From The Acquisition Corner I recently wrote a piece for contract management improvements in reconstruction and nation-building initiatives. Updates were provided by Senator Claire McCaskill, (D-Mo), who is completing an overseas trip, including Afghanistan, and stated she was encouraged by what she saw in Afghanistan. During the trip, auditors told McCaskill oversight agencies are workingRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As the devastation unfolds in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, it is clear that rebuilding the country will be one of the greatest nation-building exercises ever undertaken. To that end, federal agencies have started turning to contractors to support the missions of recovery and relief, and ultimately, reconstruction. WhatRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As the federal government continues to find ways to move contracted work back in-house, it must overcome some major obstacles. One area that has been significantly neglected is effective human capital planning. As a result, the government’s lack of in-house resources has increased its reliance on contractors to help it performRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As 2009 is now in the books, the year ended with plans submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by the 24 federal agencies that account for 98% of contract actions. As reported by NextGov, these agencies have identified $19 billion in acquisition-related savings, also announced by OMB inRead… Read more »
From The Better Buy Project blog After attending the recent Better Buy Project panel this past week, I blogged about my observations and some issues that came up from that conversation. That lively discussion continued on the GovLoop Acquisition 2.0 community. Although many commentators took different takes, I think we all agreed that one ofRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As collaboration tools, Gov 2.0, and other initiatives to encourage transparency and solicit input from stakeholders move forward, a pilot on this front met today to discuss implementing these ideas and creating further momentum via proof of concept. The Better Buy Project, as I discussed in a previous post, is aRead… Read more »
The NCMA recently published an open letter to Government employees on how to become engaged with the NCMA without conflicts of interest or ethical violations. NCMA provides a collection of neutral networks or communities, at the local and national level, where contract management professionals from all types of government and industry agencies and organizations canRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As part of the Obama Administration’s call for reform of the federal acquisition process, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently issued a second set of memos with guidance on increasing competition for better outcomes. These memos are a continuation of original OMB guidance released in July, which outlined waysRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner Recent reporting by Federal Computer Week (FCW) highlights an issue that is not being addressed by acquisition reform initiatives; reforming the contract protest process. Writing in the Editor’s Notebook blog at Washington Technology, Nick Wakeman discusses the protest by Unisys and General Dynamics of TSA’s contract award to Computer Sciences CorpRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner There has been some discussion recently on a case study of shortening the procurement cycle from the lessons learned of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. The MRAP is an armored all-terrain vehicle whose purchase and desire for rapid deployment was motivated by the continuing deaths of troops in IraqRead… Read more »