(light electronic music)
- Hello, and thank your for joining today's
Acquisitions Seminar, hosted by
the Federal Acquisition Institute.
Today's seminar entitled Innovations in Acquisitions
will offer valuable insight and useful information
on great innovations occurring through the federal
acquisition community.
Agencies are taking a hard look at their buying practices,
particularly when it comes to information technology,
but where do you start?
And what should you expect?
This seminar, we'll talk about key initiatives
in policy and give real-world examples
and practical steps from leading practitioners.
Whether your agency is just beginning in its
innovation journey, or it's ready to move up
to the next level, this seminar will present
concrete tools, techniques, and real-world examples
of what to do, how to do it, and what to do think about
as you look to increase innovation, reduce duplication,
and deliver services more efficiently.
To explore innovations in acquisitions,
we have invited representatives from several
federal agencies for some presentations and live
discussions about what they've been doing
to enhance acquisitions across the federal government.
Let's get started with Eliana Zavala
from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy
with a brief overview presentation.
She joins us to talk about recent policy updates
and initiatives aimed at implementing innovative
acquisition solutions.
- As a government wide procurement advisor
to departments and agencies on a variety
of innovative acquisition matters, my projects include
developing policies, practices, and workforce tools
that facilitate innovation in the federal
acquisition system.
As we'll learn here, these steps are increasingly
important in today's environment of reducing burden
to agencies and developing a government-wide
reform plan to better meet mission needs and increase
value to the tax payer.
Innovation is looking ahead at the cutting edge
of business practices, testing new ideas,
and managing risk.
Innovation is also deciding how much new you do
compared to the existing process or strategy,
infusing new ideas in agencies, and revitalizing
underutilized techniques.
I should also mention that modernization in acquisition
is scaling tools to appropriate use
and adoption by all offices.
The common denominator between acquisition,
innovation, and modernization is giving people
the tools to get better results.
There are several ways agencies are testing new
and better techniques to execute
innovative acquisition practices.
For instance, with the support of acquisition
innovation advocates agencies are developing
and adopting new and modern acquisition strategies.
The advocates are designated agency resources
representing departments and agencies,
and they are helping to migrate the federal
acquisition system to a modern acquisition state
with an emphasis on reduced delivery time,
improved customer and vendor satisfaction,
saved and lowered transaction costs,
and increased access to innovative contractors.
Organized around communities of practice,
the acquisition innovation advocates
promote the dissemination of practices and tools
and encourage dynamic learning in the work force.
Another example of how agencies are testing new and better
acquisition techniques is
by standing up acquisition labs.
We have seen pockets of success with this mechanism.
And with senior level support, acquisition ideas
are tested, iterated, adopted, and iterated some more.
Emerging practices become best practices
and even established practices.
There are many other examples that demonstrate
how agencies are accelerating the development
of innovative acquisition capabilities.
Agencies acquisition business processes are shifting
resulting in a more responsive federal acquisition system.
We are seeing the change by tying cost, schedule,
and performance goals to achieve end results,
making product owners accountable for good performance
goals and adjusting when necessary such as
through project management,
and bringing stakeholders together at the beginning
of the acquisition process and seeing the positive
effects throughout the acquisition life cycle.
For instance, an integrative procurement team
at the United States Citizen and Immigration Services
reduced time to award of a multi-million dollar contract
to upgrade a legacy system with a focus on post award
contractor performance and user-centered experience.
From acquisition planning through award,
the acquisition innovation lab supported the team
who was empowered to make collaborative, innovative
decisions such as requesting same day technical
demonstrations by offers, replacing submission
of written technical proposals.
Another example worth noting is the Entry Agency
Facilitator Requirements Development Workshop that the
Department of Defense, the General Services
Administration, and the Office of Personnel Management
participated in amongst other entities.
Led by a trained facilitator, the team followed
a step by step process for building requirements,
performance standards, and inspection plans
in just four days for a government-wide
blanket purchase agreement.
Looking forward, there are several ways for agencies
to get engaged in order to replicate these best practices
and where the work force can go to get more information.
Contact your acquisition innovation advocate.
Participate in and contribute to rapid information
of sharing.
Visit the Acquisition Gateway Innovation Portal,
which includes acquisition innovation sites,
guidance documents, and award programs.
Use Open Opportunities to offer expertise
and request expertise such as through brief exchanges.
And share best practices and experiences with your
acquisition innovation advocate.
