One of the more challenging and frustrating aspects of being a government contracting officer (CO) is the fact that you have to support people, agencies and cultures that may have vastly different perspectives and experiences than you do. I refer specifically to the amount, depth and effect of contracting knowledge and expertise that the contracting professional possesses. I find that the experience of the customer, or requiring activity, tends to the extreme on either end of that scale. Either the customer’s staff possesses no experience whatsoever and need to have their hands held throughout the process, or they have considerable experience, to the point that they believe themselves capable of telling the CO how to do his or her job. Not very often have I witnessed the happy medium, where the customer is sufficiently knowledgeable to handle their own functions but not so comfortable that they attempt to tell me how I should be handling my own.
So that disparity in experience leads to several problems in both arenas. Inexperienced customers must either be shepherded along the acquisition process, from planning to market research to requirements development and so on, or the CO risks having to undo, re-do or hastily amend any number of the products that the customer must prepare. These documents include the Statement of Work or Performance Work Statement, the Independent Government Cost Estimate, and almost any preparatory or initiating products that support Acquisition Planning or Requirements Development.
Conversely, seasoned customers might easily assert a dominance borne of familiarity with the process, but that issue brings its own challenges. First, unless previous COs have explained the whats, whys, and wherefores of EVERY SINGLE STEP to them, chances are that they really only grasp the surface and big picture elements of a function or procedure. Contracting is very hands on, and unless you have personally completed a task, document or process, you cannot claim mastery of that particular step. Moreover, there is the issue of propriety – the fact is, it is NOT their job to be the Contracting Officer or to direct that person’s performance, so simple courtesy dictates that they leave the CO tasks to the CO. No one likes being told how to do their job, especially by an unqualified person that has never ‘walked a mile in those boots.’
In my experience, much of the ‘human factor’ of contracting involved either training/mentoring/cajoling the customer to prepare quality products and documents and maintain a schedule, or on the other hand, gently resisting the less-than-subtle suggestions by a veteran customer about the best way to do my job. Rarely did I enjoy the optimal balance of experience amongst my customers, and even then, it required a few iterations of the acquisition process to really be a factor.
In summary, as contracting professionals, it behooves us to not only master our craft, but we must also develop certain interpersonal, communications, and problem-solving skills to enable our successful performance. Fortunately, these skills manifest themselves not only in our customer support relationships, but also in our team-leading, supervisory, and project-management roles, as we grow in knowledge, responsibilities and managerial functions.
NOTE: If you want to leave a reply to this post, use the comment box below. If you have additional questions/comments on this topic, please post them in the Ask a CO Forum.