Is Innovative Procurement the Answer to Budgetary Constraints?

As agencies continue to feel pressure to modernize their aging infrastructure, and find other avenues for completing their respective missions with restrained funding, several areas of interesting solutions seem to be working their way across government.

As blogged by Steve Kelman on Federal Computer Week's The Lectern, several agencies are using competitive prototyping, and other innovations, as a step to encourage groundbreaking solutions by industry, combined with evaluating process over paper.

First up the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Flexible Agile Support for the Homeland or FLASH, which was designed to be a small business contract for a variety of Agile development and other DevOp services. The source selection process focused on the use of tech demonstrations, and forgoing the typical Request for Proposal process which is usually daunting for small businesses, especially newer entrants into the market.

This was an excellent approach to acquiring software development services, but was regretfully plagued with management errors in the evaluation and selection process.

A teachable moment for sure, but DHS has made a commitment to innovative, and will continue to find ways to improve its procurement processes and find the best ways to bring in innovative firms and solutions to the agency as discussed on Government Matters.

These tech demos are an excellent way to see how firms behave, think, interact with users, and of course, verify the quality of the products and services being developed. These are tangible factors for evaluation, and can simply not be done with paper-based approaches to selecting vendors.

Besides DHS and 18F from the General Services Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, used a tech demo to select a vendor for a task order for software development to support benefit appeals processing modernization. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has done tech demos, as has the Department of Health and Human Services, who have been pioneers in digital services through the Buyers Club, and the leadership of Mark Naggar.

This past week, the Office of Personnel Management issued a Request for Information on innovative solutions to modernize their infrastructure, and how best to pay for it. Perhaps a culture shift is underway across government, which is a good thing. A very, very good thing.

Let’s hope that these initiatives continue to spread across government, and that the days of reading through 100-page RFPs are at an end for both industry and the government.

On the Horizon: Small Business IT Opportunities in the Trump Administration

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Although the Trump Administration is only into its first week, it certainly has been a busy one so far. Granted many of the initiatives and priorities that the new Administration will fund are still coming into focus, however recent developments signal where small businesses may want to focus, or continue to focus, in fiscal year 2017. 

Cybersecurity 

Cybersecurity will continue to be an important mission, and one that will continue to see more growth. Given the steady stream of data protection contracts that have been awarded recently, small businesses offering these services would be wise to research some of the contracts, the awardees, and the vehicles used to award these contracts to build relationships and develop opportunities. 

Examples include: 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – DHS awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin, with a potential value of $395 million, for various cybersecurity protection services designed to prevent, detect, contain and eradicate cyberthreats.

General Services Administration (GSA) – GSA continues to expand and modify their existing cadre of procurement vehicles for cyber. According to GSA, in commenting on their recent contract with Adobe: 

…The agreement will help agencies "comply with current information security and electronic government policy recommendations and requirements," including the Cybersecurity National Action Plan, the Cybersecurity Strategy and Implementation Plan, the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, and the E-Sign Act of 2000, according to GSA… 

GSA chose Adobe as a provider of data protection capabilities for federal agencies, via Carahsoft, as an existing GSA Schedule 70 provider, and designated reseller of Adobe offerings. 

Other awards of note: 

GSA awarded two contracts with a potential total value of $110 million to ManTech, on behalf of DHS, under the GSA Alliant Government-Wide Acquisition Contract vehicle. 

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services awarded a contract to Iron Vale, for providing a comprehensive cybersecurity support, using GSA’s IT 70 schedule. 

DHS awarded Advanced Concepts and Technologies International a $21 million contract through the GSA’s OASIS Small Business Pool. 

The U.S. Air Force awarded Engility Holdings a $31 million contract to provide cyber-research, security assessments, and analysis. The Defense Technical Information Center, a centralized agency within the Defense Department, facilitated the contract award. 

The U.S. Army awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a $13.2 million contract for cyber security enterprise support via the Army Contracting Command. 

Federal agencies will continue to look for opportunities to enhance cybersecurity capabilities, so small businesses should see more prospects to build relationships with these agencies, and other firms in the space. 

Big Data Analytics 

After two Senate confirmation hearings, President Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, clearly sees big data analytics as a path to improving efficiency of government operations.

Rep. Mulvaney stated that the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), a 2014 law that requires standardized reporting on spending data across the federal government, as a critical tool to eliminating waste.

He also stated in one of the hearings: 

…“We’re living in an age of big data, and then here we are as the federal government and we probably have some of the best big data available anywhere, but we can’t use it because no one can share it or read it.”…

Small businesses with data analytic services, which also help support DATA ACT, can perhaps find some interesting opportunities in this sector. Further, helping the government with decision-making analytics about improper payments, and other means of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, should also continue proving to be an interesting market for further exploration. These capabilities should create new and expanded opportunities at agencies across the government, and the Pentagon.

As always, being successful in these areas requires good intelligence about how best to add value, and how to solve your customer’s problem. Although modernization should also see significant investment in the Trump Administration, cyber and analytics tools should continue to prove fruitful for new and continuing contracting opportunities.