- As Eliana mentioned, we have agency practitioners
from the Office of Personnel Management
and the Department of Homeland Security
to share some real-life applications of how agencies
are implementing innovative approaches
in their acquisitions.
Let's hear from them now.
Joining us today from the Office of Personnel Management
is Greg Blaszko.
Thanks for being here, Greg.
- Thank you, John.
I appreciated being able to communicate
acquisition innovation efforts
through this particular outlet.
It's exciting.
- Fantastic.
As an Acquisition Innovation Advocate Council team member,
could you tell us what the AIA Council is
and how you're trying to leverage AIA Council topics
and initiatives to enhance your agencies
procurement operations?
- Certainly, the Council's been excellent.
Matthew, Eliana, Ursala, they've really pushed us
to expand our mindset and, you know, to really drive
towards not just innovation, you know, but towards
better outcomes through more effective and efficient
processes and procedure.
OPM, the Office of Personnel Management is a relatively
small CFO Act agency, and, you know, our mission
is critical to that of the success
of the federal government.
So recently, we've been focusing more on requirements
developments and as mentioned earlier in the webinar
the use of structured engagements
and facilitator support services.
- Fantastic.
Now, regarding your focus on requirements development,
the utilization of a structured engagement approach
and in certain instances, secured contracted facilitator
support, could you explain the approach,
how it was developed, and how it's been applied?
- So at OPM, we've developed a structured approach
that in large part leverages various aspects of the agency,
you know, contracting, program office, obviously,
General Counsel, security, IT, finance.
We've also implemented, as you mentioned,
the contracted facilitator support, so those particular
efforts have really helped us recognize benefit.
- Fantastic.
So I understand there's a really good example
supporting the agency's background investigation program.
How is that event structured?
What parties were involved?
And what was the intended outcome?
- That particular event, we focused on requirements
development as I'd mentioned.
It was several days in length, John, and it
included cross agency representation.
We had representatives in person from DOD, GSA,
DHS, OPM, the Department of State,
and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.
The intended outcome was a requirements package
that took into consideration and recognized the needs
of those agencies that were impacted or would be impacted
by the anticipated award.
The structured engagement created a forum
for constructive cross agency communication,
talking about lessons learned, best practices,
and even anticipated agency or federal-wide changes.
- The emphasis there on requirements development
seems to be as much about ensuring a complete
and accurate scope as it is having
equal buy-in government-wide.
Would that be a correct assumption?
- It is, John, but I don't want to underemphasize
the value of nailing down technical requirements
as well as, you know, the overall scope.
Within the acquisition community, and I'm certain
our teammates within General Counsel would agree,
that a well-written requirements package is critical
not to mention being able to execute one in an efficient
and an effective manner, and as you mentioned,
having that upfront buy-in from all the stakeholders.
- So what do you consider to be the greatest benefits
of the discussed approach?
- I would say, John, absolutely the well-written
requirements package.
I mentioned value earlier.
You can certainly in many ways quantify that value
whether it's the industry's understanding the need
to a greater extent, and the time saved in not trying
to decipher or decode an unclear statement of work.
You could also look at, you know, the technical
requirements and the time and risk reduced
during source selection.
Being able to, you know, have a better technical
understanding in assessing technical merit.
You could also in the administrative phase
look at the post award activities having a very clear
government deliverable.
All of those benefits, they, in my mind, they hit
that critical phases of the total process.
Being able to reduce the time, the cost, and the risk
at those phases are significant benefits
that we achieved through the use of the structured
engagement with facilitator support.
- Do you see the approach evolving or growing over time,
and if so, how?
- Well, in all honesty, I mean, I don't think
to the acquisition community it's news.
These types of approaches, you know, the structured
engagement or the use of facilitators,
they're not novel ideas.
Agencies have been using them for some time now.
For instance, the DOD SOAs is a well-established approach.
But I will say, in my mind, the benefit or the innovative
value is how the acquisition community is documenting
and communicating their implementation of those tools.
How are we taking that structure process and infusing
it with, you know, further innovation
to get greater benefits?
For example, at OPM, we've taken the structured
engagement approach, and we're currently working on
trying to narrow it down, make it smaller,
apply it within just our agency using
just representation across OPM.
We're also taking that opportunity at the requirements
development phase to try and infuse, you know,
other great innovative ideas like Lean Canvas,
prototyping, and piloting, and minimum product viability.
