Smack-down of Forestry Service over claim an unduly restrictive specification was reasonable for its needs

This GAO decision is Matter of: Global SuperTanker Services, LLC, File: B-414987; B-414987.2.

This post will be brief, while the decision itself is extensive. Extensive in its unrelenting smack-down of an agency trying to defend a specification the decision hails as "a post hoc attempt to justify" an unreasonable restriction on competition. "[T]he agency’s decision to restrict those assets at this time does not withstand logical scrutiny.

If you ever want to see what a comprehensive, almost frolicking, dismantling of lumbering argument looks like, this will give you an entertaining read. Clearly, the Forest Service was unable to see the forest for its own trees.

Focus on market research and planning to understand and get what is needed

City hires firm to help rethink its procurement approach

New York City has hired a firm called Citymart in its effort to make its procurement processes more flexible and better able to accommodate new technologies and smaller vendors. The contract entails a plan for five challenges until June 2017, working within existing procurement rules to use different platforms, Merritt said. The goal is greater participation by more diverse vendors, and earlier in the process — especially to find solutions or providers the city might not have known about otherwise.

“When [people] look at a procurement, they think that the actual RFP is sort of the beginning of the process — and in some ways, by that point in time, a lot of the work has already happened," he explained. "So the early stage is really working with agencies to identify the tough problems, the problems where they don't know the solution that's out there."

"Our goal isn’t to turn every single procurement into a call for innovations. Rather, it is to identify the areas that we think perhaps a traditional RFP might not be the best way to really work in partnership with agencies to really flesh out those problems," he said. "And when we put out a solicitation, our partners in the private sector, non-profit sector, academic sector can really understand what is the issue that government is trying to solve, and what are their ideas and proposals for addressing it."

Assessing need assement

The procurement regimes generally prefer that government only gets what it needs, not simply what it wants. It is curious that there is not much guidance in assessing the "need". 

See, for instance, the recent bus controversy in Sierra Leone, mentioned in this post a few weeks back. It appears from the reporting that Sierra Leone spent millions of dollars to acquire a fleet of buses that simply can't get down the roads they are meant to travel. The need was for better roads, not bigger buses, but they only considered the buses as the need. 

They didn't assess their needs assessment. They didn't prioritize their needs, either in the sense of which is more important for the public good or in the sense of which need should satisfied as a prerequisite to another.

Case in point: The Federal Acquisition Regulations have a whole Part devoted "Agency Needs". But, it starts from the assumption the need itself has already been assessed as the best of all alternatives: the emphasis is only on describing the need in a manner to yield a good specification.

11.000 Scope of part.

This part prescribes policies and procedures for describing agency needs.

To some extent, this thought was evoked by the following articles (read more at the links).

Reform Defense acquisition to reflect cyber age

There is currently a communication gap that leads to a guessing game in which companies devote millions of dollars to develop products the DoD does not actually need and then — in an attempt to avoid losses — devotes enormous efforts to convincing the DoD it should purchase them anyway. Everyone would benefit from a more rigorous Internal Research and Development (IRAD) investment process that allows the defense contractors to better understand their customer — the DoD — so they can provide the best possible product in a timely manner. Not only could millions of dollars be saved, better and broader communication about the DoD’s forecasted cyber requirements would reduce the need for lobbying and insider information.

Defense procurements are intended to provide the necessary tools for the military to execute its mission of defending freedom in the real and virtual world. But before these tools can be placed in the hands of the end user, the defense department must lead a multiyear procurement process. The process typically involves three key elements: requirements development, industry engagement in a series of sterile forums, and an appropriation by Congress allowing a request for proposal (RFP) to go forward.

While it historically led to modest success for standard vehicles or floating platforms, this process is unfit for the digital age. This is because the morphing of cyber attacks and the evolution of the technology used to prevent them far outpace the procurement process’ creep. As the purchase cycle plods on, the product being acquired becomes obsolete, and modifications must be inserted into the products requirement. Modifying the product can delay the process by months and sometimes even years. If the RFP does not pass muster, a mid stream requirement change will be issued, setting a program back. While the beefed up review and approval process is undoubtedly important, it is also time consuming.

One silver lining is the recently announced Better Buying Power 3.0. With Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall at the helm, DoD plans to realign Internal Research and Development (IRAD) spending. The proposed realignment calls for DoD to take on a gatekeeper role over IRAD spending, with an eye towards increasing and improving engagement between the Department and defense contractors regarding the DoD’s upcoming needs.

Comprehensive cyber reform is a complicated problem for which there is no silver bullet. However, finding ways for the procurement process to keep pace with ever evolving threats and technology and to be welcoming to non-traditional players is an essential piece in the complicated puzzle of protecting America from cyber threats. The reform of Better Buying Power provides an opportunity to increase DoD’s engagement with small, innovative companies. Silicon Valley executives already serve as trusted advisors on the digital warfront, but their expertise could also be harnessed to develop products and systems for the government. Under Secretary Kendall should use the realignment process to pull Silicon Valley’s finest into the procurement fold, assuring they are informed of DoD’s future requirements and that Department personnel are available to serve as envoys to tech companies as they navigate the complexities of the procurement process and the inner workings of DoD.

Making Defense Reform Sane Again: Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has repeatedly called for reforms to the Pentagon’s ineffective acquisition system, and rightly so. Yet the troubled acquisition process is only one aspect of a larger departmental failure to align strategy with resources. To truly reform the Pentagon, Secretary Carter should take steps to narrow the gap between the theory and practice of the process designed to develop the future force: the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) system.

The PPBE process suffers from three discrepancies between how it functions in theory and in practice: an unrealistic timeline, a stove-piped analytic system, and a reliance on Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding.

On paper, PPBE is presented as four distinct stages that progress sequentially: planning outlines the future security environment; programming proposes programs for investment; budgeting develops a detailed budget according to fiscal guidance; and execution ensures compliance throughout the process. Yet, in practice, all of these ostensibly distinct stages overlap.

To map out the future security environment and determine which roles and missions should be prioritized, the Pentagon requires scenarios and modeling. Yet instead of maintaining a common baseline and robust joint analytic community, the relevant actors within the Pentagon lack a shared grasp of necessary assumptions, constraints, and objectives. At present, each actor defines a future security environment that suits its particular interests. The military services are particularly guilty of this myopia, maintaining independent analysis centers that are much larger and better equipped than those of the Joint Staff. This bureaucratic arrangement undermines the central oversight necessary for scenario development.

