the help of well-trained attorneys. But regulatory interpretation can be learned. See, e.g., Inside Regulatory Interpretation by Christopher J. Walker, attached. And see Administrative Law, 7th ed., by Funk and Seamon, 7B, Interpretation of Rules. Inside Regulatory Interpretation.pdf

Here is how the American Institute of Architects (AIA) describes the Guaranteed Maximum Price contract: Now, what else might we call that arrangement? Learn - ACD OperationsGuaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) Contracts: A Complete Guid...Everything you need to know about Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) contracts—how they work, owner and contractor risks, savings provisions, and relevant AIA documents.In the attached article from The Nash & Cibinic Report, published in 2018, I said: For centuries, contracting parties have fought over who must pay for what? What we call "contract types" are the products of those conflicts. CONTRACT TYPES There Are More Things In Heaven And Earth Judge Than Are Dreamt Of In The FAR.pdf

Don't give the RFO so much credit. The old FAR wasn't that restrictive. Contracting officers have long been able to come up with novel contractual arrangements. Think of the award fee incentive, which the Navy invented in 1962, long before it was expressly authorized in the ASPR. The Navy also invented the FPI(F) incentive arrangement. Think of the award fee contract with rollover. Think of the CPIF contract with negative fee. Think of the award term incentive. Think of task order contracts, which I used for R&D in an Air Force weapon system program office long before the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA). Almost all contract types other than FFP and CPFF were field experiments before they were officially recognized. Acquisition practitioners should study the history of their field. For a wide-ranging history of experiment and development in contract types and pricing during and after World War II see Miller, Pricing of Military Procurements, Yale University Press, 1949. (Out of print, but available in some university libraires and at the Library of Congress. I bought a used copy years ago.) If you really want to understand today's policies and the recent Executive Order, read Government War Contracts by J. Franklin Crowell, Oxford University Press (1920), about what happened during WWI. (Out of print, but available used at Amazon.com.) If all you know about government contract types is what you've read in FAR Part 16, then your education has been limited and underfed. The literature about them is massive. For those who would like to be in charge of policy one day, you gotta read more or you'll just produce more stupid policies. "Full and open" competition? One of the costliest policies ever imposed in terms of both lead time and litigation. And I have not seen any evidence that it reduces costs and improves quality.

Let me play devil's advocate: What can a CO really know about a contractor's experience and past performance other than what they personally witnessed? (Do COs get factual information about past performance or just expressions of opinion?) What can a CO really know about the reliability of third party reports and ratings? I'm just asking for purposes of discussion. I'm not arguing against policy.

Why "Ha Ha"? What did the naysayers say? This thread began as discussion of the recent E.O. calling for approval of any contract other than fixed-price. GSA can try all the methods of construction contracting it can think of, but they won't solve the problems of cost (and schedule) overruns on construction projects. Although that won't stop them from claiming success in that regard. Government construction contracting is both the most competitive kind of government contracting and the most litigious, and it always will be. The problems are inherent in the nature of the work and in the nature of the owner-designer-constructor relationships. Conflict and litigation or its threat are common in all construction project markets worldwide. There is a HUGE literature about it. There are no miracle cures. Anyway, "price" ⸺ as used in connection with government contracts other than those for simple purchase transactions ⸺ is a mythical conception.

GSA has been aware of the CMc (Construction Manager as Constructor) method, aka Construction Manager at Risk, since at least 1997, and they used it before they published "guidance" on its use in the GAS FAR Supplement. See the 105th Congress congressional hearing held in 1998. See: New Washington Convention Center : hearing before the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress, second session, July 15, 1998: The hearing is available at Google Books. Here is the GSA's testimony: 78.pdf

Discretion via rules and "flexibilities" (overhaul-speak) cannot improve the quality of acquisitions. Only the workforce can improve the quality of acquisitions. Discretion is only as effective as the persons exercising it.

I think anyone who cares about their future with (under?) AI should read Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, (2024) 224pp, including notes, by Professor Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has studied AI, used it in his classes, and is an enthusiast. He explains it, relates some of its history, describes how it works, and shows how it can be used. He focuses on practical applications. The book is short and not excessively technical. You don't have to be able to code. I think the book is essential reading for anyone who cares about their future at work. You might consider looking into Prof. Mollick's blog: One Useful Thing ⸺ https://www.oneusefulthing.org/ Look out for yourself.

I think the answer is yes, if not now, then in the near future. It takes intelligence (whatever that is) to do those things, and that's what AI is supposed to have. And it's fast. Computer... Prepare a statement of work and a solicitation for a firm-fixed-unit-price task order contract for commercial launch services to both near-Earth and synchronous, equatorial and polar orbits, for one year plus four one-year options and with a minimum quantity of five launches from either KSC or Vandenberg SFB. 🖖 AI would mean many fewer personnel management tasks. No one should kid themself, there are plenty of managers who would be happy to have fewer people to manage. But if intelligence is variable, and I think it is, then my question is whether there is a qualitative difference between human intelligence and machine intelligence. If so, which is best? What is an expert in the field of contracting? Why can't AI be expert? What can an expert do that other persons cannot? Think about that. There is an answer (for now). What percentage of today's non-trainee contracting workforce are experts? I'm not an advocate of AI, nor am I an opponent. I just don't want to be replaced. I've had fun doing and thinking about contracting. Then again, I'm old and don't need a job. So I can use the frees time to read and travel to exotic places and see amazing things. But what are the younger folks going to do? So my question still is: What must today's 1102s do to survive, succeed, and prosper in the age of AI contracting? What knowledge and skill must 1102s bring to the job that would make them indispensable? That is the most important career question of the moment. Or should they just look for other work while there is still time?