I realize that, you know, amongst all of us in the
acquisition community there isn't enough time in the day.
There aren't enough hours in the day to execute
the to-do list, but I do, you know, having been
through the process, having implemented,
I do firmly believe that the time and effort
that you save preparing, structuring the engagement
is well beyond the time and effort it takes
to put it into place.
Not to mention, you've also got cost savings
and overall reduction in risk to the agency
and to the federal government.
- Fantastic.
That all sounds great, Greg.
Hopefully, some of our viewers can take some of these
ideas you've started at OPM back to their agencies
to improve their acquisitions.
Thank you again so very much.
- Thank you.
- Now, let's look at a couple more real-life
applications throughout agencies who are improving
acquisitions through innovation.
The Department of Homeland Security has a couple
specific examples, and we have a few practitioners
from DHS with us here today.
Joining us now are representatives from the DHS
Procurement Innovation Lab to discuss best practices
tested in their lab.
Polly Hall is a Strategy Lead for the PIL,
and John Inman is a PIL Senior Coach.
I'm now going to turn it over to Polly and John
to talk a little bit about DHS's innovation model.
- Thanks for having us today.
So John, you ready?
- I'm ready.
You start us, Polly.
- Terrific.
The DHS Chief Procurement Officer stood up the
Procurement Innovation Lab, or PIL, in March, 2015
to support procurement and innovation and to foster
a culture of risk-taking within the DHS
acquisition work force.
The DHS Acquisition Innovation Advocate serves as the PIL
Project Lead, and DHS has also stood up an internal
Acquisition Innovation Council across our components.
The PIL coaches encourages and supports
Operational Procurement Teams and shares techniques
for their consideration.
Different from a red team, all decision making
responsibility and review processes for procurements
that run through the PIL remains with the procurement team.
Our goal is to continuously develop the DHS acquisition
work force's innovation capabilities from the ground up.
The PIL process is intended to provide support
to the contracting officer and to build a collaborative
team early in the acquisition process.
It provides a safe space where the Chief Procurement Officer
can offer support to overcome barriers or obstacles
and support if failures occur when teams innovate
and take calculated risks.
As we experiment with new approaches, we also learn
from what worked and what did not.
And we share these outcomes and best practices
primarily through our PIL webinars.
Today, we are going to share a few stories with you
about how DHS procurement teams have innovated
and effectively reduced time to award while increasing
the quality of their award decisions.
These are anecdotal experiences, but we do believe
time to award is reduced by use of the following techniques.
John Inman, our PIL Senior Coach will first share
how down selects can streamline our time to award.
John, to you.
- Thanks, Polly.
For some acquisitions, we know we're going
to get a lot of offers, in the dozens or even over 100.
Sometimes we simply don't have the resources
to evaluate that many offers.
We're encouraging contracting officers to consider
a down select process.
In a down select, we evaluate all offers, maybe dozens,
on a few evaluation factors.
Then we evaluate only a few offers on the remaining
evaluation factors.
Here's an example.
This was a complex acquisition for agile software
and maintenance services with a plan to make four awards
each with an estimated value of about 100 million dollars.
We used a three step process to get down
to the four awardees.
The step one and step two evaluations were based
on paper proposals.
And step three was an oral presentation.
You can see we evaluated 43 offers in step one,
26 in step two, and 10 in step three with four of those
10 selected for award.
It was about four months from receipt of offers to award.
For us, that was fast, but with the down select,
we were also able to do oral presentations.
And after awards were made, with so many unsuccessful
offers, we did group oral debriefings.
We designed a down select approach that fit our acquisition.
It worked for us.
Polly will share another innovation example.
This one from the Transportation Security Administration.
- Thanks, John.
TSA had a requirement for transformative agile services,
which was awarded as a 63 million dollar competitive
task order off of a DHS IDIQ.
One innovation focused on streamlining
the SOAR selection process.
I am going to briefly share some tips that the team
identified out of their experiment.
Tip number one, skip individual evaluation documentation.
The team did not formally document individual
evaluations in formal reports.
Instead, the evaluators read the written submissions
or listened to oral presentations and took individual notes.
And then went straight to consensus and only documented
the outcome of the consensus decisions.
Tip number two, use visual aids to ensure consistency.
The team focused its evaluation on the key differentiators
of the offerors proposals and used visual aids
to ensure the consistency of its evaluation.
