“What does Agile mean?” Agile means using any of the lean principles that improve the probability of a successful procurement in an environment of high complexity and uncertainty.
Agile uses the principles of Lean Manufacturing, developed and proven by the Toyota Production System, because it is now generally accepted wisdom that lean can be applied to both tangible and intangible products and services to improve delivery time, reduce cost and improve quality simultaneously. While the procurement process does not manufacture items, it does respond very effectively to lean principles. Buying goods and services, at its core, is the effective application of available resources to execute a process. This series of articles show how lean principles make the procurement process more efficient and effective.
Throughout these articles, we will cite many Federal regulations to help the Government personnel who control any decision “go Agile.” For the leaders of the various Departments, Commands, and Agencies, this will provide a vision of how Agile can be accomplished and a look at validated models for guiding and controlling its implementation. For the Contracting Officers and Program Managers, it explains, using highly detailed, specific regulations, and practical examples, how they can legally participate in the information sharing that is critical in order to facilitate Agile approaches that will leverage Contractors’ expertise to deliver better, faster, and more cost-effective solutions for our Government. The citations are the bridge we’ve built because it saves a huge amount of time and negotiating for all parties!
Without clear direction from the regulations, no responsible Government representative will act in a way that risks violating the strict legal standards they must follow, or that cannot be defended using the regulations. Doing so would mean unwisely risking their job or possibly facing civil or criminal legal action.
We hope this series of articles serves the Government contracting community by giving them the intense, deep research needed to intelligently discuss the regulations that open up procurements using Agile approaches. While Agile is not the norm in Government contracting, sending multi-million dollar proposals to a CO over EMAIL was not the norm in the past, yet today, most proposals are submitted electronically. That one change is an example of Agile thinking. It saves a great deal of time and money up front as well as storage and disposal time later. Processes that seemed unusual and even counter-productive just a few years ago are now becoming common- place – or soon will be.