Five steps can fix these problems and bring resources back in line with strategy. First, to reduce the workload demanded by the current annual PPBE timeline, the department should receive appropriations and authorizations for two-year periods instead of the current annual arrangement. Two-year budgets could undergo a second round of amendments after the first year to assuage congressional concerns about allocating an additional year of funding. Congress could thereby maintain a reassuring level of control over the process while enabling the flexibility the Pentagon requires.

Second, to encourage prioritization of the planning guidance, the secretary of defense should label roles and missions for the military as critical, high-risk, low-risk, or optional. In a time of fiscal austerity, prioritizing is a particularly important initiative in making the best use of scarce time and resources.

Third, to address the lack of analytical centralization and coordination, the next administration should appoint and empower a director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) with a strong vision of the organization’s role. This would ensure that CAPE maintains the resources and staff necessary to help the services integrate their activities. Moreover, the director of CAPE should work more closely with the Joint Staff’s Force Structure, Resource, and Assessment directorate to prioritize joint scenario development.

Fourth, the Pentagon must lessen its reliance on OCO funding. Current incentives preclude the services from doing so because programs and operations can all too easily be labeled as “war-time funding,” bypassing the closer scrutiny of normal budgetary channels.

Fifth, to promote a greater understanding of the process, defense leaders across the Pentagon should increase educational opportunities related to PPBE at the working level. To help defense personnel think more strategically and serve as better stewards of taxpayer dollars, the secretary of defense should make a PPBE familiarization course mandatory for all headquarters personnel. Doing so would help to introduce more individuals to this critical discussion and spur a new conversation regarding the disconnect between defense priorities and resources.

"Same old story ... failure to follow the rules"

Too many people blame the rules. They'd rather do without them. This is (another) story of how that works out for you.  Not surprisingly, this comes from Texas.

State auditors find problems with Land Office contracts

The Texas General Land Office had a conflict of interest when hiring the firm Grant Thornton LLP for oil and gas royalty audits. The July 2015 report said the land office’s former director of financial subsidiary operations had a “personal and professional association with her former supervisor,” who now works as a subcontractor to Grant Thornton. The land office employee served as a liaison between the two offices.

State Auditor Terry Keel’s office launched its audit in December 2014 after the three contracts were procured. The land office agreed with the state’s recommendations, which called for a cost analysis, a needs assessment and addressing any conflicts of interests prior to each procurement.

State procurement requirements call for agencies to disclose conflicts of interests during contract planning but the office failed to do so. [Some go further: disclosure only works when someone somewhere cares and pays attention. Some jurisdictions require recusal, and some fewer add bite to the requirement.]

Tom “Smitty” Smith of the group Public Citizen said, “It is the same old story of allegations of conflict of interest and failure to follow the rules for contracting.”

The state also found that the land office did not compare the cost of hiring full-time employees to conduct oil and gas royalty audits with the cost of contracting Grant Thornton LLP. According to the report, the office could have hired four employees to complete four audits for $426,813, but the Grant Thornton contract totaled more than $1 million.

A separate contract with IDEA Integration Corporation for information technology services was also not planned and monitored correctly, the audit found. The state’s Quality Assurance Team, which monitors major information resources projects for agencies, was not involved with the $1.9 million contract. Normally, if contract expenditures exceed $1 million it must be reviewed by the group.

In addition, the office assigned contract managers that had not obtained contract management training that is required by law.

This is not the first time state contracting practices have been under scrutiny, but Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed approved legislation that will strengthen state contracting regulations. The approval came after it was discovered that the Health and Human Services Commission handed a $110 million contract to Austin technology company 21CT. “It just goes to show you can’t trust the state agencies to do it without an outside agency to supervise their work,” Smith said. “This is the same story here — agency after agency failing to follow basic contracting provisions.”

Audit Finds "Significant Weaknesses" in GLO Contracting

The General Land Office’s contracting procedures are riddled with “significant weaknesses” that threaten the agency’s ability to ensure it is wisely spending its dollars, State Auditor John Keel said in a report made public Tuesday. “Due to significant weaknesses in its processes,” the audit said, the General Land Office “did not always plan, procure, form, and monitor” the contracts according to state rules and the agency’s own policies.

The GLO has a wide range of duties, including managing the rights to millions of acres of state-owned minerals, protecting the state’s coastline, handling billions of dollars for disaster recovery, preserving the Alamo and administering loans and other benefits to veterans.

For the nearly $2 million Grant Thornton contract, signed in 2013 and renewed in 2014, the auditor identified “significant deficiencies,” such as failing to study whether it needed to hire the firm in the first place. “The Office did not assess the need to hire Grant Thornton to provide supplemental staffing for the Office’s existing minerals audit department,” the report said. The agency researched rates at other firms, but only after it decided to hire Grant Thornton.

The agency initially told the state auditor that it removed the employee from the Grant Thornton contract, but it downplayed her involvement in brokering the contract. The auditor, however, concluded that the employee “had a significant role in the procurement,” including attending a relevant meeting, preparing a proposal for staffing mineral audits with Grant Thornton personnel and helping approve contracts with the company in 2013 and 2014.

The audit found other problems with the information technology contract with IDEA Integration Corporation. In that case, the report said, the GLO prepared an incomplete “statement of work,” and underestimated the roughly $1.9 million cost. The agency initially pegged the cost at about $93,000. While planning the deal, the agency "did not include key information, such as project time lines and applicable Texas Administrative Code information technology requirements," the report said.

Because of that error, the auditor said, agency staff did not complete disclosure forms designed to ward off nepotism, as required for contracts over $1 million.

In contrast, this:

UK: How To Guard Against Bribery And Corruption In The Tender Process

Any company caught paying bribes faces the prospect of a criminal conviction, an unlimited fine and terrible publicity. A further consequence for those supplying the public sector, is a discretionary ban from bidding for government contracts across the EU if the company is convicted of the offence of failing to prevent bribery under section seven of the Bribery Act 2010. The ban would be mandatory if one of the directors (or any person who has powers of representation, decision or control of the company) is involved and is convicted of bribing another person or a foreign public official under sections one or six of the Act. The stakes are high so it is important to have policies to prevent bribes being paid on your behalf.

For example taking a procurement manager for an expensive day out shortly before they decide on a tender. This could be unlawful if the intention was to influence their decision to favour your bid for reasons other than the relative merits of your tender. Timing is everything. The closer in time the hospitality is to a contract award the greater the likelihood that there will be an inference of impropriety.

What is required is a culture in which bribery is not tolerated at any level.

In a procurement setting you must understand the rules and stick to them.