The image you see now show an example of a consensus
evaluation board similar to the one the team developed.
This board was not used to compare the offerors.
It was used to ensure that offerors
were evaluated consistently.
Tip number three, agree before documenting.
Following consensus, the team briefed their procurement
attorney and acquisition reviewers in person
on the consensus outcome using the visual aid.
After the briefing, the team was able to document
the consensus evaluation very easily using the visual
aid to develop the narrative.
In fact, the team used the visual aid to brief
the SOAR selection authority as well, which facilitated
both rigorous discussion and real-time decision making.
This innovation cut weeks off of the typical
SOAR selection time frame.
It also reduced to almost zero the amount of rewriting
that was needed.
The award was made within 90 days from release
of the solicitation.
John, can you now share an example of how we can effectively
use oral presentations or technical demonstration?
- I'd be happy to.
For some of our acquisitions, we have found the use of
oral presentation or technical challenges is faster
and more meaningful than a solely paper-based evaluation.
The FAR already tells us that, "Information pertaining
"to areas such as an offeror's capability, past performance,
"work plans or approaches, staffing approaches,
"transition plans, or sample tasks may be suitable
"for oral presentations."
Think about it.
If we need information for an evaluation
but aren't going to incorporate that information
into the resulting contract, why not let the offeror
explain it in an oral presentation
or show us in a demonstration or a challenge?
Here's a real example in support of the E-Verify program
used by employers to validate the eligibility
of their employees to work in the United States.
The product demonstrations were step two of a down select
and three out of the 15 offers were invited
to the product demonstration.
When the offeror walked in the door for the product
demonstration or technical challenge,
it was given a coding exercise.
The government evaluators observed the performance
of the team such as for how well do they work together.
And then when the offeror left, the government evaluated
the code results.
How else could the government select the best value
offeror in an acquisition such as this except
with an oral presentation or a technical challenge?
Again, the team designed their technical challenge approach
to fit their acquisition.
It worked for them.
It worked, in fact, so well, they're using the same
approach now for their follow-up acquisition.
I wish we had more time.
- I'm with you, John.
But if you want to learn more about DHS Procurement
Innovations, please visit our website.
- Thanks, Polly and John for that look inside
the DHS PIL.
- Thanks for having us. - You're welcome.
- With our next guest, we're going to learn
how small businesses will play a vital role
in our acquisition innovations.
Let's welcome Brent Maravilla of the US Digital Service.
Hi, Brent.
Thanks for taking time to join us today.
- Yeah, thanks for having me.
- Can you tell us a little bit about yourself
and your role at the USDS?
- Sure, I have a procurement background here, about 10 years
within government, and I'm now at US Digital Service.
- For viewers who aren't familiar with the USDS,
can you tell us a little bit about it?
- Yeah, great question.
We are a tech start-up within the White House,
and we bring in technologists from the commercial space,
and we send them into very specific agencies to work
on specific tech problems, and they're applying
those commercial practices that are common
in the marketplace like iterative software development
and user-centered design to solve problems,
to make tech better for our citizens.
- Very good.
How does procurement though fit into the US Digital Service?
- Yeah, thanks, John, and if you don't mind,
I brought some notes with me today as well.
Yeah, so those teams that we send into the agencies,
they can really only work on so many projects.
After all, we were only about 200 people strong.
But to solve IT in government in the long-term,
the long play as we say, is government contracts.
So most of the IT work in government is done
through contracts, and you wouldn't believe it,
but we actually spend about 86 billion, with a B,
per year on IT.
And then within that kind of pie chart of 86 billion,
75% of that spent annually is going
to operations and maintenance.
That is really just maintaining really old systems.
I'm talking about some of 'em decades old,
and they're not adding any new functionality.
But we would argue that our citizens deserve better.
They deserve IT to work for them like their
commercial products do, so think about all the apps
that you have on your smartphone and how well they work.
Government IT should be able to work just as well
for our citizens.
So think about, for example, when you
order a book off Amazon.
It's easy.
It's actually a pleasure to use.
Government IT should be the same way.
- So how well is the federal government
recognizing this need?
- Yeah, so we're recognizing it more and more.
And for those that are recognizing the need,
they really do want to get started, but there's
a lot of question marks about that because we're kind of
new to doing IT the way it's done in the commercial world.
And there are some products that really need to get fixed
fast, so there's that question of
how do we get started fast?
- Great.