@CDS2 @formerfed Thanks. Now that we know what AI thinks, what do you think? 😏

Okay, so, some questions: What will the job of the GS-1102 be like in an AI world? Will 1102s use AI to help them do their jobs, or will AI use them? (Don't be hasty with that one.) Will there be any thinking left for 1102s to do? If so, what kind of thinking? If not, will 1102 be a job worth having? How much thinking, real thinking, are 1102s doing now? How much 1102 work is really just rote behavior ⸺rote responses to particular sets of facts rather than thinking? (Think about that one. Don't be hasty or angrily reactive. Don't be prideful.) How many bid protests and contract dispute cases could have been avoided by better thinking on the part of an 1102 called "contracting officer"? What is the surest sign that you are thinking? (That's not an easy question to answer. Heidegger asked that question and wrote an entire book to answer⸺What Is Called Thinking? What did Hannah Arendt say about thinking in The Life of the Mind?) Why is it that instructors providing "professional" training feel compelled to ask "Any questions?" only to get no responses? How much of the FAR exists (and will continue to exist after the RFO) because some 1102s have not thought well in the past? If you don't like to write (D&Fs, justifications, memoranda of various kinds⸺e.g., PNMs, statements of work, proposal preparation instructions⸺and prefer to cut-and-paste, is it because you don't like to think? It seems to me that those are important questions. Questions to think about. A lot. Deeply. And soon. How can you make yourself indispensable?

After reading today's Wall Street Journal and some other publications about the impact AI is having on white collar jobs, I have a question: Is there anything that a "procurement professional" (NCMA's beloved term) do that cannot be done faster and as well or better by AI? I've been experimenting, and the news is not good. The news is grim. How to live long and prosper. Any ideas?

Possibly. But the answer depends on the procedural details. The process you described in your opening post strikes me as peculiar, but if fully explained in greater and accurate detail, and if clearly described in the RFP, it might make perfect sense and be okay. I say let them try it and see what happens. Maybe nothing. Just make sure they can't blame you for an unhappy outcome

It makes more sense to me. The correlation analysis thing makes no sense to me. It comes across as somebody trying to be "innovative".

Well, I don't really understand the procedure. It seems needlessly complicated. Why not just say that you're going to make multiple awards based on the number of "apporaches" proposed and let it go at that. (I assume that the proposed "approaches" are fully specified offers and that they will be incorporated into the respective statements of work upon acceptance.) Just treat each award as a separate source selection decision. I don't understand the application of correlation analysis in this procurement. Correlation of what to what? Is it a price realism thing? If your team errs in its application or execution of the technique it might end badly. But, again, I don't really understand what you're planning to do, so don't pay attention to me.

@FrankJon Two questions: What do you mean by "approach"? What is an "approach"? Is it a process, procedure, or method? What do you mean by "correlation analysis"? I know what it means in statistics, but I'm not sure what procedure you are talking about. What "correlation"? What is your definition of "best value range"? How is it different from competitive range?

If all you know about contracting is what the FAR says, then you are poorly informed. Contract formation by purchase order acceptance is simple. The Government issues a purchase order, which is an offer. A contract is formed by acceptance of the offer i the manner specified or by performance In court, any "manifestation of assent" to the offer creates a binding contract. If the offer requires acceptance in a specific way, then acceptance must be made in that way. See Restatement of the Law, Contracts 2d.,§ 50 Acceptance of Offer Defined; Acceptance by Performance; Acceptance by Promise. Attached. See also, §32. Invitation of Promise or Performance. All the FAR is doing is telling COs, in its typical half-baked (I'm being nice) way, is that they can require a written acceptance or entertain acceptance by performance. There are more than 200 BCA decisions dealing with acceptance of purchase orders. See, for example, the attached. APPEALS OF -- TTF LLC.pdf 50 Acceptance of Offer Defined Acceptance by Performance Acceptance by Promise.pdf

I don't like the idea of making award to all qualifying offerors, unless you know you will have enough work to make it worth their while. Just having a government contract can be a burden to a business. Otherwise, that kind of approach qualifies as "typical" government employee thinking.

I say that if they (1) sent you a letter saying that they "formally accept the PO" and that "performance has been initiated", and if (2) they took no exceptions to the P.O. or set no conditions contrary to the terms of the P.O., and if (3) the letter was signed by their authorized agent, then they accepted your offer (the purchase order) and are bound. If you want more guidance see Formation of Government Contracts, 4th ed., by Nash et al., pp. 241 - 256.