Is Acquisition Reform at the Pentagon a Lost Cause?

wired.co.uk

One of the clearest signs that the Pentagon, or at least the Air Force, has seemingly thrown in the towel on any reasonable approaches to “acquisition reform” is the news that the Air Force has turned to IBM’s Jeopardy-winning cognitive computer, Watson, to tame the beast that is defense procurement.

…The idea is to create a “bureaucracy buster, or let’s call it a decoder,” said Camron Gorguinpour, a senior official in the Air Force’s acquisitions office…

…The Pentagon’s procurement system is the “perfect application for Watson,” Gorguinpour said. “While our acquisition system is very complex, it is document based. . .It’s unreasonable to expect that a single individual or even a group of individuals to be able to fully understand all of the relevant documents to answer a specific question.”…

This initiative is not intended to replace the acquisition workforce, but to help enhance making more efficient procurement decisions.

…The system will not only help government procurement officials do their jobs—by being able to query the system to find out, for example, whether a contract can be awarded on a sole-source basis…

This is nothing short of textbook treating the systems of a disease, and expecting a silver bullet approach to taming a monster that has many cooks in the kitchen. Decades of neglect and cutting the acquisition workforce has made the proverbial chicken come home to roost. Not only is training insufficient, it is not preparing the workforce for the types of challenges they currently face. Further, the hiring process is just not getting the type of talent in the contracting, project management, engineering, and IT fields that are necessary to execute the mission.

Nonetheless, Congress needs a hard look in the mirror as to why the system is so complex, and in many regards, broken. The years of “fixing” issues with more and more legislation, more and more broken policy, and more and more oversight has created a bureaucratic mess.

One lonely voice in the crowd is Dan Ward, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, who has written several books on real world examples of rapid technological innovation, despite the defense procurement system. His work should be must-reading for all involved in acquiring goods and services at the Pentagon, and hopefully help those realize there is a better way.

 I just find it disheartening the sheer frustration at the inability to make real change happen at Defense, to the point that Watson has to be brought in for relief. Mr. Ward demonstrates that there is a better way, but when no one is listening, I suppose the approach is akin to surgery using a chainsaw, and not a scalpel.

I wonder if Watson will find fault with it’s own contract?

Protest Accountability: Time For Enforcement

Protests are back in the news, although they never really left. I have been writing about this issue for some time (here and here), but the problem has only exploded in the last five years with the economic implosion, and now sequestration and budgeting Armageddon possible on the horizon.

A recent report from IBM’s Center for the Business of Government also highlight similar issues, but some of the recommendations made in the report are either not realistic or have no chance at implementation.

The current state of the acquisition workforce, and I am including the program office who will (or should) be evaluating a proposal, simply will not allow many of these recommendations to see the light of day.

The report should have focused on the only issues that need leadership support, which is to create confidence in the contract award decision, and to ensure industry understands the requirements, evaluation criteria, and why they did not win a contract.

Nonetheless, the current state of affairs when it comes to protests is only going to worsen unless accountability is brought into the fray.

Looking at the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on protests, it is hard to not think that protests are out of control. Here is where I strongly agree with IBM’s report, as I have been an advocate of protest accountability for some time. How can one argue that some protests are not simply frivolous? I know of a company, an incumbent on a contract that lost a recompete, who admitted filing a frivolous protest to bilk the government for another three months of revenue while GAO made the decision. The basis for the protest bordered on absurd, but how often does that happen? More often than you think. It is a business decision no doubt, but only at the expense of the taxpayers and the mission.

Protests are disruptive, and firms need to be held accountable for reimbursing the government for losing protest after protest. Further, this is a demonstration of a bad actor, and should also be included in a firm’s past performance rating.

Conversely, firms should automatically be compensated for protests fees should they be upheld. It is a two-way street, and needs to be treated as such.

Protests are a fundamental right by a firm to correct a deficiency by the government. However, the data indicate that this right is being abused. Let’s bring this situation under control, and move forward.