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Thanks Dr. Kelman. I am truly honored! Yes, it's another one of those frustrating days. Sitting here with my morning coffee and my RSS feed for FCWs procurement news takes me to a story on "Unbundling" contracts. Wait, "Unbundling" (I had to look it up just to make sure it was a word- sometimes new rules come with new words).
What does this mean for me, your everyday contract specialist? First, my resource-depleted procurement shop will need to create a report on bundling. So I'll need to stop everything I'm doing and see which of my contracts are bundled. We already report bundling in FPDS-NG for each awarded contract, and this information is directly available to the public. So why do I need to report this to the people who represent the public?
Will they actually require me to terminate a contract? I'll need to break up the contract and do multiple mini-competitions (several months of work). And to think, I thought I was being slightly innovative on my original solicitation by requiring prime contractors to submit a subcontracting plan, which would be evaluated and partially determine who got the contract award. Thus, small business already played a huge role in the project. -By the way, this is completely hypothetical. Please don't come get me Congress.
Look, WE GET IT. Small business is incredibly important to us. We don't need new rules. The current system works (and not just in this case). All it takes is a low rating on an agency's small biz scorecard, and the agency will turn ITSELF around.
I don't even have time to address my other frustrations with this article. The phrase[citing reverse auctions, Schedule Contracts, etc], "At the hearing, Velázquez’s committee also raised concerns on how agencies are relying on new approaches to buy goods and services. I urge you to check the stats on small businesses in reverse auctions. The leading reverse auction providers will gladly provide them to you.
NO NEW RULES- PLEASE
Posted by jswhetsell on March 7, 2008 - 06:49 AM
Thank you, both, for your comments. I appreciate the dedication to both of you. Here's my two cents:
After the first 18 years of my career in the commercial communications sector, I find myself on a HUGE government communications project, which is actually part of an even HUGER defense project. Not being a career-long defense contractor, I can see so many ways that the current way the government engages in defense work is "broken". But I have that perspective as an "outsider"... so my opinions are not valued by long timers who "know better". I propose that Mr. Whetsell's predicament is fundamentally the same.
Let me mention a common practice in large corporations: when grooming young employees to be future managers, it is not uncommon to have them, over the course of several years, work in various divisions of the corporation, even if it requires relocation. The benefits are numerous, but basically all along the theme of "if you see different ways things are done, you will better be able to be a seasoned manager and to the 'best' thing for the corporation when you are in a management position."
So, back to the general procurement issue: maybe there needs to be a greater emphasis on promoting folks in the government procurement chain -- Mr. Whetsell's current management chain -- NOT from "inside the fold" (those who have already "drunken the Kool Aid") but from industry, and/or government workers who have actually seen commercial entities work, thrive, and die based on decisions and the degree to which they help the bottom line. I propose you'll see in them a greater understanding of the need to shed senseless rules.
Posted by dharasty on March 7, 2008 - 07:44 AM
Thanks to both of you for writing in. I just hope those who are promoting the current negative trends in the procurement system read this and listen. POGO, this means you.
Readers may want to note that Jason's post logged in at 6:49 am this morning. and he is already focusing on work, reading the morning procurement news feed. (In the Internet age, I don't know whether he's doing this from home or the office, but the point is the same.) Does the fear industry really want to drive people such as Jason out of government service?
Steve Kelman
Posted by jsmeditor on March 7, 2008 - 08:24 AM
While I'm not in the procurement field, I understand the pains Jason faces.
The new generation of public servants value innovation, risk-taking, speed, technology, and transparency. However, those values are rarely seen in the government. This generation doesn't understand why they have to write KSAs through USAJOBS.gov, why Facebook is blocked at work, and why they have no mechanism to suggest new ideas.
Hopefully, we can streamline rules/processes as well as implement new tools (wikis, blogs, social networking) to make the government workplace more appealing.
My question to the professor is: "What percentage of these issues are just due to the nature of government bureaucracy based on its different set of values? Is the slow-paced, risk-adverse nature of government inevitable?"
Posted by sressler on March 7, 2008 - 10:01 AM
I was actually at the hearing yesterday, and it was clear that any opposition to reverse auction made by Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) was made within the context of complex requirements, such as construction contracts. Although both ACE and AGC mentioned that reverse auctions may, indeed, be useful for commodity purchases, no one at the hearing bothered to offer up data from a recent study that shows that reverse auctions not just may be useful, but, in fact, are an incredibly effective method for procuring commodities. Not only do they improve savings, efficiencies and compliance, but also dramatically increase small business participation and success in commodity purchases. The study, by researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School (available online at http://bosun.nps.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi.exe/Fri+Mar+07+08:14:50+2008+/SIRSI/0/520/07Dec_Brown_W_MBA.pdf), shows that when reverse auctions are used appropriately, small businesses receive the vast majority of award dollars – even when those dollars are competed on a non-set-aside basis.