And I've heard for quite a while that the IT procurement
process takes too long a time,
that tech innovations come too quickly.
Isn't that problematic?
- Yeah, you're absolutely right.
So I was a IT contracting officer in several agencies.
Most recently at the EPA where I led a team
of contracting officers, and I can't tell you how many times
I got the complaint, contracts takes too long.
It might take a year or two for us to get
a significant acquisition done.
And even writing the requirement can take
quite a bit of time, so the good thing is that there's
a lot of really good companies that can provide
digital services to the government, both large and small.
And there are, we especially, want to see companies
that are exemplary in some of the Digital Service Playbook.
For instance, play number one, understand what people need.
So not building a system and in a locked office
in a federal agency and not, instead going out and talking
with end-users and building product accordingly.
Play number four in the Digital Services Playbook,
build the service using agile and iterative practices.
Or play number eight, choose a modern technology stack.
Or play number 10, automate testing and deployments.
So the good thing when you talk about speed,
one good option is what the Small Business Administration
has come up with, and it's called the 8A Program.
What the 8A Program is it's a socioeconomic program
where you can award up to four million dollars each
sole source, so that's a really good thing,
but with that comes a catch as well.
So you're actually, once the requirement goes into
the 8A Program, you have to receive approval
from the SBA to get it out of the 8A Program
once the contract is done.
So for that reason, unfortunately, a lot of agencies
shy away from using the 8A Program because they think
that they're kind of locked in indefinitely.
- So what kind of solution has the USDS developed
to address that situation?
- Yeah, so the US Digital Service and with the
Small Business Administration, we partnered together
to create what we call the 8A Program Digital Service
Initiative, or we also call it the
8A Digital Service Initiative.
And what this allows for, it gives this kind of clear,
easy, fast path for agencies to get started
with digital services.
It increases the amount of awards given to quality
8A providers, and it reduces the administration for both
the SBA and the agency side.
But here's the kicker.
This is the real important thing is that the agency can be
released from the 8A Program once the contract is done.
So whereas before, or normally, you would have to get
approval from the SBA, that approval is not needed here.
So an agency can do their market research, find a great
8A that's good at digital services, get started
with digital services very quickly, and then be released
from the 8A Program, should they choose to,
once the work is done.
- Well, let's go back a bit.
What's considered within scope?
- Yeah, so this initiative is not for everything.
There are three Statements of Objectives that we created
along with the SBA.
That creates the scope.
They're learn the process.
The second one is select the tech.
And the third one is build the minimum
viable product or MVP.
So I'm gonna go ahead and refer to some slides
that I brought along with me.
First is learn the process.
So what this is talking about is very much about culture
change, practical application, and a retrospective.
So first is the coaching.
So coaching's provided to teach kind of
those digital service concepts such as hypothesis
development and testing those hypotheses, product vision,
statement development, discovery, and user research,
product roadmaps, design, agile delivery techniques
and methods, understanding end-user needs, product
management, automated testing and continuous integration,
which is another word for dev ops.
Also there's this practical application, so its not just
teaching what it is but trying to apply it
to a specific need within the agency.
So they're going to work with the agency to help
develop a lightweight prototype or pilot of the system
to start mitigating an identified agency problem.
So this would include creating a product vision,
the product roadmap, writing epochs and user stories,
and leveraging user-centric design.
It also includes iteration retrospectives, release planning,
testing solutions with actionable end-users,
and tracking success using metrics.
The last part of this, learn the process, is a retrospective
where they look back on all the work that was done
within scope for the contract and taking note of what went
well, what didn't got well, and planning for next steps.
So that's learn the process.
The next one is select the technology.
This is typically what, something that we would call
in US Digital Service the discovery sprint where we're
sent into an agency.
The agency maybe wants to, I don't know, say move
to the cloud as much as possible.
Or select a more commercial communications platform
so they can communicate with the public faster
and more efficiently.
Or they want to move to a more common CRM.
There's a number of different platforms that are available
that are out there in the commercial space,
but the government may not have as in depth
knowledge as they should.
So you can see this as really intense market research
to determine which platform is best for the agency
and the vendor will kind of has that knowledge
and can apply that to the agency's specific technology
environment kind of taking a look underneath their hood
to find out, okay, since you have this technical
environment, this tech stack, there are these common
platforms out there in the commercial world.
Here's the very specific pros and cons
for each of those platforms.