Sierra Leone's buses: A question of need

Sierra Leone’s whopping $12 million buses – has government violated procurement rules?

Freetown is one of the most congested cities in the world, with a population of over two million people and hundreds of thousands of vehicles, plying the narrow and poorly maintained roads. Every single day of the week, over 70% of the population spend hours angrily competing for access to the woefully inadequate and poorly maintained, yet expensive passenger transport service. And when they do manage to get on board, a five mile one-way journey would normally take hours, in sweltering heat or pouring rain, as drivers struggle to navigate their way through narrow roads and congested traffic.

Freetown’s inefficient public transport system has a lot do with the poor availability of suitable and reliable public transport. But the main problems for transport operators are; traffic congestion, narrow streets, and the sheer mass of pedestrians and traders encroaching on to traffic lanes.

It is estimated that traffic congestion is costing the country over two hundred million dollars a year in productivity loss, fuel costs, and loss of earnings for those commuters for whom time is money. The Koroma government says it has prioritised the country’s transportation problem. But so far, despite spending millions of dollars on importing dozens of buses, there has been little impact, if at all.

Most of the 40 buses brought into the country two years ago to help solve the transport problem, are hardly functioning today. Last year the government announced that it has signed a contract with a Chinese company for the supply of 100 new buses at a cost of $120,000 each. But there are far more serious questions to be asked, about how the government arrived at the decision to spend $12 million on just 100 buses, each costing $120,000, at such difficult time for the people of Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world, and relying on donor funds to cover 60% of its current spending. Last year, when thousands of people were dying of Ebola, the government said it had no money to pay doctors, nurses and burial teams, nor did they have money to buy adequate protective wear to save the lives of medical staff. Yet it could find $12 million to hand over to the Chinese for 100 buses. Is this not misplaced priorities?

Why did the government fail to go out to public tender for these buses, so it could buy them cheaper elsewhere? What was the business case for spending $12 million on 100 buses at $120,000 each? On what basis was the manufacturer chosen as the preferred contractor, given the fact that there are several other manufacturers in China and elsewhere, who could have competitively bid for the contract to ensure value for tax payer’s money?

Investigation carried out by the Sierra Leone Telegraph shows that most bus manufacturers in the Far-East, can supply a sixty seater bus (freight on board) at a cost of between $30,000 and $40,000.

The Bigger Question: What really is the problem, and what is needed to address the real problem?

Why is the government paying $120,000 for each of the 100 buses, when the congested roads can hardly cope with the existing volume of traffic? How can $12 million be spent on 100 buses to ease the problem of traffic congestion in Freetown, given the fact that the problem of congestion is caused by too many vehicles using the extremely narrow streets in the capital? How can the government justify spending $12 million on 100 buses, when there are far too many pedestrians and market traders encroaching on traffic lanes causing traffic congestion?

How can $12 million be spent on 100 buses that can only add to the traffic congestion, given the sheer mega size of each of those buses? How does the government justify spending $12 million on 100 buses, with the problem of poor parking on most major roads and streets in the capital, exacerbating the problem of traffic congestion? Why has the government not focussed its energy on measures aimed at easing traffic congestion, including ensuring that major roads and streets are not used as rubbish dumps?

But more importantly, why has the government failed to encourage the private sector to invest heavily in the transportation sector, with government using its finance as leverage? Government has no business running a transport business.

This $12 million Chinese contract not only violates the country’s public procurement regulations, but is a bad spending decision that will fail to yield best value for tax payers money.

China Technical Team to arrive ahead of 100 buses

With 100 buses purchased in China by the Government of Sierra Leone slated to arrive the shores of Sierra Leone July 8, a six man technical team will be leaving China on the 4th July for Freetown to receive and handover the said buses to Government through the Sierra Leone Roads Transport Cooperation, and also undertake a training program for staff of SLRTC. In March 2015, a Pre-Delivery Shipment Inspection was conducted by officials from the SLTRC and Sierra Leone Roads and Safety Authority on the (100) one hundred Buses, manufactured by Zhongtong Buses, in Shandong Province.

Chargé d’ Affairés, Sierra Leone Embassy, Madam Kumba Alice Momoh expressed optimism that with the arrival of the buses in Sierra Leone, the challenges in the country’s public transport sector could be addressed. General Manager, SLRTC, Bockarie Lewis Kamara, at the time, said, “the Manufacturers went by the technical specification which takes into account value for money and upholding safety proposals like seating capacity and number of doors in each Bus”. Engineer Lamin A. Koroma, Consultant from the Sierra Leone Roads and Safety Authority, disclosed at the time of inspection, that “…the work done by the Manufacturers was impressive and the manufacturing requirements as per contract signed were met.”

This is a great article for pointing out that procurement should begin with carefully assessing a need, not with a desire to spend (or bend to a vendor's desire to sell).

UPDATE: Sierra Leone bus procurement investigated by anti-corruption agency

Concerns had been raised about the procurement whereby funding for the purchase was financed by China in a deal that meant the contract must go one of its state-owned companies.

Procurement is boring

How long was it from the invention of the wheel to mass production of automobiles? 

If you compress that time line down to months or years, you begin to understand the problem of procuring anything when the conditions requiring its acquisition change faster than production of the thing can keep up.

That was my first reaction to reading an item this morning, being outraged by the claim it made, then looking further into it and feeling outraged that the article intended to outrage me in the first instance.

It all happened when I got a Google News link to this: The Comedy the Pentagon Wishes We’d Forget. (Now, the movie this is based on and the book that gave rise to it are from pre-Millineal times, but there it was in today's news items.)

In the early 1980s, Air Force colonel James Burton was part of a group of reformers who, frustrated by billions wasted on needless research and development, attempted to change how the military did business. The Pentagon Wars chronicles his reform movement and the corruption within the Defense Department’s procurement process.

The Bradley fighting vehicle was a weapon system with countless flaws. Part troop transport, part fighting vehicle and part scout—it didn’t do any of these jobs well. The Army resisted Burton’s requests for a live-fire exercise. Ultimately, Burton got his exercise and proved that the Bradley needed serious changes. Despite the upgrades, the APC still had problems. It survived the 1991 Gulf War, taking out more Iraqi tanks than the M-1 Abrams. Quite a feat for a troop carrier. It didn’t fare as well on its return trip to Iraq in 2003. The Bradley proved vulnerable to improvised explosives and rocket-propelled grenades. It’s not an ideal counterinsurgency vehicle.

The Pentagon’s procurement process still produces broken weapon systems.

Then I read another article, this one a couple of years old, which said the whole thing could have been cleared up if only Burton had had a Project Manager as part of his team.

