Managing the contracting process- Is the contracting office doing its job?

The dilemma for nearly all managers of contracting offices is how to manage the process of creating contracts. A typical way to do that is to first, look at the contracting process in place right now. Then comes the work of "managing:

• Determine if it is working (and that depends on your definition, perhaps)
• If it is "working," how well is it working- and how do you know
• If not, figure out what needs fixing, then fix it
• Measure how things are going
• Go back to the first step

To know if the contracting process is "working" at any particular office, it is important to look at your office's raison d'être- purpose for being- and the expectations of its "customers."

For instance, if your office is supporting an activity in a remote location and they are satisfied with the support they are receiving, perhaps there are no overall problems (we aren't going to address personnel issues, personality conflicts, or any of thousands of internal issues that can erupt in an organization).

What if your contracting office supports multiple missions with multiple customers. That complicates things, doesn’t it?

Regardless, of the number of customers or missions, if the customers cannot fulfill their missions because of the work of your contracting office, the process is not working. That means that if the mission is not being met by your team, for instance that activity at a remote location still needs support from "the home office" for even simple contracting actions, the process there is not working.

Similarly, if, from a technical standpoint, the activity's mission is sort-of supported by your office but the customer is not satisfied- for whatever reason- there is a question as to whether things are actually working there at this time.

For those that say, “But we’re getting the mission accomplished…” you might be correct. However, there is something missing- in the customer’s eyes- in accomplishing that mission. For instance:

• Perhaps the customer is not pleased with the length of time the entire process takes.
• Being left out of the process is also a problem for many customers.
• Being required to participate too much in the process may be an issue as well
• Not being consulted/informed at each stage of the process concerns many customers

If you do not include your customer in the process, given a choice that customer may find a more “customer friendly” contracting shop to deal with. It happens all the time using General Services Administration (GSA) schedules, doesn’t it?

To sum up, to know if the process is working, it is important to know what your customers’ missions are and if those customers feel they are successful because of what your office does.

What do you think? How do you measure this?

Best expense account around- your government contract

We, in the the contracting community have been slammed for mismanaging contracts once awarded. The big magnifying glass from above (this week) is on those award fees paid when the contractor is not a good performer. However, in this case involving a pair of contracts (almost $600 million in value) to help Iraq improve their local governing processes, contract payments were made in a curious turn of events:

"On August 19, 2004, Research Triangle Institute physically lost $185,481 in Local Governance Project cash," the report [by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction] said. "It reported the loss to USAID, and on October 3, 2004, the USAID Iraq contracting officer issued a letter" stating the loss was "unforeseen" and not the institute's fault. [Inspector General Stuart] Bowen's office said it had no details on how or where the money was lost and the institute and USAID didn't immediately provide an explanation on Tuesday. But Bowen said USAID approved the payment of more than $242,000 to the institute in the case — including the $185,481 in lost cash and an additional $57,000 in "general and administrative expenses" and a "fixed fee."

I guess we need to be more careful out there. If cash is involved, I would hope it's security (and potential loss) would have been "foreseen" and appropriate protections taken.

Maybe next time.

Comments??

No wonder program offices don't understand

This article looks at the subject of acquisition planning from the program office perspective. The author writes about how program offices perceive acquisition planning and how they tend to have difficulty with contracting officers that demand competition after they have done all that work already:

Let's suppose the program people at a customer agency did a thorough job of analyzing and pricing several different technologies and options over the course of 18 months. Various manufacturers had competed hard during this period to show that their technology was the best value. [Emphasis mine]

Later in the artcle, he says,

When these activities [acquisition planning in accordance with the agency's IT plan] are performed, there is an abundance of meaningful competition during which each manufacturer seeks to prove that it offers the best value. During this sales process, it usually becomes quite apparent which product is best for a particular situation, and everyone knows it. [Again, my emphasis]

What is occurs to me is that the requiring activity does not understand that the "competing"and "sales process" is not part of their job.

The contracting rules were designed to allow fair and open- transparent- transactions between the government and its contractors. These rules have placed responsibility on two groups. The requiring activites- the program offices- and the contracting officers.

The program offices represent the end users of what is being purchased. They are the subject matter experts, the planners and engineers. They are responsible for determining what performance parameters- those key features, specifications, certifications, etc.- that are the minimum requirement to meet the needs of the government.

The contracting community, then, creates the opportunity for vendors across the country to determine if they can meet the government's need in a cost-effective way. They do it in a formal process (controlled by rules and regulations enacted way above their pay grades) that allow a maximum number of vendors to compete in a standardized manner, with transparency to the entire transaction.

This means that the formal acquisition process- and those pesky contracting officers- is where the "competing" and "sales process" takes place on a level playing field, in the full light of the rules and regulations of US Code and the FAR. Working that way, the author and his program colleagues would notice far fewer justifications and approvals needed (J&As).

If the program office does not know what they need and must rely on "competing" vendors to "sell" them on a solution, perhaps they are not doing the job the government is expecting of them.

Am I wrong on this? Comment below.

"Contracting Officers often click through mindlessly when entering contracts in FPDS-NG"

Is this you? Looking on page three of the DOI IG's report you can see the importance of correctly inputting information. Also, having the correct data is good, too.

A solution suggested is to have periodic "statistical sampling." Is there a better solution?

Let me know in the comments.



For other articles on this and other data integrity issues, check out my feed on data integrity.

Once again the experiment continues

Last year, I thought I could contribute enough to our profession by these posts to change the way we think about federal contracting and promulgation of policies. I lost steam as I was hampered by work-related obstacles and infrastructure security issues.

So, undeterred, I am seeking other ways to do this.

Check the two news-related entries on sidebar. I simply have to bookmark interesting articles that I find along the way and they will automatically appear to the right.

Way cool.

Let's see how this plays out.