So the end, also included within this statements
of objectives is kind of taking the maybe two or three
best alternatives, buying if that means some licenses,
and putting those in an environment where the agency
can kind of put them in front of end-users
and try them out before making a final determination
on which platform or which technology stack
is going to work best for them.
So usually, the government will make that decision,
and after they send out a very big request for quote,
and they leave it to the vendors to propose which platforms
they think would work best.
That's fine.
The agency might have a better understanding of what
technology only at that time works best.
But there might be other parts of the quote
that aren't really best for the government.
Then the government is stuck with that vendor
even though they chose, they presented the right platform,
but there are other parts of the proposal that won't work
well for the government.
This kind of takes that out of the equation, and helps the
government to make a better assessment up front.
Last SOO or the Statements of Objective is to build
a minimum viable product.
So what this is about is discovery and design,
developing an actual minimum viable product,
and a retrospective.
There's a significant amount of time given
to discovery and design where the government and the vendor
find an agency problem and end-user goals.
They create a hypothesis statement or statements
that can be tested by releasing a minimum viable product.
So in other words, a product that has all the needs
of what the thing should do but not necessarily
all the wants.
And then create a product vision.
And then the next step is actually developing
a minimum viable product, which includes using agile
software development methods to build an MVP
and release it to the end-users to understand
what their whole experience is with that product.
So there's going to be, there's great focus on addressing
the whole experience from start to finish for the end-users.
Making the product simple and intuitive and only making
decisions based upon data measuring how well the product
is working for those users.
And then last, again, there's a retrospective,
which includes a detailed look back at the project
identifying past and potential future roadblocks
and updating the product road map
for really scaling that MVP through continuous design
and agile processes.
- Fantastic.
Well, that's within scope.
What's not in scope?
- Yeah, so really what is in scope is everything
up to building a minimum viable product.
But what would not be in scope is anything thereafter.
So full system development would, for example,
not be within scope.
- Reasonable enough.
Well, when will the 8A Program for Digital Services
be available to federal contracting officers?
- Yeah, so many people don't know this, but it's live now.
And the SBA has signed the memo.
It's available on our tech FAR hub, which you'll
probably see on the screen right now.
- Oh, great, so the 8A Program for Digital Services
is live and active, but I understand that the USDS
has something else that you're working on to help match
up 8As with great vendors.
Can you tell us a little more about this?
- Yeah, so that's a really good question
because as I started training and going out to agencies,
talking to agencies about what this digital service
initiative is, they all said, great.
Brent, that is awesome.
But how do we know what a good digital services vendor
looks like?
So US Digital Service partnered with OFCIO,
also within the White House and the CIO Council,
which is in GSA, and we are working on
what we're calling a matchmaking event.
Kind of like dating for the government and private industry.
Right?
So I brought a few slides with me today or some graphics,
and so like I said.
The federal government really likes this idea
of this initiative.
They see it as a great way to get started
with digital services, but as they look at all the 8As
out there, which there are hundreds of, they start thinking
to themselves, okay, which one should I partner with?
How do I know that they're really good at digital services?
So the good thing is that there's been a lot
of market research that's been done to identify
really good 8A digital service providers.
And we've seen their work done in making really good
cutting edge, kind of commercial grade products that are
deployed in government and serving citizens today.
So they actually have contracts.
So we know of plenty of vendors that are really
doing great work.
So what if one day we brought together some of these
great vendors that we already know about on one side,
and then we also brought other agencies that had
specific requirements that fit within one of these
or together some of these Statements of Objectives?
Again, it doesn't need to be fit necessarily in one SOO.
They can combine or mix and match,
but if we were to bring them together for a meeting,
So imagine this.
You bring together in one conference room, you know,
the federal government with their requirement
that is within scope, and they sit at one end of the table.
And at the other side of the table walks in an 8A vendor
that's kind of pre-vetted.
We know that they do good work.
And maybe two weeks ahead of time the agency
has given that Statements of Objective,
their tailored SOO, to the vendor so they can kind of study
ahead of time and be prepared to kind of make their pitch
maybe over an hour long.
- But this isn't the procurement action, correct?
This is just within the 8A Program?
- Yeah, this is the beauty of the 8A Program,
is no protest risk.
As you can see if you want to look up in FAR 19.8,
you can kind of work directly with vendors
without the risk of protest.
So really this is not oral presentations.
These are not oral quotes.
