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formerfed

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  1. If your market research confirms this, you have two options. One is an open market procurement and the other is GSA with acquiring the nonschedule contract actions from the Schedule contractor while complying with FAR 5 and 6. What often happens with IT is the Schedule contractor proposes some component not on their contract but is available from other sources. Some software utility or communications app is a simple example. If the Schedule contractor is willing to incorporate the government acquiring that piece instead, you might be doing another procurement action which is open to any offeror.
  2. You can do that. But as Carl posted, FAR 12 is a better fit. Market research is important in planning. Besides helping to decide the approach and method, it highlights parts of the overall solution not on Schedule which are severable components like chairs in your example. Or shows that chairs are an integral piece that can’t be acquired separately. This kind of information leads to deciding how you comply FAR parts 5 and 6 if needed. A lot depends upon the overall dollar value and complexity of the procurement and the relative proportion of the open market items. If you don’t like using GSA, don’t. But you face dealing with perhaps a huge number of potential offerors of probably unknown quality as opposed to just picking three on GSA which you should have already reviewed.
  3. Agree with Don. I also know of nothing along those lines. The only reasonable argument for not sharing that I’ve heard is when the QASP contains details of how the government selects samples from large production lots for testing. Some feel that the contractor might game the testing if they are aware of the governments detailed process to pick samples. From what I’ve read and seen, sharing the QASP is an encouraged practice.
  4. I agree. But there are reasons (the necessity is debatable) many agencies funded in whole or in part by user fees do that. One is they are required to do annual fiscal reporting. Avoiding a large surplus on the books is important to them. Second it forces program offices to spend so senior management has a better financial picture of what’s going on. Third, it shows Congress and oversight groups that revenue at existing fee structures is needed. Otherwise user fees can be reduced.
  5. So true. I’ll add that knowledge of the budget process, financial commitments, obligations, and apportionments is also important. Someone doesn’t have to be an expert but you need to know enough to understand the basics.
  6. Great explanation. Something people here need to study and remember.
  7. Carl, I don’t think the FAR needs to say more about the area. Right now 26.201 just says: The emergency area is what’s included in the Presidential and DHS declaration. It varies with each declaration. The definition of US doesn’t add anything.
  8. Thanks Bob. This is a well laid out explanation and logical decision. I assumed the Space X case exempted follow on production contracts from the Courts purview but this overrules that thinking.
  9. It’s because GSA has their own rules. They have FAR deviations for software terms https://www.acquisition.gov/gsam/part-552#GSAM_552_212_4
  10. Contracting should involve assisting agencies and their program offices in successful mission accomplishment. That involves two things - contracting people knowing the mission and program offices they support and collaborating with program offices so they see contracting as a partner. It takes a long time for that to happen and especially the latter. That can’t be done well working remotely. Some of my learning came through being mentored in my first three years. My intern experience in the first couple years was truely amazing. I supported a senior contract specialist (my mentor) and his boss through handling a number of claims, disputes that went to the ASBCA where I was called as a witness, responding to a GAO audit on defective pricing and negotiating settlement with the contractor, and handling a contractors request for relief under PL 86-804, Amendment without Consideration, with the contractor being essential to the national defense. While I was just beginning in this field and tried to absorb knowledge like a sponge, these experiences and all the details became embedded in my memory even now. Otherwise I believe the job can and probably needs to be learned remotely. That’s the future regardless of what job we have.
  11. @Vern Edwards Vern, I think an objective answer should not be based from people like Carl, Joel, me or yourself. Collectively there’s probably close to 200 years of experience there but probably lots of biases based upon what worked historically. I hate to admit it but I am old. Students today learn differently. The college experience is much different. Some classes aren’t even taught in a big lecture hall but the professor presents remotely. Interaction with professors is done using texts or PMs. So graduates are used to this mode.