The Pentagon Wars – A Product Management Disaster

The film depicts the development of the Bradley fighting vehicle. Col Burton was appointed by Congress as an outsider to oversee the testing of new weapons in development, including the Bradley. In order to get up to speed with the development history of the Bradley, Burton dives into the mountain of paperwork documenting it’s development. This is where we pick up the movie below for a 11-min scene that takes us through the “product development process” in flashbacks.

I presume this 11 minute scene is what the first article above referred to as "The design-by-committee is one of the funniest moments in the 1998 HBO film The Pentagon Wars. It’s also uncomfortably close to the truth."

I sensed a real scandal. Alas, I then came across this forum below. 

It begins with a question about the development of the Bradley. The responses were enlightening, and presumably more credible than the Hollywood version. 

It seems all the changes in the Bradley were not born of an 11 minute design-by-committee scene.

Topic: Truth to The Pentagon Wars and the Bradley IFV??

Gubler: Rule number one of understanding history: never, ever take your history lesson from Hollywood. The story as outlined in ‘Pentagon Wars’ is as misleading and full of sh*t as the rest of that movie.

Gubler (again, after an exchange of comments): The movie Pentagon Wars and to a lesser extent the book primarily rely on ignorance of the armour needs and specifics of the Bradley to create the appearance of scandal.

The Bradley was designed to be resistant to splinters from nearby bursts of 152mm high explosive shells and hits from 14.5mm armour piercing bullets fired by Soviet heavy machineguns. These of course are not the only Soviet weapons on the battlefield but they were the type of weapons the Bradley was mostly going to be exposed to in its normal mode of use on a linear battlefield.

This protection requirement was based on how armoured personnel carriers (APCs), later renamed infantry fighter vehicles (IFV), were to be used on the linear battlefield in places like West Germany trying to stop a Soviet invasion. That is the vehicles move the infantry forward through the area target suppression fires of the Soviets but don’t close with the enemy to destroy them. The infantry do the later on foot. It is this closing with the enemy on the battlefield that exposes an APC to the fires of anti-tank weapons like the RPG or BMP’s 73mm gun. Weapons that are not effective at long range. Also the APC didn’t have to worry about long range anti-tank weapons like guided missiles or enemy tank guns because it was never to remain stationary while exposed to enemy direct fires like a tank does. However the type of suppressive fires they would face are artillery barrages and long range machinegun fires.

When the earlier APCs were designed (M75, M59, M113) the typical Soviet weapons used for suppressive fires were 122mm artillery and 7.62mm machineguns. So they were designed to be resistant to these weapons. But in the 1950s and 60s the Soviets upgraded these weapons to 152mm artillery and 14.5mm machineguns. So the Bradley and its predecessor the XM723 were specified to be resistant to these more lethal weapons the Soviets would use for their area supression.

In non-linear battles APCs were found to be exposed to anti-tank fires. As was seen in counter insurgency wars or deep penetration offensive actions like the IDF applied in Lebanon in 1982. Since they were never designed to be resistant to these types of  weapons they suffered high losses. But this was for the US at least a secondary requirement as the primary and most important battlefield was the linear defensive war in West Germany. After the Bradley was introduced the Soviets upgraded the BMP with a 30mm gun that could fire bursts of armour piercing ammunition to long range in place of the 14.5mm gun. This required an upgrading of the Bradley’s armour in the A2 version to be resistant to the 30mm armour piercing round. While claimed as a response to the Burton trials it had nothing to do with it.

The issue about vehicle survivability that Burton seized upon when the vaporifics issue was shown to be so much hot air was crew survivability after a penetrating hit. This argument, completely factually correct, was that the APCs like the Bradley with their fuel and ammunition stored inside alongside the large number of human occupants were highly dangerous after being hit and penetrated. That the sympathetic explosions of the fuel and ammunition made it extremely unlikely any of the crew would escape the vehicle after being hit.

This was of course no surprise to anyone involved in the design and use of APCs including the Bradley. Because of course it wasn’t designed to be exposed to these kinds of fires in the first place so why make it survivable to such a hit? You don’t build a street car to survive a roll over at speeds over 250 kph (~150 mph) because they don’t drive that fast. But you do build a racing car to survive such a roll over. However the sight of a burnt out APC is as emotive as a crushed street car even if the likelihood in the primary means of operations was extremely low. Burton was able to get the Army to build a Bradley with all fuel and ammunition moved to separate armoured boxes within or outside the vehicle. This vehicle was never entered into production however and fans of the Pentagon Wars frequently mistake this vehicle for the A2 armour upgrade. Even though the later vehicle retained all of its fuel and ammunition inside the vehicle alongside the occupants.

Since the end of the Cold War and an increasing focus on counter insurgency and offensive operations the US Army and others have upgraded their protection requirements for APCs.  Now they are often as high as tanks and with high flank protection. But this does not invalidate the effectiveness of the original design of protection for the Bradley. A vehicle that at its time of introduction was along with the West German Marder the most protected APC in the world and if asked to do what it was designed for would have provided adequate protection for infantry mobility in West Germany against a Soviet invasion.

We have to fix IT; we have no choice

I've previously mentioned that Information Technology is a problem child. But it is our problem child, and like our other children, it is our future. We have no choice; we have to fix IT. 

We have reared IT to be our gate keeper for all of our information and communication. Our future is presently reliant on a problem child that is outgrowing its clothes before we have the old ones paid off; growing so fast we don't even know what size to buy next. We have made it too big for its britches; we feed it, we are its enablers. We have allowed if not conscientiously designed IT to be a panacea, mission critical to almost every small aspect of our lives, let alone government contracting.

Tinkering with the procurement system will never work until we understand better what this child's own goals are. IT has it own dreams -- problems. The child needs more help than the nurturing procurement system can muster. I have taught my children that they can be anything they want, but the cannot be everything they want. IT wants to be everything, and we have to learn to reign IT in.

The discussions have begun, and in some places is well under way. Many more of us will have to know much much more about the problems before we can hope to find a solution. We cannot leave it to the problem child to determine our destiny.

Can IT procurement be saved?

Can the tens of thousands of people involved in government procurement — employees and contractors alike — absorb any life lessons for navigating the often bumpy road of large government IT projects? High-profile government procurement projects sometimes take a wrong turn or crash spectacularly into technological or logistical ditches. Sometimes they can be resurrected or salvaged, and sometimes they are scrapped. The smoldering remains can be attributed to the myriad miscues, oversights or missteps in a hugely complex system.