The fact is that many procurement folks in the government are using non-traditional procurement methods and using them very effectively, and small businesses and taxpayers are benefiting. Like Steve, I think it would be nice if these efforts and results could be recognized and appreciated.
Posted by procprof on March 7, 2008 - 10:49 AM
I'm not in procurement, but I'm in an IT security-related area of the government. Talk about rules and bureaucracy doesn't even touch the surface when it comes to IT security.
I came to the government as a Presidential Management Intern (now Fellows). My year/class of PMIs was used in a survey to see how well the PMI program was doing. The news was horrible. Somewhere around 5% of us managed to stay in Federal service for 5 years. All the reasons Jason gives for wanting to leave are the exact reasons sited in the survey results for people leaving after only 2 - 4 years. Shock and dismay!
I don't mean to sound flippant, but having lasted over 6 years now I can completely sympathize with anyone new to Federal service, especially if they are under the age of 40. Recently when I had troubles with a manager and began looking for somewhere else to be, I included outside the government without hesitation. Yes, the benefits are good, but they aren't good enough to outweigh the stress sometimes. And they certainly don't outweigh having to take work home or coming in on a weekend just to be able to actually DO MY JOB because my week was eaten by some new data reporting requirement or additional inventory hoop or having my computer replaced/reconfigured yet again or having to get trained on even more "security features" for my laptop.
Posted by Was_A_PMI on March 10, 2008 - 03:10 PM
I am going to post a comment from the IT side of the house as well. We (the IT government community) lose more good people (not just young people) because of the system of bureaucracy and thinking inside the box of the current government workforce. I just transferred agencies because of some of this same government thinking. The previous IT staff I worked with had to show the IT supervisor how to format a floppy disk (I’m not kidding!). The only reason he got the GS-13 job? Because the HR specialist thought since he had more time-in-grade that he would be the better supervisor, instead of picking the journey-level IT specialist (GS-12) who had been trained by the departing supervisor and was acting supervisor for six months. The HR specialist was just looking at the paper credentials and ignoring the real life experiences (Thinking inside the box). All of the contractors that came in and worked for this supervisor a while stated that they would never work under him as a government employee. With stuff like this going on, no wonder good IT people leave in such a hurry. They come in and get experience and then leave for the private sector for more lucrative paychecks and less bureaucratic hassles. One of the benefits of transferring government agencies was that I was able to bring my creativity and innovation and was able to “think outside of the box”. I got a lot done and inspired some new ideas, but the problem is that too often this creativity is not rewarded and therefore not encouraged. When you couple new government employees with bad management and bad bureaucratic processes you get either a quickly exiting good employee or you get a dud of one that has reached the pinnacle of the peter principle and will plod along and collect their check.
Posted by KD ISO on March 11, 2008 - 02:27 PM
In your writing about the issues of “can we keep the kids?, you have hit the nail on the head and I hope we can keep Jason and others like him. The issues you describe and frustrations Jason expresses are so real and can be fixed I am convinced.
My background is in performance improvement and over my 23 years in government service, my observation has been that we have so many employees and leaders in key positions who interpret government rules and regs in narrowly focused and unduly strict ways that often prevent work from being done and inhibits progress toward our mission. Many employees and leaders are very comfortable in doing work in old, inefficient and ineffective ways and there is little interest in change. The “bean counters” reign, while we are continually told what we can’t do, instead of receiving assistance and support to think of ways to do productive work.
I have often said and I learned in graduate school that Congress passed laws and departments and agencies have written rules and regs to support the work and missions of government, not to hinder them. Part of the answer lies in convincing leaders in key positions that bureaucracy does not have to exist. Efficient and effective processes can be designed and work very well in government systems – they just need to be used and supported by leaders and staff.
Jason is not the only one who wants to leave and I hope we can keep him. We have over the years lost many capable, intelligent, enterprising, hardworking employees. I have myself left several positions in gov’t service when it was evident that my supervisors and leaders accepted the bureaucracy and the dysfunctional status quo. I am so fortunate now to work in a position with supervisors and leaders who are trying to make positive change. They are an inspiration and that encourages me to forge forward too (as frustrating as it is at times).
Sheila M. Warren MPH, RN, CPHQ
Posted by jsmeditor on March 14, 2008 - 02:13 PM
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