  12. True. I jumped ahead to the likelihood of the government deciding to acquire the license
  13. The majority of students learned what was expected. They did well. But a small proportion (maybe 10-15%) found ways to “cheat” - sign in to online sessions but didn’t stay around during lectures, copied exercise responses from online sources and submitted as their own work, or had coworkers complete exams for them. Those same people conveniently found reasons for not participating in team assignments. Usually the excuses were technical like they couldn’t log on
  14. Yes. I taught classes remotely during Covid and it worked reasonably well. The material was divided between online lectures, reading, exercises, and student team activities. The course graphic developers were very skilled and did a remarkable with material presentation. The lectures, discussions, and team exercises were done using virtual tools like Zoom, Teams, Adobe Connect, etc. As far as actual remote working, I think it takes a special combination of individual traits to be successful. Many agencies now literally are working virtually. Even if an 1102 is in the office, most likely the people they interface with like program personnel, budget, finance, legal, technical, etc. are working remotely to vary degrees.
  15. What’s described in the initial post is a common practice in the industry. Government agencies typically deal with the competition issue in one of two ways. The most common is preparing the justification and synopsizing after the no cost trial but before the purchase. The less frequent approach is synopsizing upfront the agencies intent to enter into a no cost trial with the potential of ultimate purchase.
  16. Page 24 of the SEWP FAQs tells you synopsis is not required. The FAR 5.202(a)(6) exception ji20874 mentioned above applies https://www.sewp.nasa.gov/documents/SEWP_FAQs.pdf
  17. I’m pessimistic about simplification. Things often start out simple but don’t stay that way from long. Examples include commercial item buying, simplified acquisition, multiple award IDIQ contracts, P Card, OTA, conducting discussions, just to name a few. Vern already mentioned several of these. Even the FAR wasn’t that complicated when it was issued 40 years ago. But that couldn’t be left alone. The DFARS is huge in size. Then there are command policies and procedures. Finally there are individual buying offices, instructions, SOPs, and directives. Civilian agencies aren’t much better. One big problem is management at all levels wants to control. It wants uniformity and often believes more directive is needed than high level regulations. In their defense, many 1102s need that kind of step-by-step instructions. Plus, Congress and each Administration can’t keep their hands off the process. They just mess things up more. One prime example is the widespread push for Low Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) awards. It took years to reverse the momentum of forcing LPTA where it doesn’t fit. In my ideal world, contracting regulations are high level citing general principles. Contracting officers are given wide latitude to achieve those goals. They are rewarded for success. Those that don’t work out are reassigned or dismissed.
  18. Yes. I knew that but didn’t think about until I saw your post, Vern. What surprised me is the huge amount of information on CISA’s site. The agency was only formed five years ago. But trying to understand cyber and security processes, procedures, policies and overall guidance is challenging not just from CISA but overall in the government.
  19. I got curious and searched “cyber” on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) site. I got 23,000 hits. The word is also mentioned a lot as cybersecurity, cyber threats, and cyber incidents in the implementing guidance for the Federal information Management Security Act (FIMSA) and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). Both those heavily impact the acquisition process. In fact an agency cannot acquire cloud resources without an Authorization to Proceed (ATO) from GSA.
  20. I’m certainly no cyber expert but I’ve been around a lot of system development. I think the FAR coverage is due to senior officials and politician's thinking the government needs to tell contractors what to do. Those same believe the government knows how to take care of itself. Cyber is covered in lots of memorandums, operating procedures, and agency policy. But a lot changed and It because a hot issue with all the Russia and Chinese hackers accessing government systems including domestic hackers stealing data. But not much of the direction makes it into CFR.
  21. I’m skeptical about this and wonder about an ulterior motive. Ryan Connell left this organization and was very involved and influential.. He left that organization and went to the Digital and Artificial Office in charge of acquisitions. Between what’s he done there and the huge success of Tradewinds, I think someone at DoD wants to rein the CDAO in and have them accountable to DPCAP - that’s the “I” part of the new API directorate. Maybe I’m wrong but it sure looks suspicious.
  22. Yes. Picking up on Don’s point, you often don’t know when open market items are involved or specifically which ones are until you get close to order award. So you comply with FAR 5 after quote evaluation and prior to issuing the orders.
  23. Really nothing new in this thread was introduced from the previous 10 year old thread. There’s no conclusive answer. I assume if a conflict existed, the FAR would recognize it and state what’s proper (of course, that’s assuming the FAR committee is aware of it).
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