In other words, bungled launches didn't start with HealthCare.gov, and the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services is hardly alone in its stumbling. In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security picked Boeing to oversee its $1.9 billion program dubbed SBInet, which sought to revolutionize border security by integrating infrastructure, technology and border security agents. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Complex federal procurement rules can contribute to the failure of advanced IT systems such as HealthCare.gov or SBInet, but Amey contends that even a wholesale overhaul of those rules probably wouldn't help much. Others say spending cuts and budget uncertainty have sped up an erosion of the federal procurement workforce. Still others blame rules they say place a crippling emphasis on getting the lowest price at the expense of what might work best.

Ultimately, said Roger Waldron, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, successful federal contracts happen when the government understands what it wants and what it is asking of bidders, and bidders understand how to work with the government. It's not just about getting to yes — it's about getting to yes, I know exactly what I want, and here's how I want you to give it to me.

Testing, predesign decisions and planning are essential to successfully integrating legacy systems, said Jay Shah, executive vice president of Octo Consulting Group. One key, he said, is not to rush the procurement process. Budget pressures are forcing agencies with legacy systems to "think incrementally and not transformationally" when it comes to implementing new systems, he added, but agile development is not a silver bullet.

"While most government agencies love the idea of agile, the [federal] procurement process and capital planning [are] counter to what agile espouses," Shah said. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who represents a swath of Silicon Valley, wants to make the system more open and accessible. "My sense is that there are inside-the-Beltway contractors that know the current system very, very well, and they are the ones that are awarded the contracts," she said.

5 areas to start IT procurement reform

“There’s a beauty and a tragedy at this critical inflection point, in regard to people and technology,” said Stan Soloway, the president of the Professional Services Council. “We have a once in a multigenerational opportunity to do this.” Few envision such a complex system will change with one sweeping gesture.

Here are five broad areas of reform experts suggest as a place to start:

1. Put someone in charge
Numerous agencies weigh in on technology procurement, but no one carefully monitors the entire process. “Part of the problem with procurement is no one is taking a holistic view with the entire supply chain,” said Clay Johnson, a former presidential innovation fellow and current chief executive officer of the Department of Better Technology. [We need an IT czar? One?]

2. Prioritize people
The federal procurement process depends on contracting officers. “The government continues to struggle mightily to attract IT talent,” PSC’s Soloway said. [Note this is an argument for bringing more IT decision making in house via people who are trained to understand the problem well enough to fashion a solution, rather than outsourcing it to purveyors of legacy based systems.]

3. [Omitted by the administrator of this blog, revealing a lack of knowledge of principles of procurement (IT maybe, procurement no), and beating an old horse rather than seizing a once in a mulitgenerational opportunity as promised.]

4. Don’t fear the woodshed
Any real reform to federal IT, experts warn, must allow for ingenuity. “These guys are scared to death because if they make a wrong decision, they are going to get taken to the woodshed,” Safavian said. “Leaders need to become better risk absorbers,” Soloway said. “You can’t have a system where everyone thinks they are going to get hammered.” [Problem children need love and discipline.]

5. Throw away the rules
A complex tangle of regulations sometimes upends its very purpose. [And here I thought they were going to mean, start with new code and open architecture.]

Have ideas on government procurement?

The Department of Finance would like your feedback to help improve communication between government and industry during the procurement process.

Lessons for Procurement from IT Vendor Management: Audits, Inputs, and Competitive Spirit

Starting with audits, Erickson-Harris suggests that vendor management organizations “incorporate the right to conduct audits to gain a first-hand look at operations periodically” in part because “showing up tells the service provider that you take the relationship seriously.” [And want to be taken to lunch.] These audit rights should include contract penalty clauses that have teeth. [Problem children respond well to standing over them with a stick and a dog with big teeth. And auditors know all about the IT you're struggling with.]

Erickson-Harris suggests: “Asking vendors what measures they can put in place to ensure quality." [We hired these guys to do it because we didn't know how. We didn't even know how to spec the contract. And we expect the contractor to tell us how to do it better in a completely disinterested way that's going to save us money? How would be know?]

Finally, keep up the competitive spirit. To wit, “keep the vendor on its toes and the situation competitive". I might suggest tempering this recommendation, after all, you don’t want to find yourself using the threat of leverage or competition with a critical supplier when the vendor knows that you don’t really have other options. [On second thought, just ask him what we need and be thankful we have him on payroll.]

Government Tech Problems: Blame The People Or The Process? [Or something else, maybe, like the underlying assumptions of need?]

What should be done about government's tech issues depends on what you see as the source of the problem. And that's where there's disagreement among the "People Who Think About Procurement More Than You And Me."

Stan Soloway heads the Professional Services Council, which represents federal contractors who are hired to build these projects. He told The Times he sees the problem as the "punishing and punitive" environment of government. "It's the human capital, the way the government buys services, the way the government determines its own requirements, the lack of collaboration within government, the lack of collaboration between the government and the private sector, the outdated systems within government," Soloway told the newspaper.

Clay Johnson, who has been fighting for procurement reform since before it became cool, takes issue with that argument. "Bad clients exist everywhere. Blaming the client is the oldest trick in the book. It's toxic." Instead, he sees the issue as being an environment that doesn't favor competition, which boosts incumbents who do mediocre or even poor work.

Determining what's at root will drive future policy decisions. President Obama has said again and again that government needs to improve the way it procures and uses technology. But so far, the White House hasn't put out any specific plans to tackle the issue.

On the legislative front, the bipartisan bill to address part of the problem — the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) — passed the House last June but got axed from the Senate version. That bill did not centrally take on the competitive environment, but it would have given more power to technology officers inside government so they could better project-manage the work of contractors and developers.

Obama Calls for IT Procurement Reform

Obama said, “I personally have been frustrated with the problems around the website on health care. And it’s inexcusable.”

[He then offered excuses:] The president said part of the problem was simply managing an operation as large and complex as the federal government. “What I want to just remind people of is that this government is an enormous enterprise,” he said, “and so even as sometimes we see ourselves getting stymied at the congressional level, at the administrative level, in the work that we’re doing, all kinds of changes are happening.”

CGI's Contract to Help Run Health Site Won't Be Renewed

CGI Group Inc. said federal officials won't renew its contract to oversee key parts of HealthCare.gov, the online insurance marketplace that launched with major defects on Oct. 1. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a statement that it chose Accenture become the lead contractor. People close to the project said they were "blindsided" when they learned of the decision Friday.

