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What's happening in the federal IT community
By Sunday, April 6, 2008 | 12:05 PM
Today, there is a looming crisis in the federal acquisition arena that overshadows specific actions to reform the system: Roughly half the federal acquisition community is eligible to retire from government service within the next eight years. This gives rise to two threatening scenarios. First, an already burdened contracting and procurement system will find itself further shorthanded. With the outflow of experienced professionals, Congress is worried that there will not be enough people to handle the program management, contracting and procurement needs of government.
Second, the federal acquisition professionals who will be left behind lack the experience of those who have departed. Congress has expressed concern that a substantial portion of government’s institutional memory will be lost in the next few years. As a consequence, we will face a situation where we have fewer acquisition professionals serving government, and these people will have lower skills levels than the old guard.
Congress recently received testimony from three key acquisition management institutional players: the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI), the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP). Leaders of these government organizations were asked what they were doing to stem the flow of experienced acquisition professionals. The response: We are instituting inducements to keep experienced professionals from bailing out, we are strengthening training of existing professionals, and we are actively recruiting fresh blood to fill the ranks.
These are good answers to Congress’ question. However, it is not clear that Congress asked the right question. In view of the fact that the acquisition process has struggled over the past several decades, do we really want to take extraordinary efforts to retain the institutional memory associated with a problem-filled acquisition process?
A better question that Congress should raise is: With the exodus of the current acquisition workforce, what are the DAU, FAI and OFPP doing to change the mindset of acquisition professionals so that we have a new generation of professionals who understand that effective acquisition management requires good business sense and goes beyond the mindless implementation of the Federal Acquisition Regulations?
Comments
You call it institutional knowledge I call it burecratic mumbo jumble. The typical CS retort to every thing is "that's the way we've always done it" its a way to hide behind a reg when they don't want to do something.
Hopefully the new blood will ask why and start streamlining the process, the acquisition folks aren't over worked they made this mess. Time to start the fix
Have you tried reading the FAR? It's not written for simpletons. You scoff at its place in influencing the acquisition process as if manifesting some form of malicious compliance, or perhaps passive-aggressive behavior.
It is statutory-imlementation; and it's policy and procedure. It's flawed, it's difificult to read and interpret and it's likely non-value-added in myriad ways. That doesn't change the fact that it has the force and effect of law in some respects, and establishes institutionalized process in other ways. It is largely the product of the Administrative Procedures Act, as well as countless laws alluded to previously.
If your commentary is thoughtful enough to consider how to improve the situation, then you should be proud of that. Just don't mock what you don't understand. Otherwise you're just part of the problem.
Mindless Analysis | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 3:18 PMGiven the many studies, inquires, situational awareness and just plain common sense of those in the acquisition community it is not sufficient enough to just fill the ranks, we must restructure the ranks. For too many years the DoD Acquisition Workforce has been a bill payer for many requirements to include the systems and customers they serve. To date, I have yet to discover a publicized or practiced benchmark of what a Cradle to Grave Contracting Office staff should consist of. Internally the closest we have come is to state that our cost of executing our mission in support of a customer’s requirements is 1.3 cents per contracted dollar. This concept at our installation buys the customer an average of 6 hours of Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer service for each of their annual requirements…..I’d ask is this sufficient given the brain drain, lack of staffing and general perception of a less competent workforce? If your answer is no, then I’d advocate that aside from keeping what we have we must expand beyond the zero-sum mentality of staffing within the DoD Acquisition Community. To add insult to injury not only are we trying to execute a daily contracting mission, we are constantly searching for new talent to recruit in order to address our organization’s sustained the 30% annual turn-over rate. So not only do we have to know our business, execute it with an undermanned organizational structure, we also have to by necessity transform ourselves into expert trainers with the same meager workforce.
Concerned Chief | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 2:48 PMWhat they should also be doing is focusing on knowledge management, and how techniques can be used to not only make explicit what is not (write processes down!), and through interviews or mentoring, transfer what can be transferred from those workers who are going to leave. Start now, not later!!
Knowledge Professional | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 12:36 PMThe Federal Government has a number of issues working against it, no doubt causing college grads to shy away from applying for jobs. Not only is the application process itself convoluted, but day-to-day routines in the Government demand constant filling out of forms, endless red tape, and accountability. The application process represents an ideal introduction to this, unfortunately. We have Six Sigma training, but need to use it to better streamline our processes. Mentoring of civilians is a constant problem (as revealed by civilian survey results). We are still far behind the corporate sector in pay. We are given training opportunities (at the expense of millions of dollars) and often not held accountable for using that training and many times it's untimely, causing rapid skill decay. In many organizations, NSPS is alive and well already, emphasizing the accomplishments of the INDIVIDUAL but not teamwork (we've done a 180 in that regard). What we CAN say, though, is "we get good benefits." Unfortunately, that may not be a strong enough draw for college grads who can apply elsewhere, perhaps where their energies and enthusiasm will show far more immediate results as a result of their labor.
Rose Kimberley | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 11:26 AMWhy would a young one want to stay very long in federal service these days when they talk to those old timers that have a much sweeter retirement program that is not available to the young people?
ELP | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 10:39 AMAs long as the FAR is in place, all the Federal aquisition community can do is follow the FAR. You can't really do anything beyond a mindless implementation of the FAR. The law kind of frowns on going outside the box.
Federal Employee | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 10:13 AM"... what are the DAU, FAI and OFPP doing to change the mindset of acquisition professionals so that we have a new generation of professionals who understand that effective acquisition management requires good business sense and goes beyond the mindless implementation of the Federal Acquisition Regulations?"
What difference does it make if you use great business sense and your procurement gets a protest? The reviewers or GAO are going to mindlessly implement the FAR in reviewing the protest. Besides, you can't get anything innovative past Legal review, anyway.
Lane Narrows | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 6:58 AM