This is just really good market research.
- [John] Wow.
- Yeah.
So imagine, yeah, one side of the table you have the agency.
The other side you have the 8A vendor.
And yeah, so say they make a one hour pitch,
maybe even there is a lightweight prototype
that they've brought or a previous project or IT thing
or application that they've made that is somewhat
similar to the government's needs.
So imagine the hour's over.
The 8A vendor walks out.
The government kind of deliberates for 15, 20 minutes,
and at say, 10:30 another, a different 8A vendor
comes in, again, that has seen the scope.
You know, they've received it two weeks ahead of time.
And they give their own pitch.
The vendor kind of walks out.
Again, the government deliberates.
Everybody breaks for lunch.
The whole process takes place again for a third round
after lunch, and again, this doesn't need to be
just one vendor.
Imagine like that's just one conference room.
Simultaneously, there's two other conference rooms
maybe on a different floor that is agency B
and agency C, and throughout the day, they also
met with different 8A digital service vendors.
- Oh, so different teams, different needs,
but the same matching event?
- That's right.
That's right.
So the plan would be that at the end of the day, each of
these agencies, let's say maybe there's three agencies.
They have each met with three digital service vendors
that have been pre-vetted, and they have a much better,
these agencies, have a much better idea of who they want
to go into contract with.
So much that they could be thinking okay,
the first vendor was pretty good but not the best.
The second vendor was almost there but not as good
as the third vendor.
We want to engage that third vendor later this week.
Ask for a, or send to them,
a written request for proposal.
We're gonna be able to move pretty quickly here
through RFP, receiving a proposal, a technical evaluation,
negotiations, and awards.
I mean, that could be done literally between the matching
event and award within two or three weeks.
- So going back though to the matching event.
It's still considered information gathering, right.
After you've gathered information for these events,
now, you hold the formal procurement, correct?
- You got it exactly right.
So you know it enough, and you can explain it now
that you can go and teach all the agencies for me.
- (laughs) Well, we'll see about that.
I'm sure our viewers will be on the lookout for that.
Say, can they contact you if they want to participate
in these matching events?
- Yes, that would be great.
We are reaching out now and having kind of informal
conversations with agencies trying to find requirements,
explaining what this initiative is, and the matching event,
to find an agency that has a burning need
and they want to get started with digital services.
And they could use help just like this where we kind of
facilitate something where we help them get
some really good market research done
so they can move quickly through the procurement process
and get started with digital services.
Even the end of this fiscal year, you know, FY '17
or the beginning of FY '18.
- Well, thank you, Brent, for being here today
and helping our viewers understand how to get started
with the 8A Program.
- Thanks for having me.
- To wrap up our seminar, let's welcome Al Munoz
of the General Services Administration.
Hey, Al, thanks for being here.
- Well, thanks for having me, John.
- To get started, can you give us a little background
on your role in the GSA and what you'll be sharing
with our viewers?
- Sure, so I currently work special projects for GSA,
and that means a couple different things.
But my primary role is being embedded
with the Technology Transformation Service
and the team over at 18F.
- Fantastic, so in an innovation group, what's the most
important lesson for new practitioners
in the acquisition field?
- So there's a lot of things to think about and to be aware
of when you start going down the road of doing something
different whether it's innovative IT or digital services
or even strategic sourcing or category management.
There's a lot of things to think about and be aware of.
But the most important thing that I have found
is just the need to educate, the need to talk
to everybody that's going to be involved in the process
from start to end, and get them a comfort level,
a level of familiarity with what it is that you're going
to be doing so that everybody can move things along,
and you don't necessarily delay your projects stopping
to explain things that otherwise the people
involved would already know.
And some examples of that have been counsel, for example,
budget and finance, the CFO organization.
Vendors, in particular, have been very interested
to see what the government is thinking and what the
government is contemplating doing.
So there's been some education that's been needed
on the outside as well.
But also for the CORs, the contracting team,
the other folks that are gonna be
administering these contracts.
There's a real need to have a shared understanding
among all the members of the acquisition team,
both sides, or all three sides I should say,
the vendor, the technical staff, and the contracting staff,
so that when you start going down the road of doing this,
everybody has a common understanding, a common foundation,
for what it is that you're trying to accomplish.
- Very good.
What are some of the initial reactions
to this wave of innovation we've been talking
about throughout this seminar?
- So there's been some pushback.