TechAmerica: Congress key to effective procurement reform

The problems afflicting federal IT acquisition system are not incurable, according to TechAmerica's newly installed Senior Vice President for Public Sector Mike Hettinger, but they could use a strong dose of legislative medicine. TechAmerica is working to foster congressional efforts to change acquisition rules beyond simple knee-jerk reactions to those particular failures. Hettinger said he is looking to educate lawmakers on the intricacies of federal IT acquisition practices and facilitate a dialogue across industry, legislative and executive branch lines. He also said the intricate nature of federal IT acquisition means only a handful of lawmakers have a full grasp of the process.  [But they likely have a better grasp of the IT acquisition process than of the IT process itself. which is a more easily exploitable weakness.]

Proposals to create a new agency that would manage large IT projects and boost the federal government's ability to hire IT specialists from private industry are steps in the right direction, he said. [Yes, revolving doors are good, for someone.]  But for effective reform, Congress must be involved, Hettinger said.

And he knows that legislative territory.

TechAmerica named Hettinger vice president of its public sector group in mid-December as the organization began a legal battle with rival Information Technology Industry after several former TechAmerica public sector executives, including former Senior Vice President for Global Public Sector Trey Hodgkins, left abruptly for jobs at ITI. TechAmerica alleges some of those former employees stole valuable membership information.

Hettinger said his new employer assured him the organization was committed to its public sector operations and that he had no reservations about taking on the new job. "The reason I'm here is because this is the premier association. TechAmerica is doing things no one else can." He also noted that TechAmerica is in the process of hiring three additional public policy group personnel in the coming weeks who will work with him. [See there? The key to problem is with Congress, not the IT industry, and all it needs is a good lobbyist or three to set things straight. Yea!]

Acquisition malpractice

If we are to consider that procurement staff should be identified as a profession, and certificated as such, then we must accept the concept of "acquisition malpractice". Still, this article is the first I've seen that uses the term (not that I've been around long enough or experienced the field wide enough to have had a significant exposure to the field).

Procurement chief knocks early F-35 production

“Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice,” said acting Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall, speaking at a Monday event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It should not have been done.”

Kendall said that the Pentagon had made “optimistic” predictions about the capabilities of design tools, simulations and modeling to build a fighter that would breeze through test flights without problems.

“We didn’t model everything as precisely as we thought,” Kendall said. “Now we’re paying the price for being wrong.”

Transitioning from development to production is traditionally been one of the most difficult challenges for any program.

Kendall said there is a tendency to start production too early, adding that the F-35 is an “extreme example.”

Barry Watts, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C., agreed with Kendall’s assessment. But with then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates terminating the F-22 Raptor program, the Pentagon “has put all of its eggs in the JSF basket,” he said.

“My understanding is the amount of concurrency on this program is as great as or greater than any past program,” he said.

Watts, who has been to Lockheed’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant, described long lines of F-35s already being built. The F-35 is an extremely complicated engineering challenge with its many missions and three variants, Watts said.

“Most of those, if they’re going to be operational airplanes eventually, are going to have to go back and have a bunch of changes made to them,” he said. “That drives up cost and delays things.”

Watts said that the Pentagon should have insisted on more flight tests before starting low rate initial production.

Needs assessment in cutting edge technologies

There's an old carpenter's adage that says "measure twice, cut once". That is a good philosophy to guide needs assessment.

Needs assessment is the first step in preparing solicitation specifications. Specifications are what you tell other people you need. If you can't articulate your own needs, you don't have much chance of having anyone actually giving you what you need. You'd better do your measurements at least twice before you go out to bid. Vendors who make the cut may not make what you really require.

That, anyway, was a take-away I got from the following article:

DoD Cybersecurity Spending: Where’s the Beef?

To cash in on the increased spending on cybersecurity, a number of big defense contractors acquired many cybersecurity firms over the last few years.

Now that the defense industry has positioned itself in the cybersecurity market, the US Department of Defense wants to expand its cooperation with cybersecurity contractors to improve defenses for military computers and networks.

Not only are defense contractors positioning themselves for cybersecurity business, but also the Pentagon has indicated it plans to spend a lot more on cybersecurity despite cuts in the overall budget.

n its FY 2012 budget proposal [PDF], the Pentagon said it plans to spend $2.3 billion on cybersecurity capabilities. It said the money would go toward programs like the new US Cyber Command, construction of a Joint Operations Center for Cyber Command at Ft. Meade, Md., $500 million for new related technologies, and funds for training and improved situational awareness.

However, the Air Force said that it would spend $4.6 billion alone in FY 2012 on cybersecurity. In response to this discrepancy, NextGov queried the Pentagon and they came up with a revised figure of $3.2 billion in cybersecurity spending department-wide, including the services. The Pentagon attributed the discrepancy to the Air Force including a broad range of spending not directly related to cybersecurity and information assurance, such as IT infrastructure.

There has (sic) been problems with fuzzy definitions before, particularly between the terms “information assurance”, the more traditional Pentagon phrase, and cybersecurity. Information assurance includes “measures that protect and defend information and information systems by ensuring their availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and nonrepudiation,” according to the Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAC).

By contrast, cybersecurity is a much broader, more amorphous term; it is difficult to find a DoD definition of the term. The Obama administration’s cybersecurity legislation proposal [PDF], submitted to Congress on May 12/11, defines cybersecurity services as “products, goods, or services intended to detect or prevent activity intended to result in unauthorized access to, exfiltration of, manipulation of, or impairment to the integrity, confidentiality, or availability of an information system or information stored on or transiting an information system.” Cybersecurity threat is defined as “any action that may result in unauthorized access to, exfiltration of, manipulation of, or impairment to the integrity, confidentiality, or availability of an information system or information stored on or transiting an information system.”

This confusion about definitions could lead to discrepancies in budget figures as well as problems with the procurement process. “The flaws in the definitions will follow into the procurement cycle and you will end up with the government buying maybe what it doesn’t need,” said Robert Burton, who served as the top career federal procurement official in the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy during the George W. Bush administration.

“When people can’t even agree about the most basic terminology, you know there is going to be a lot of confusion,” said Noah Shachtman, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor at Wired magazine. “The chances there aren’t billions of dollars in redundancies are slim to none.”

It appears that the bulk of the Pentagon’s spending on cybersecurity is going to traditional information systems security programs, a total of $1.9 billion. DoD information systems are defined by the DAC as “entire infrastructure, organization, personnel, and components for the collection, storage, processing, maintenance, use, sharing, dissemination, disposition, display, or transmission of information.”

Protecting these systems is the bread and butter of most traditional cybersecurity firms—firms which the big defense contractors are busy buying up. So they should be well positioned to cash in on this spending.

