Wanting to award a contract and having a path to make award are two different things.  The government needs to acquire goods and services. Even when the government customer clearly knows what they need, just knowing that something is needed is not enough. Even when there is funding to meet that requirement, that’s still not enough. They still need the HOW. The government team still needs a path to actually buy the product or service. In GovCon, that path is referred to as the Acquisition Plan. The Acquisition Plan is how the government will actually buy something.  In this episode, w ..read more

A Sole Source contract award is when the government awards a contract without competition. The standard procedure in GovCon is to use competition to compete requirements, therefore awarding a sole source contract is a “non-standard” procedure.    There are a variety of factors that impact the decision to use a sole source strategy to acquire goods and services. To effectively use this sole source authority, it's critical for both government and industry to understand when a sole source contract would/should/could be the best option to meet the government’s mission. Since this is a “n ..read more

How long can a government contract be?  Most contracts are awarded to meet ongoing requirements. Therefore, it makes sense to have a contract in place to cover that requirement at all times. However, is there a maximum length for those contracts? What is the “right” length of a federal government contract? That can be a tricky question. If the contract duration is too short - it’s a lot of work to recompete it often (i.e. every month is too short). But if the contract is too long, or is perpetual, then no new contractors have a chance to win it (i.e. a contract that is awarded every hundr ..read more

A protest is the formal process for offerors to challenge the way the government awards a contract. It’s like having check and balances built into the contracting “system”. However,  protests tend to be sideways activity because the protest process neither moves the acquisition forward (so the contract can support the mission), nor does it move the acquisition backward (so the government and regroup, improve, and try again). Many times, protests just cause a delay in the contract award process (we talked about the impact and magnitude of these delays in Episode 421). Plus, the offeror who ..read more

“Government contracting” is a broad phrase. There are many types of contracts, and types of contracting that fit under Government Contracts.  One of the lesser known types of contracting is Contingency Contracting. This is contracting in an unknown or unstable and often unsafe environment. Contingency Contracting Officers award contracts and procure goods and services in response to disasters, as part of stability efforts in foreign nations, and/or in a war zone (for example). In other words, NOT a traditional business to government environment.  In this episode, Kevin is joined by T ..read more

Government and industry are “encouraged to communicate” in the FAR…that’s nice…but how do they do that? How can the government and industry teams actually execute that “encouragement”? What exactly do the regulations say that government can DO to communicate? In this episode, we give two specific examples of HOW to communicate based on specific direction and language in the FAR.  For starters, we cover an important and recent update to FAR 1.102-4(a)(4). Words matter…and these words matter a lot.  The language changed from the government having to provide a “fair competitive environm ..read more

One of the best ways to improve acquisition outcomes is for Government and Industry to communicate. Open communication is one of the key concepts we focus on in our podcast, as well as Skyway's consulting, mentoring, and training for both government and industry. In this episode, we cover a lesser known, and maybe less understood, acquisition strategy that improves that communication: namely, the Advisory Down Select process. The Advisory Down Select process allows the government to provide “advisory” feedback to offerors – good or bad – about their likelihood of success on a given acquisition ..read more

The federal acquisition regulation (FAR) is chockablock with “thresholds” – a threshold is the term for a specific numbers (usually dollar a specific dollar amount) that requires specific action. Threshold types include: Review thresholds Approval thresholds Policy thresholds Competition thresholds Contract award thresholds Why does that matter? Because these thresholds represent some of the gates an acquisition team has to navigate in order to award a contract. In other words, navigating the thresholds is one of the key factors in finding the path of least resistance to contract award. Conv ..read more

Sometimes, the government gets a vote on who contractors subcontract to. It’s called “consent to subcontract”.. Part 1 was about the process to get consent (as a contractor) Part 2 is about the process to give consent (as a contracting officer). We explain the government team’s role in granting consent. We detail the elements the contracting officer must consider – and highlight several items that the contracting officer may NOT consent to. GovCon is a two-way street after all… understanding both sides of Consent to Subcontract ensure we more effectively execute this unique feature of GovCon ..read more

Back in Episode 422, Vicky Strycharske and Kevin Jans outlined how Oral Proposals work. They dug into what they are, and why they tend to be a valuable option for acquisition teams…especially when buying services. In this episode, we cover the “rest of the story” on Orals: HOW to do them. We both share our experiences on how to do them well, and what common pitfalls to be aware of.  We specifically cover: How to apply oral proposals effectively from the government side How to deliver effective oral proposals from the industry side. We focus on the ground-level, specific things to do (su ..read more