I think practitioners, any time you do something new,
you can expect that there's going to be some pushback,
and what I've found is that a lot of it
is very well-founded.
Some of the concerns that have been raised
by the vendor community, for example, are things
that we just didn't think of when we started
doing innovative things.
We had the same experience when we started down the road
of doing strategic sourcing in category management.
Vendors didn't quite understand what we were getting at.
There's always the commercial explanation
for what strategic sourcing or category management
or digital services is.
And then, there's the government explanation
of what that is, and vendors have a real need
to understand what that is if they're gonna deliver
that value back to the government.
And there's gonna be a little bit of, you know,
we've been there and done that.
We heard that a lot with strategic sourcing.
We're hearing it now with digital services
and agile and some of, modular contracting,
and some of the other techniques that we're trying now.
We tried this five or 10 years ago or 15 or 20 years ago,
and it didn't work.
Or the FAR got in our way, or some other branch
got in our way, or some other barricade got in our way,
and we weren't able to make it stick.
So you're gonna hear a little bit of that.
So just be prepared for that.
That doesn't take away at all from your message.
It doesn't take away at all from what you're trying
to accomplish and do for the American public.
- Great.
What should contracting teams watch out for
when trying to do things more efficiently or innovatively?
- Well, one of the things that you have to keep in mind
when you're doing something that's different,
when you're doing things that maybe your agency
or your contracting office has never done before
is that you're still gonna have to be aware of
and follow the rules, compliance issues,
if you're talking about doing IT.
It doesn't really matter how new or cool that IT is.
There are still things like 508 accessibility,
cybersecurity, FITARA compliance.
There are still things that you're gonna have
to be conscience of for doing things the way
that the government needs them to be done legitimately.
One thing that I would caution is that there's
no real good reason to break the rules, right.
There are some dogma, right, around the way
that we do acquisition in the government
that definitely does need to be broken.
That's definitely something that we should
make a conscious effort to even shatter, just destroy it
and have another approach.
What we're doing is trying to be innovative,
and we should definitely just break away from that
groove that we tend to get into
when it comes to acquisition.
But you still have to follow the rules, right?
You still have to follow the FAR, and what I would say
about that is just breaking the law
is not particularly innovative, right.
Don't go so far off the page that you're getting
cross-threaded with the regulations,
with the Antideficiency act or any part of the FAR that has
requirements for your contracting officer to follow.
You're still gonna need to do those things,
and where you add value on the contracting team
is helping the innovators, right, helping the technologists,
helping the vendors wind their way through that process
and get to an effective contract at the end of the day.
- What are things then contracting teams should consider
when trying something new?
It seems contracting teams are being told to work faster,
do things differently, and to take some quote, unquote
risks, but there's still FAR.
- Yeah, absolutely, and that is definitely the impression
that I'm getting, seeing from my side that not only
are we being asked to do things much more quickly,
but we're also being asked to do things
that are very different, so it's a combination
of it's different, and we want to do it quickly.
So there's some risk involved in that.
And I think it pays to, for the acquisition team
to take a moment and just thing about what the risks are,
and assess what those risks might be.
We talk in acquisition about the risk of protest,
or we talk about the risk of the money going to something
that doesn't accomplish what it was intended to accomplish,
but there are other risks involved in innovating.
Certainly, when you're talking about IT and digital
services, cybersecurity, for example, is a risk
that you should be aware of.
There are other risks out there,
and it doesn't really mater what you're doing.
If it's IT or professional services
or if it's strategic sourcing or category management
there are different sets of risks involved in each one
of those new methods of doing things in acquisition,
and it will be worth your time to take a few moments
and to talk about that with your vendors, talk about
it with counsel, talk about it with the acquisition team
and the technologists and the technology
that you're trying to bring into the government.
- So be innovative, but be smart.
That's great, Al.
Thanks for joining us and sharing these great tips
to help our audience implement innovative ideas
and solutions at their agencies.
- Thanks again for having me, John.
- We're glad you've taken the time to experience
this presentation about Innovations in Acquisitions.
We look forward to the great questions you'll submit
for our presenters by September 29, 2017,
and we'll post the answers along with this presentation.
The Federal Acquisition Institute thanks Eliana Zavala,
Greg Blaszko, Polly Hall, John Inman, Brent Maravilla,
and Al Munoz, and of course, FIA thanks you, our viewers,
for your time and attention.
(light electronic music)
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