By contrast, DARPA is looking to spend millions on advanced cybersecurity programs.

See also, this GAO report (11-469), Defense Acquisition:

DOD Should Clarify Requirements for Assessing and Documenting Technical-Data Needs:

Because many systems remain in DOD’s inventory for decades, decisions that officials make during the acquisition process to acquire or not acquire rights to technical data can have far-reaching implications for DOD’s ability to sustain the systems and competitively procure parts and services.

Weapon systems are costly to sustain in part because they often incorporate technologically complex subsystems and components and need expensive spare parts and logistics support to meet required readiness levels. According to DOD, at least 70 percent of a weapon system’s life-cycle costs are incurred to operate and support a weapon system after it has been acquired, with the percentage depending on how long a system remains in the inventory.

Congress passed the Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, which required in part that the Secretary of Defense is to ensure the acquisition strategy for each major defense-acquisition program includes measures to ensure competition, or the option of competition, in contracts for the program throughout its life cycle.

The Department of Defense (DOD) needs access to technical data related to its weapon systems in order to control costs and maintain flexibility in the acquisition and sustainment of those weapon systems. Technical data—recorded information used to produce, support, maintain, or operate a system1—can enable the government to complete maintenance work in house, as well as to competitively award contracts for the acquisition and sustainment of a weapon system.

US aims to myth bust

Daniel I. Gordon, Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, has launched a "myth-busting" campaign to educate the federal procurement workforce, to address so-called misconceptions and improve communications with the procurement industry. It's a back-to-basic building blocks reminder.

His "MEMORANDUM FOR CHIEF ACQUISITION OFFICERS, SENIOR PROCUREMENT EXECUTIVES, and CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS" is dated February 2, 2011, but went public on February 17, as reported in media stories here and here.

Here are some selected excerpts, arranged and edited to suit myself.

Access to current market information is critical for agency program managers as they define requirements and for contracting officers as they develop acquisition strategies, seek opportunities for small businesses, and negotiate contract terms. Our industry partners are often the best source of this information, so productive interactions between federal agencies and our industry partners should be encouraged to ensure that the government clearly understands the marketplace and can award a contract or order for an effective solution at a reasonable price. Early, frequent, and constructive engagement with industry is especially important for complex, high-risk procurements, including (but not limited to) those for large information technology (IT) projects. This is why increasing communication, in the form of a “myth-busters” educational campaign, is one of the key tenets of the Office of Management and Budget’s 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management.

Some agency officials may be reluctant to engage in these exchanges out of fear of protests or fear of binding the agency in an unauthorized manner; others may be unaware of effective strategies that can help the acquisition workforce and industry make the best use of their time and resources. Similarly, industry may be concerned that talking with an agency may create a conflict of interest that will preclude them from competing on future requirements, or industry may be apprehensive about engaging in meaningful conversations in the presence of other vendors.

In light of these challenges, the purposes of this memorandum are to:
1) identify common misconceptions about vendor engagement that may be unnecessarily hindering agencies’ appropriate use of the existing flexibilities, and provide facts and strategies to help acquisition professionals benefit from industry’s knowledge and insight;
2) direct agencies to remove unnecessary barriers to reasonable communication and develop vendor communications plans, consistent with existing law and regulation, that promote responsible and constructive exchanges; and
3) outline steps for continued engagement with agencies and industry to increase awareness and education.

Nothing in this memorandum should be read to alter, or authorize violations of, applicable ethics rules, procurement integrity requirements, or other statutes or regulations that govern communication and information sharing. However, all methods of communication that are not prohibited, either by those rules or otherwise, should be considered, if they would be helpful.3 In addition, contracting officers, program managers, and other acquisition officials should continue to exercise appropriate discretion to balance the practical limitations of frequent vendor engagement, including the demand such engagement places on the time of the acquisition workforce, with the need to better understand the market and make decisions in the best interest of the government.

His Memorandum introduces the "Top 10 Misconceptions and Facts". My favorites among the Top 10 are:

1. Misconception – “We can’t meet one-on-one with a potential offeror.”
Fact – Government officials can generally meet one-on-one with potential offerors as long as no vendor receives preferential treatment.

Prior to issuance of the solicitation, government officials – including the program manager, users, or contracting officer – may meet with potential offerors to exchange general information and conduct market research related to an acquisition. In fact, the FAR, in Part 15, encourages exchanges of information with interested parties during the solicitation process, ending with the receipt of proposals. There is no requirement that the meetings include all possible offerors, nor is there a prohibition on one-on-one meetings. Any information that is shared in a meeting that could directly affect proposal preparation must be shared in a timely manner with all potential offerors to avoid providing any offeror with an unfair advantage (FAR 15.201(f)).
The government ethics rules and Competition in Contracting Act, (10 U.S.C. § 2304), prohibit preferential treatment of one vendor over another.

While a vendor who, as part of contract performance, drafts the specification for a future procurement will almost certainly be barred by OCI rules from competing for that future procurement, pre-solicitation communications are generally less structured, less binding, and much less problematic. When a vendor, in its role supporting the government, is drafting specifications for a future acquisition, the government is relying on the vendor to provide impartial advice regarding the requirements needed to meet the government’s future needs. Ensuring that the vendor will not be motivated by a desire to win the future contract is the way we try to ensure that this advice will be impartial. This differs dramatically from the pre-solicitation context. In the latter context, the government is not looking for impartial advice from one source, but is instead looking for a variety of options from a variety of sources, each one understandably, and reasonably, attempting to demonstrate the value of its own approach. These marketing efforts, in themselves, do not raise OCI concerns.

3. Misconception – “A protest is something to be avoided at all costs - even if it means the government limits conversations with industry.”
Fact – Restricting communication won’t prevent a protest, and limiting communication might actually increase the chance of a protest – in addition to depriving the government of potentially useful information.

Protests are, in fact, quite rare. At least 99 percent of procurements are never protested, although high dollar procurements, of course, are more likely to be protested. The overriding goal of the agency and its program managers, contracting officers, and attorneys should be the best procurement solution, and industry engagement can improve the supplies or services received or can reduce the price paid by the government. If contracting officers conduct responsible, meaningful, and constructive communications during the course of a procurement, issues that could give rise to a bid protest are likely eliminated. Trying to make a procurement ‘protest-proof’ is rarely a good use of agency resources, and it may lead to decisions that aren’t in the interest of the government. Moreover, restricting communication for fear of protests may actually increase the likelihood of a protest – for example, by a vendor that hopes to get more information through ‘discovery’ during the protest.