Institutionalizing MythBusters: The Need for Better Industry and Government Collaboration

Last week, the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) conducted their inaugural 2013 Mythbusting Awards to three Federal agencies for their work in improving vendor communications in the acquisition process. The program also contained a forum on Mythbusting, in addition to breakout sessions on various MythBusters issues related to the previous memos and survey results released by ACT-IAC. Lastly, the program recognized the agencies (Department of Homeland Security or DHS, The National Reconnaissance Office, The Department of State) making improvements in the way they interact with collaboration, and to share those results and best practices with the group.

Having attended the event, I think any opportunity to acknowledge and discuss the value of industry and government collaboration is an important step in improving acquisition outcomes. Like most ACT-IAC events, it was well done and productive.

I discussed this event with an acquisition official that did not attend, but more importantly, did not think this event or initiative had any merit. His belief was that government officials should not be rewarded simply for doing their jobs, and industry should not be granting awards acknowledging what they should be doing in the first place.

He makes a valid and interesting argument, no doubt. However, it is too easy to dismiss recognizing those that are making a positive impact on government management.

In fact, these types of awards should be handed out with more frequency, as the knowledge transfer would be invaluable to reverse the trend of the closed-door policies that seem firmly entrenched in regards to government and industry relations.

In these fiscally austere times, communications between industry and government are vitally important to develop affordable programs, and to ensure that requirements for programs are done in an environment of realism.

I am not talking about what passes for market research these days, which is the government issuing a Request for Information, and then that is it. In the award citation by ACT-IAC, DHS was cited for creating initiatives to lower barriers to effective communication:

The Department of Homeland Security emphasizes quality government-industry communication as part of its strategic plan and its new vendor communication framework.  DHS created an industry liaison council and a small business council to increase the effectiveness of its dialogue with industry. DHS has rolled out industry- led seminars to educate the acquisition workforce on private sector business processes, and appointed two personnel as centralized resources for vendors seeking information about DHS acquisitions. DHS has also developed seven industry-government communication metrics to measure its success.

It is about, as Office of Federal Procurement Policy Deputy Administrator Lesley Field noted, "institutionalizing Mythbusting." That is to say, creating a culture where effective industry and government relations, communications, and collaboration are the norm and not the exception.

Further, we are in a desperate need of shifting the culture of risk aversion and lack of accountability, combined with an understanding of the value that effective communications with industry bring to the table.

It is a fact that better relationships between government and industry create more value to the taxpayer, through improved outcomes, and less fraud, waste, and abuse. Now is not the time to shut doors, but to open them, so that government can communicate what it can afford, and industry can communicate what value it can provide at the affordability targets. Will revisions in requirements be necessary? What about adjusting expectations?

No question. However, how do we do that if we are not talking to each other?

Industry is not the enemy. There is no silver bullet here, but we must continue providing the opportunities and tools to the acquisition workforce on how to conduct market research, and the value it brings.

“There is no time” is not a valid excuse. There seems to be endless amounts of time to correct mistakes, but never enough time to prevent them for occurring in the first place. Acquisition planning and forecasting is a strategic initiative that must be made a priority with leadership, and not be treated as a paper-pushing exercise.

Until then, let’s keep presenting these awards.

DHS Rule Protects Small Business? Think Again.

Federal Computer Week reported on a proposed change  to the Homeland Security Acquisition Regulation, the supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to help small businesses fend off rapacious primes contractors from “windfall” payments on Time and Materials contracts.

“Help” like this is not desired by small businesses.

The first part of the proposed change, per the Federal Register notice,  states:

…The first of the two existing FAR policies provides the option to require separate labor hour rates for each subcontractor under a T&M/LH contract, in addition to the labor hour rates established for the prime contractor. See FAR 16.601(e). The current FAR policy authorizes an agency either to permit individual contracting officers to decide if separate labor hour rates are necessary or to establish an agency procedure making separate rates mandatory. This rule proposes to establish a DHS-wide procedure to make the FAR option for consistent use of separate rates mandatory for DHS T&M/LH contracts…

The second part of the ruling is to require consistency with contractors and subcontractors in the way they account for labor hour expenditures, requiring them to check a box for which accounting process will be used to account for overtime labor hours for employees exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act.

DHS wants “to eliminate unintentional windfall payments to the prime contractor" that can come when work done by subcontractors is billed at the prime contractor's labor rate, according to the notice.

It amazes me when proposed policy changes like this are announced. Does anyone in government understand business anymore? We can expect higher direct labor rates to cover the overhead of managing subcontractors, which would have been previously earned by the markup on the labor.

Those pesky “pass through” fees that subcontractors pay for the privilege of getting crumbs on the contract. Subcontractors can expect fewer profits on a contract, as the “low cost” buying model means even smaller margins.

Profits are not wasteful, and they certainly are not “windfall” payments. Who came up with that language?

More importantly, how does this help small business?

I think one of the commentators on the FCW article gave a very clear picture of the environment that small businesses face:

…The so called "windfall" payments are the only real justification to the Prime to include subcontractors. Do you really think we add subs out of the kindness of our hearts? We do it because you require us to reach out to the small business community. If we lose all incentives to do this, why would we continue to add subs unless they provide a part of the solution that we don't have the ability to provide. The Prime has to get something out of the contract to bring on a sub. There is a cost to administering subcontracts, or had you forgotten that fact? I am sad to see how many skilled acquisition professionals have left the Government for private industry or to retire. The remaining staff just don't understand how Private Industry works. What a shame!...

Small businesses do not need this type of “help.”