7. Misconception – “Industry days and similar events attended by multiple vendors are of low value to industry and the government because industry won’t provide useful information in front of competitors, and the government doesn’t release new information.”
Fact – Well-organized industry days, as well as pre-solicitation and pre-proposal conferences, are valuable opportunities for the government and for potential vendors – both prime contractors and subcontractors, many of whom are small businesses.

Industry days, as well as pre-solicitation and pre-proposal conferences, directly benefit the government by promoting a common understanding of the procurement requirements, the solicitation terms and conditions, and the evaluation criteria. These events also benefit industry – especially small businesses – by providing prime contractors and subcontractors an opportunity to meet and develop relationships or teaming agreements that benefit contract performance. However, the value of these events derives from the government providing the maximum information to potential offerors on its requirements, answering questions, and improving the solicitation based on feedback from the potential offerors. In that way, the requirements can be made as clear as possible to assist potential offerors in providing the best solution to the government.

8. Misconception – “The program manager already talked to industry to develop the technical requirements, so the contracting officer doesn’t need to do anything else before issuing the RFP.”
Fact – The technical requirements are only part of the acquisition; getting feedback on terms and conditions, pricing structure, performance metrics, evaluation criteria, and contract administration matters will improve the award and implementation process.

Issuing a high quality solicitation requires engaging with industry on issues that go beyond the government’s technical requirements. In order to appropriately price proposals and reduce the number of potential change orders, industry needs information about any unique terms and conditions, small business set-aside requirements, subcontracting goals, and other matters about which the contracting officer is the expert. Although industry may have had their best technical representatives engaged with the program manager, the contracting officer should communicate to vendors as much information as possible about the government’s needs as early as possible. As a result of early communication, the contracting officer may learn some things that suggest that an approach somewhat different than planned may cause increased competition, more small business participation, lower prices, or even a better definition of the government’s technical requirements.

Issue an RFI to make sure the government not only understands the capabilities of industry, but can develop or improve its acquisition strategy regarding contract type, performance requirements, performance work statements/statements of work, and performance metrics. Release a draft request for proposal to be sure the solicitation instructions are clear.

9. Misconception – “Giving industry only a few days to respond to an RFP is OK since the government has been talking to industry about this procurement for over a year.”
Fact – Providing only short response times may result in the government receiving fewer proposals and the ones received may not be as well-developed - which can lead to a flawed contract. This approach signals that the government isn’t really interested in competition.

Contracting officers should consider that allowing offerors additional time to prepare their proposals will likely yield better proposals, streamlined evaluations, and a reduction in the need for (or scope of) discussions. While the workforce is stretched thin and requirements often arise unexpectedly, shortcutting the proposal development process often results in fewer proposals, and/or proposals that are more difficult to evaluate. This situation can lead to expensive outcomes. Providing adequate time for vendor communication throughout the procurement process – including adequate time for proposals – indicates that the government is interested in obtaining the best outcomes. Contracting officers should have the full support of their customers in determining the right amount of time for receipt of proposals.

10. Misconception – “Getting broad participation by many different vendors is too difficult; we’re better off dealing with the established companies we know.”
Fact – The government loses when we limit ourselves to the companies we already work with. Instead, we need to look for opportunities to increase competition and ensure that all vendors, including small businesses, get fair consideration.

Use the procurement forecast to generate interest. Consider holding an outreach session to announce the release or update, and don’t bundle or over-promise requirements. Hold industry days, public meetings, or small business conferences, and consider hosting multiple outreach sessions for large or complex requirements.

What are your favorite ones?

Related to the media campaign conducted by Gordon is this item from Federal News Radio:

OFPP zeroes in on acquisition workforce

Dan Gordon, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), said the acquisition workforce isn't equipped to manage the large number of government contracts. His office wants to change that.

Gordon said over the past 15 years the government has been on an unsustainable path of increased contracting and a flat acquisition workforce.

"Putting that tsunami of spending onto an acquisition workforce that had shrunk and wasn't getting the investment and training was a recipe for problems, and we've had a good number of problems," Gordon said.

"Our number one priority is strengthening the acquisition workforce."

Gordon said agencies can help the existing acquisition workforce by improving internal communication. He said poor communication within agencies leads to significant problems with contract design.

"We have our IT shops that are often focused on sophisticated IT solutions," Gordon said. "We have the program shops - the people who actually need what the contract is for - who may not be explaining to the IT people what they need properly. We have a contract shop that doesn't define requirements. They just listen to make sure they've got requirements that make sense in terms of 'will this be a competitive situation', but contract people can't define requirements. They need input from the program people and the IT people to do that."

Gordon also said he wants to increase training for the acquisition workforce. One of OMB's goals in scaling back contract spending was to reduce the number of high risk contracts such as time-and-materials and labor-hours contracts.

"We're not telling agencies to go fixed-price no matter what," Gordon said. "Sometimes is just a matter of looking. Have we come far enough that we can define our requirements and switch to fixed price? Then we should. But we shouldn't switch to fixed price without thinking."

Gordon said insufficient contract management personnel also is a significant challenge. "Of course we need contractors, but contractors support us in the federal government, which means that we have to be in charge," Gordon said. "There are too many situations where there is no federal employee that has oversight of what's going on, or there aren't enough federal employees so that they maintain control. That is an unbalanced, unhealthy situation."

If you can't describe what you need, you won't know what you'll get

Procurement doesn't begin with the publication of the bid. It doesn't even begin with drafting the specifications. It begins with an honest and critical assessment of what it is the government needs. This can usually only be done once the government knows what is available in the market. See Federal Acquisition Regulations, Part 11.

Canada's auditor general blasts military helicopter purchase

Auditor General Sheila Fraser in her report looked at the military's latest 11 billion-dollar purchase of 15 CH-147 Chinook medium to heavy-lift and 28 CH-148 Cyclone maritime helicopters.

Both experienced significant cost increases and schedule delays.

"National Defense underestimated and understated the complexity and developmental nature of the helicopters it intended to buy," Fraser said.

According to Fraser, the helicopters were described to cabinet as using "off-the-shelf" technologies, but significant modifications to the basic models resulted in one "aircraft that never existed before" and a "new variant" of the other.

As a result of modifications to the Chinook, for example, the helicopters cost 70 percent more than originally quoted by Boeing in early 2006, and will be delivered in 2013, five years later than planned.

Fraser blamed the military for not precisely defining its needs and priorities at the outset, as well as a lack of oversight in the new sole-source procurement process it followed.